Japanese Honey Toast Recipe: Recreate Shibuya Toast Box

Honey toast or Shibuya toast box is a delicious yet surprisingly easy dessert. The sweet treat has become a popular option in dessert cafes all over Asia, including in Singapore, Taiwan, and Malaysia. 

At Honest Food Talks, we’re always looking for easy ways to recreate our favourite dishes from Asia. So here's our quick honey toast recipe to bring a yummy piece of Shibuya, Japan, straight to the comforts of your own home.

Jump to:

• What Is It? 
• Japanese Honey Toast Ingredients
• Japanese Honey Toast Recipe | Shibuya Toast Box
• Cooking Tips 
• How To Assemble Shibuya Honey Toast At Home
• Popular Toppings 
• Is Honey Toast Healthy? 
• Shibuya Vs Korean Honey Toast? 

What Is It? 

The dessert is hollowed-out bread filled with cubes and toppings like cut fruits and cream. The sides of the loaf are then coated with sweet golden hachimitsu (蜂蜜, as the Japanese call it), giving it its name—Honey Toast Box. 

This dessert originated from Shibuya, Japan, and was often known for being served in karaoke bars. It has since gained popularity all over Asia, with some countries adding their flair to the Japanese version. It is usually served after meals as a dessert, but you can also have it for breakfast. This sweet treat has multiple other names, though. It is sometimes referred to as Shibuya, Shokudo, Harajuku honey toast, or simply Japanese Brick toast.

Japanese Honey Toast Ingredients

For our honey toast recipe, you'll need the following ingredients.

• ½ loaf of white bread or 3-4 slices of white bread
• Melted unsalted butter
• Honey
• Vanilla ice cream
• Whipped cream

For the toppings

• strawberries, sliced
• banana, sliced

What Type Of Bread To Use? 

The secret to making the perfect Shokudo honey toast is using the correct bread. A regular white loaf won't give you the same dreamy experience, so make sure to get a loaf of Shokupan. 

Shokupan is a sweet, super fluffy, and moist Japanese milk bread. Its texture is so soft and feather-like that it almost feels like it is melting in your mouth. 

If you can't get Shokupan, you can try using the French Pain de Mie instead. Be sure not to confuse this with Brioche. While Brioche has a soft and chewy texture, it will not hold up like Pain de Mie once you've added your toppings.

You can use regular thick white bread or sliced white bread in a pinch. For convenience, you can also use sliced white bread. We use about three slices of bread. We use one slice as a base and leave this uncut. Then, we use another two slices as the box walls. We cut out the middle part, leaving about 1 cm of bread close to the crusts. These won't be as fluffy and sweet, but you'll have a similar taste.

Cooking Tips 

Here are some useful tips for making the perfect Harajuku honey toast box at home.

You'll need to cut a square chunk from the end of the loaf. When hollowing out the middle, make sure to leave about 1 cm of space from the edges. Try to cut the bread cubes into uniform, bite-sized pieces. The same goes for bread slices; you want to cut them into squares of almost the same size.

You can toast bread in an oven or an air fryer. For the oven, we recommend 180°C (355°F) for about 8 minutes. The bread will be golden yellow in colour and crunchy but not hard. Some unexposed parts of the bread will still be soft. 

If you prefer something browner and with a bit of a bite, bake it for an additional 2 minutes at a higher temperature of 190°C (375°C).

If you're using an air fryer, bake at 160°C (320°F) for about 8 minutes to make it golden yellow. If you prefer a bit more browning, bake an additional 2 minutes at 180°C (355°F).

Make sure to use unsalted butter that has already been melted or softened for our recipe. 

How To Assemble Shibuya Honey Toast At Home

Don't be fooled by the extravagant decoration of the Shibuya Toast Box. It is quite simple and easy to make at home. All you need to master are these assembly tricks. 

You want to spread the fruits and cubed toast inside the box sporadically. You can use a spoon to fill bigger gaps with the fruit. Don't worry about it looking messy; this is part of making your Shibuya honey toast indulgent.

When you're close to filling the entire box, you want to start leaving a small dent in the toppings for your ice cream to sit in. You can make the dent by gently pushing down the toppings using a spoon.

Once you've added your ice cream, you can add more toppings around it or drizzle more honey over the top. We also like to add bits of whipped cream at the end. 

Whipped cream and vanilla ice cream are the best toppings for honey toast, but you can use your creativity for any combos you like.

Popular Toppings 

The combination of honey and bread is not very common, which begs the question – is honey on toast any good? The answer is a resounding yes. The blend of sweet and salty from the honey and butter on the toasted loaf adds a nice base to build on with other toppings. 

Japanese cuisine is all about paying attention to food decoration. Hence, the toppings are usually stacked in the middle of the toast box, paying attention to the colour and arrangement to enhance its aesthetic appeal. 

Restaurants usually serve Shibuya toast boxes with Oreos, strawberries, bananas, ice cream and whipped cream. If you're feeling like you want to increase the decadence, you can add on jam or chocolate and even caramel sauce.

We've made our own Apple crumble honey toast, adding sauteed apples and crushed digestive biscuits as the topping.

Is Honey Toast Healthy? 

A regular serving of this sweet treat is usually shared between two to three people. One serving may have a calorie count of up to 1,400 kcal.

However, as long as you share the meal and don't go overboard with various sinful toppings, this dessert may be considered healthy. 

A great way to work around this is to load up on the healthier version of toppings such as nuts and cut fruit. Not only do these add a delicious combination to the core ingredients, but they also serve a nutritional purpose. 

Shibuya Vs Korean Honey Toast? 

The Korean version has a lot of similarities to the Japanese original. However, there are some differences, such as the decoration and aesthetic elements, that set it apart. The following are characteristics of the Korean counterpart:

• The bread used is unsliced sandwich bread, which is then sliced at only 2 and a half inches thick. 
• The slices are then also cut in the middle with 2 horizontal lines and 2 vertical lines without cutting to the edge. 
• Honey and butter are spread onto the slices before toasting.
• The toppings used are usually cinnamon, whipped cream and chocolate sauce.

Looking for another bite-sized Japanese dessert? Check out our recipe for making Matcha tempura ice cream at home.

Still too heavy? Then, let us recommend a very low-calorie Japanese dessert cake: Mizu Shingen Mochi.