• Common Product Name: Wasanbon Gosanyaki Castella, No. 1 (和三盆糖 五三焼カステラ 1号)
• Net Weight: 450g (15.9 oz)
• Servings: Pre-cut into 12 slices — enough for a small gathering, or six quiet afternoons for two.
• Ingredients: Eggs (Shimabara Peninsula, Nagasaki), sugar, wheat flour, rice syrup, wasanbon sugar, zarame sugar
• Allergens & Properties: Contains egg and wheat. No colouring.
• Shelf Life: 40 days from production, at room temperature
• Storage: Cool, dark place away from direct sunlight and heat.
• Producer Name: Suzakiya (須崎屋), Nagasaki. (Packaging is in Japanese.)
• Producer Location: Nagasaki, Japan

In 1867 a shipping merchant named Yasujiro Ito was carrying cargo across the bay between Nagasaki and Shimabara. Castella was a Nagasaki luxury then, and it largely stayed in Nagasaki. He wanted the people of his own town to be able to eat it.

So he went to Nagasaki, learned to bake, and used his own cargo ships to carry the sugar and flour home. The house is named for that beginning — Suzaki, the port he sailed from, and the Suzaki-maru, the ship he sailed.

The third generation, Mankichi, returned to Nagasaki to learn gosanyaki: the grade of castella made with a far higher proportion of egg yolk, difficult and unforgiving. It has passed down since — Shuji, Daiji, and now Tsuyoshi, the sixth. The recipe used in the bakehouse today is the one the fifth generation arrived at after fifty years at the ovens.

The batter is still worked by hand with a wooden paddle, in a fixed order and a fixed number of turns — folding, mixing, breaking the foam, finishing — until the density is right. There is no way to hurry it.

Dense and moist rather than airy, with the yellow richness of custard rather than sponge. The wasanbon gives a sweetness that arrives late and leaves cleanly — delicate rather than blunt or sugary. Along the bottom you will find a layer of undissolved zarame crystals that crunch faintly; in Nagasaki this is the mark of a castella made properly, not a flaw.

Eat it at room temperature — cold dulls the egg. It wants something bitter beside it: hojicha, a thin matcha, or black coffee. A slice warmed for a few seconds in a dry pan changes it completely, the sugar at the base turning to a thin caramel. In Nagasaki it is also served with a little butter, which sounds wrong and is not.

Two boxes travel in the same weight band as one, so a second adds very little to the shipping — worth knowing if one of them is a gift.