Two Minions Orange Chiffon Cakes

This was made for my good friend's son and his best friend after the super cute Minions from the hit movie! They look so happy together, just like the two adorable boys! 

The two chiffon cakes are orange flavored and the blue layer is baked into the cake just like in the pastel rainbow cake. The black goggles band is made of charcoal chiffon cake wrapped swissroll-style around the cake. I baked a vanilla chiffon cake and portioned the batter into plain (for eyes), grey (less charcoal, for goggles), and black (more charcoal, for band) and cut them out using round cutters. I piped in the eyes but they didn't come out nicely so I ended up drawing them on with charcoal paste :p.

I thank my friend for giving me the liberty to have a different design for Fred. Can you tell what his hair is made of? Yes, our favorite Pocky! :p

And for Albert, he had a round head with hair made of toothpicks dipped in black meringue! It's made of another orange chiffon cake in a round glass bowl :).

Recipe for orange "minion" chiffon cake is below:

3 egg yolks
20g sugar
39g vegetable oil
41ml orange juice
60g cake flour

Orange zest (from 1/2 orange - I reduced it so that they will not be so much "bits" in the exterior)

Orange paste/yellow gel food coloring

Blue gel food coloring

4 egg whites
45g sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1. Preheat oven to 160°C.
2. Beat egg yolks with sugar with whisk till pale yellow before stirring in oil and orange juice.
3. Next add in sieved flour and orange zest and whisk till no trace of flour found.
4. Scoop over 10 tsp into another bowl and add blue gel food coloring. To the remaining batter, add orange paste (and yellow gel food coloring) to desired colour.
5. Meringue: Beat the egg whites with ¼ tsp cream of tartar till stiff peak, mixing in caster sugar in 2 additions.
6. Scoop over 20 tbsp meringue for blue batter. Gently fold in.

7. Fill the chiffon tin with the yellow batter till 2/3 of the tin, then scoop over blue batter at the top.

8. Gently tap the chiffon tin on the counter top to release air bubbles.

9. Bake the chiffon cake at 15 min at 160°C and then 20 min at 150°C and then 12 min at 140°C.
10. Invert the chiffon cake once removed from oven.
11. Unmould the chiffon cake by hand. Gently pull the cake from the sides of the tin at each angle and push the removable base up to unmould the sides. To unmould the cake from the base, gently lift up the cake from the base using hands, repeating this at each angle before turning the base over. (Watch The Baking Biatch for an excellent video tutorial on hand unmoulding chiffon cakes).

Thank God the cakes were well-received! My friend shared that the kids were thrilled and they taste very good too - light with a tangy refreshing taste! This is really the baker's greatest joy! :)

Happy belated birthday to Fred and Albert!!

With lots of love,

Susanne