Japanese Christmas Cake

Along with their KFC meal on Christmas Eve in Japan, people also have a Christmas cake or kurisumasu keki. It is basically a sponge cake (angel cake) with whipped cream for frosting and strawberries.

I searched for recipes for sponge cake and they all looked like more work than I was willing to do. So I went to my man the Pillsbury guy and found an angel food cake mix. (Actually many brands of cake mixes have a sponge or angel food mix.) So here is the "recipe".

Japanese Christmas Cake

Angel Food Cake Mix
Make according to directions on package. Bake in two round cake pans and set aside to cool

Frosting:

2 cup heavy whipping cream
4 TB of sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
About 20 strawberries

Use a large cold bowl and make sure your whipping cream is cold. With a hand whip or mixer, whip the cream, sugar and vanilla together until soft peaks form. Put half of whipped cream in another bowl and add about 10 thinly sliced strawberries to one bowl.

Spread frosting with strawberries on one layer of cake and set second layer on top. Use the rest of the frosting to cover the top and sides of cake. Decorate top of cake with whole strawberries.

If this all sounds good but you don't want to do the work, seek out a Chinese/Asian bakery and they will usually have a cake for purchase.