Dumbo Chiffon Cake (Charcoal-colored)

This is a flying dumbo I made last year near Christmas. I wanted it to have a magical dreamy feel. Do you see it flying out from the cake? :p

The elephant is naturally colored with charcoal powder. The face is made from baking charcoal chiffon cake (just a small dip of charcoal for the grey, add to shade) in a small 11 mm Iwaki bowl (reduce baking time to 30 min), and then slightly carving the sides to get the indent. Pour the excess batter into a paper cone for the elephant nose and into a thick 6-inch baking paper-lined tray for cutting out the elephant stumps. The hat is made similarly by baking an orange chiffon cake in a cone and tray; the ears cut out from layer strawberry chiffon cake. You can also just use recipe for plain vanilla chiffon cake and add wilton colours to obtain the shades if you prefer (just my preference to get as much shade from natural food sources first). The base cake is a reduced egg white vanilla chiffon cake to get a whiter base. Thank God my friend's kid loved it! Weee..

With love,
Susanne