Sponge cake is a light cake that gets its rise mainly from beaten eggs rather than baking powder, giving it a soft, airy crumb. Steamed versions, popular in Japan and across Asia, are cooked with steam instead of dry oven heat, which keeps them especially moist. On SeekSnack this is a subcategory of cakes.
The example here is the Yubari Melon Steam Cake, a soft sponge filled with a cream made with melon from Yubari in Hokkaido, a town famous for its premium melons. Cakes like this are typical omiyage, the regional sweets that Japanese travellers bring home as gifts, so they often come in neat individual wrappers inside a gift box.
Sponge cakes are made with egg and wheat flour, and cream fillings usually add milk.
