Red Bean Cake

While eating a green tea swiss roll filled with red bean cream, I had a wonderful idea to make an entire cake covered with it.  Needless to say, the beautiful pink and white brings the oohs and aahs.  Food made with red beans have always been a favorite snack for the Chinese and Japanese, so a red bean cake will definitely be popular with Asians, though I'm not sure if Caucasians will like it.

For the cake itself, I simply used a white cake mix, but you can use a yellow or chocolate cake mix as well.  I baked mine in a 9 inch round cake pan and sliced it in half.  The star is really the red bean filling.

Red Bean Cream Recipe:
One 14 or 16oz can of whole red beans, also called azuki beans
(These are already cooked and usually very sweet, so no additional sugar needs to be added.  Note that some are pureed but these are whole red beans.  Available from Asian stores - I bought mine from a Korean store.)
3 cups of heavy cream

Directions:
Whip the heavy cream till stiff, fold in red beans.

That's it!  A delicious red bean cream is ready for frosting and filling your cake.