I feel like a lot of countries have their version of a Christmas cake. The Germans have baumkuchen, the French have bouche de noel. In Japan(and by a larger extension, a lot of east Asian countries), Christmas cake takes the form of a vanilla cake with vanilla cream and strawberries. The red and white color contrast is not only a nod to Christmas colors, but it also resembles the Japanese flag as well! I have been meaning to make a Christmas cake since 2022, but I never got around to making one. So even though it is 2024, and by the time this is posted, probably not Christmas, I still wanted to share the recipe I made, since it can still sort of double as a Valentine’s Day recipe, with berries and cream being a classic romantic combination. So yes, we are celebrating Christmas in February! Or better yet, just bookmark this recipe for 10 months, and you can bake it in December. For the components on my Christmas cake, I went with an angel food cake made with a ton of whipped egg whites, a whipped white chocolate ganache, fresh strawberries, a Yakult soak, white chocolate “snow” using tapioca maltodextrin, and isomalt snowflakes. I would be lying if I said that this cake was an easy recipe to make, but I will try to detail each step so that it is not as overwhelming for the kind of cake it is, and what components are truly “skippable”, just so that you can still make a less out-there variation on this recipe at home yourself!

For starters, this recipe is 100x harder without a stand mixer with a whisk attachment. Since we are making an angel food cake, that requires a lot of whipped egg whites for the leavening agent in the sponge. Now the sponge may be a little dry and tough, and that is fine, since we are soaking it with Yakult, which softens and moistens the cake so that the layers are just super silky and almost melt-in-the-mouth in texture! The whipped white chocolate ganache is a hybrid between a ganache buttercream and a white chocolate mousse, almost tasting like ice cream. It does take some time to bring together, but outside of that, it is not super difficult to make either! While sometimes, you may run into the risk of a whipped ganache splitting, we are using cornstarch as both a thickening and binding agent in ours to avoid that problem! For the other components, these are where things can get a little more technical. The “snow” is made with tapioca maltodextrin powder and white chocolate. What tapioca maltodextrin does is it combines with fat, in this case the cocoa butter in white chocolate, and forms a solid powder. That solid powder, because it is made with white chocolate specifically, looks like snow. The technique itself is not terribly difficult, so long as you melt the white chocolate, but the harder part might be procuring it. Amazon is your best bet, but again, if you do not want to bother with that, just use powdered sugar. It may make your cake a little sweeter than mine was, but it will at least get the aesthetic across! For the other challenging component, we have the isomalt snow flakes.

So let me first preface this by saying if you do not have the Pavoni silicone snowflake tuile molds and a spice grinder, just skip the snowflake component in this recipe. You need both to do this. Now if you are a crazy person and either own/purchased those things to make this step. I will need to be very thorough here, because I actually struggled with this portion myself. Firstly, you need to blend the isomalt into a fine powder. That’s where the spice grinder is necessary. You can technically use a Vitamix or a powerful food processor as well, but a spice grinder just works with smaller quantities. Then you need to be VERY generous with the isomalt when sifting it into the tuile molds. I say this because as the isomalt bakes in the oven, which is how we are melting it into snowflakes(ironic and paradoxical, I know), it shrinks and contracts. Meaning that even if you caked a bunch of isomalt into your tuile molds, chances are, you won’t get perfect snowflakes right away. So what I ended up doing was after I baked the isomalt, and had a bunch of half-filled snowflakes, I went back and caked on even more isomalt in each already-filled mold, and rebaked that! It was an effective workaround and I ended up with those really pretty isomalt snowflakes that adorned my Christmas cake!

For the angel food cake:
6 egg whites
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cups + 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
2 tbsp cornstarch
a pinch of salt
2.7oz Yakult

In a bowl, whip the egg whites with sugar to stiff peaks. Sift into that the flour, cornstarch, and salt, and pour in the Yakult. Mix everything into a batter. Pour the batter into a lined quarter sheet tray and bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes. Allow the cake to fully cool before cutting out 2 7-inch squares and forming a third using the scraps.

For the isomalt snowflakes:
2oz isomalt, blended into a fine powder

Using Pavoni silicone snowflake molds, gently sift the isomalt into each mold, leaving any excess on top. Bake at 350 degrees F for 10 minutes. If the snowflakes have holes or are not forming into whole pieces, re-dust each cavity with more isomalt, and re-bake for another 10 minutes at 350 degrees F. Allow the snowflakes to fully cool before gently removing each from the molds. Store in an airtight container.

For the whipped white chocolate ganache:
1/2 cup whole milk
2 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 stick unsalted butter
a pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

In a pot, whisk together the milk and cornstarch until all of the lumps are out. Then add to that the cream, white chocolate, butter, and salt. Stir everything on medium-low heat until the white chocolate and butter are melted in, and then bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat. While the mixture is boiling, rigorously whisk everything for 2-3 minutes, until the ganache thickens and begins to cling to the sides of your whisk. Transfer the ganache to a heatproof surface and refrigerate for 20 minutes. Transfer to a mixing bowl and begin whipping until it forms a light, spreadable mixture.

For the white chocolate snow:
2oz white chocolate
1oz tapioca maltodextrin
a pinch of salt

Melt the white chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a double boiler. Mix into that the other ingredients to form your snow.

For assembly:
Roughly 15-20 strawberries
2 2.7oz bottles of Yakult

Cut the leaves off and halve 12 strawberries lengthwise. Line an 8-inch square mold with cooking spray. Lay down the scrappy layer of cake first, then brush on the contents of about 2/3 of one of your Yakult bottles to that sponge. Spread on 1/6 of the ganache and layer in the strawberries, propping them the side where the leaves were cut off facing the sides of the spring mold. Add in another 1/6 of the ganache. Repeat these steps with another round of cake, Yakult, ganache, and berries. For the last layer, start with the last layer of cake, and the remaining Yakult. Spread another 1/6 of the ganache on top, and then transfer the cake to the freezer for 2-3 hours. Unmold the cake and start by garnishing the top with a dusting of the white chocolate snow. Then transfer the remaining ganache, rewhipping it if it is not spreadable, to a piping bag. Half the remaining strawberries widthwise. Garnish the top of the cake with pipings of ganache, the strawberries, the snowflakes, and another dusting of white chocolate snow to finish.