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What is Ogura? Honesty, I don’t know and I had to google it myself. What I found in wiki is not even related to this cake. It says it is a Japanese name which means “small storehouse”. That’s all I know , it doesn’t make sense, but it really doesn’t matter to me.

I had always been fascinated and drawn to light, fluffy and super smooth texture of this cake, just like Sponge Cake or Chiffon Cake. Not only that they are beautiful, they are very simple and yet elegant looking. They don’t require any additional frosting and they are great to enjoy as is. Who would want to cover such a beautiful cake like this? But of course, this will also be great with whipped cream frosting. Either way, they are both good.

This is my first time to make Ogura cake, and I am happy to say that I was pleased with the result. It does use a different baking technique, which is good because it is a nice thing to learn something new from time to time. Let me show you how this is different from other cake. Let’s get started!

This cake is so smooth, moist and light. So far, this is the best cake texture I had made in all my cake baking. It’s unbelievable! I love sponge and chiffon cake, but this cake both surpass these two type of cakes in the area of moisture. Ogura Cake are more moist and smooth. You can tell by looking at it how smooth it is, but you can only taste how good it is if you make it. So, have this in your next to do list for your baking activity. It’s worth it, trust me!

Ingredients:

• 4 egg yolks (Large about 65g or 4 medium) – separated and in room temperature
• 50g  cake flour, sifted (1/3 cup)
• 3 egg whites from 3 large eggs
• 1 egg white from 1 large egg
  • Important Note:  When you separate the egg yolk, set aside the egg whites from 3 large egg into a bowl. Then into another cup, put the egg white from 1 egg. This is what you will use in step 4.
• 50 g full cream milk (1/4 cup). I use whipping cream. Do not substitute this for non-dairy milk like Almond or Soy Milk. You need fat in this cake to make it creamy and smooth.
  
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 20g vegetable oil or any flavorless oil  (2 tbsp)
• 20g butter (2 tbsp)
• pinch of salt (omit if using salted butter)
• 75g castor sugar (6 tbsp) – You can make your own castor sugar by processing granulated white sugar in a food processor. The texture should be super fine.
• 1/8 tsp cream of tartar

Note: For best result, use a scale to measure the ingredients. I tried to convert it to as close as possible, but if you have a scale anyway as it is still the best way to measure the ingredients for this type of cake.

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Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Measure and prep ingredients as detailed above. Line bottom of  6-inches round cake pan with 2 layers of parchment paper. No need to grease the side of the pan.
2. Melt butter and oil over medium-low heat, stirring with whisk, till just bubbling thoroughly. Turn off heat. (If your stove is electric, remove pan from stove.)
3. Sift cake flour to butter. Stir till smooth. Transfer into mixing bowl with scraper. Add milk. Mix vigorously with whisk till just combined.
4. Feel sides of bowl, which should be very hot. Wait till edge of heat eases, about 30 seconds. Add vanilla extract, salt and 2 tbsp egg (egg white from 1 egg) white and 2tbsp sugar. Whisk till combined.
5. Add egg yolks in 3 batches. Whisk till combined after each addition.
6. Whisk remaining egg whites on medium-low speed till frothy. Add cream of tartar. Whisk till thick foam forms. Gradually add castor sugar, still whisking. Continue to whisk till soft peak stage. Reduce speed to low. Whisk till firm peak stage (i.e. peak is hooked).
7. Yolk mixture is now slightly bubbly. Stir with whisk to remove bubbles. Add whisked egg whites in 3 addition. Mix with whisk till almost even after each addition. Scrape down and fold with spatula till just even, banging mixing bowl against counter 2-3 times to release bubbles.
8. Pour into prepared 6-inch round pan, shake the pan from side to side to even out the top.
9. Bake in a water bath at 350F between 50 minutes to 1 hour and 10 minutes or until cooked. To bake in water bath, get a deep pan, pour water into it (about 2-inch line of the pan), then place the cake pan. If you are using a spring form pan like mine, use a rack then put the cake pan on the rack or cover the outside of the cake pan with foil, this way you will not need a rack and you can put the cake directly in the pan without the water penetrating the cake pan. This should also make the baking process faster.
10. Remove cake from oven. Leave on wire rack to cool.
11. Peel the parchment paper at the bottom of the cake and check if the center of the cake is no longer moist. If it is still moist and wet, invert the cake where the moist part (bottom) facing up. Bake until the center is no longer moist (around 10-15 minutes).

Note: I started at 50 minutes as suggested by the recipe, turned out that it is not enough, probably because I used a wire rack and did not directlt put the cake pan into the deep pan. I adjusted it and ended up to 1 hour and 10 minutes for my oven. This is after I returned it back into the oven for 20 minutes more (not water bath). Next time, I’ll do full 1 hour and 10 minutes in water bath without the wirerack and I will update this post.

Good to Know:

• No need to grease the side of the pan. Once baked, the cake will pull away from the side of the pan easily. I only greased the bottom of the pan to hold the parchment paper steady.
• The color of the cake depends on the color of the egg yolk. Mine has a dark yellow yolk, so the cake turned out to have a nice dark yellow color.

Serves 6

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Try it and let me know how it goes. Feel free to share this recipe and let’s get the community baking!♥

I used this Ogura Cake for my Strawberry Creme Cake and it turned out amazing. Check it out! If you want a marble version, check my Small Batch Mable Ogura Cake. As a preview, this is how it looks like.

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