Gudetama Pink Lemonade Chiffon Cake

I made this adorable cake for my dear church friend. Thankful the cake was well-loved!

The pink lemonade flavor was chosen by her. Pink lemonade is typically made from 2 parts lemon juice and 1 part pink strawberry or cherry juice. In addition, I made the ombre layers with varying amounts of lemon and strawberry flavor! 

To make the chiffon cake healthier, I tried a new product from Prima, Superfine wholegrain flour. It's made from wholegrain but superfine so it can be used for chiffon cakes, I substituted a portion of the cake flour with superfine wholegrain flour as well as top flour that is super light!

Pink Lemonade Ombre Chiffon Cake (9-inch chiffon tube pan)
8 egg yolks
53g castor sugar
105 g vegetable/corn oil
70 g lemon juice
45 g strawberry juice
122g Prima cake flour + 25 g top flour + 13 g superfine wholegrain flour (or 160g cake flour)

11 egg whites
120g castor sugar
¼ tsp cream of tartar


1. Whisk egg yolks with sugar until light, fluffy and well-mixed.

2. Add in oil and mix well. Then add in lemon and strawberry juice and whisk till well-combined.

3 Whisk in sifted cake flour, top flour and superfine wholegrain flour and mix till well-combined. *you can also use 160g cake flour if you prefer.

4. Divide the egg yolk batter into five. Add add varying amounts of lemon paste/emulco and strawberry paste/emulco to get the ombre shades. (1) few drops lemon paste, (2) leave plain, (3)-(5) increasing amounts of strawberry paste.

5. Prepare meringue:

a. In a grease-free, dry metal bowl, using electric mixer, whisk egg whites with cream of tartar till frothy.

b. Add in ½ castor sugar for meringue and whisk at high speed till soft peaks form.

c. Add in rest of the castor sugar for meringue and whisk till firm peaks form, or just the point of stiff peak. Firm peaks give finer, softer texture.

4. Divide the meringue into five. Gently fold in meringue gently into respective egg yolk batters 1/3 at a time.

5. Gently scoop the yellow batter into an ungreased 9-inch chiffon tube pan, followed by the plain batter layer by layer till the darkest pink batter on top. Be careful not to disturb the layer below. Gently tap on counter top to remove air bubbles.

6. Bake at 160°C for 15 min, 150oC for 10 min, then 140°C for 20 min and 130oC for 15min, or until skewer inserted into centre of cake comes out clean.

7. Invert pan to cool on a wire rack completely.

8. Unmould the chiffon cake by hand (see video tutorial ‘Hand unmoulding Chiffon cakes for a clean finishing’).


The Gudetama was made by baking the chiffon cake in an egg shell! I made a blanket from sheet cake. I hide a surprise in the cake and covered it with the Gudetama on an egg =).

It was a joy to make the cake! Hope you like this cute creation too!

With lots of love,

Susanne

Links to:

Creative Baking: Chiffon Cakes

Deco Chiffon Cakes (preorders)

Elephant Macarons with Salted Egg Custard and Earl Grey Filling

I have a request for some elephant macarons. Here they are :)

I had a brainwave to fill half of them with runny salted egg custard because someone who tried my recipe for salted egg yolk swiss meringue buttercream left a comment in my salted egg yolk macaron crab post that the salted egg yolk flavour was not strong enough. You could always add more salted egg yolks to the buttercream to enhance the flavour but I was feeling adventurous. While this idea sounds exciting, I wondered how to achieve a runny consistency that stays runny when refrigerated. Read on and I share my secret with you ;). The salted egg flavoured macarons are filled with salted egg yolk swiss meringue buttercream and runny salted egg yolk custard. The other half of the macarons were filled with whipped Earl grey white chocolate ganache.

I decided to use the reduced sugar recipe that is explained in detail in another post.

Reduced sugar macaron shell recipe
Ingredients (makes about 45-50 macarons, 90-100 shells):
Mass
210g superfine almond meal
196g icing sugar
11g rice flour
4g cornflour
1/8 tsp salt
Pinch of charcoal powder
Yellow and blue gel food colouring*
83g egg whites

Italian meringue
78g egg whites
196g castor sugar
73g water
1/8 tsp cream of tartar (optional)

* You may use natural yellow powder food colouring and dried blue pea flowers to reduce the need for gel colouring. My Creative Baking: Macarons book has more details on the use of these two natural food colourings. The book also has the elephant template that I use here.

Steps:
1. Prepare elephant template and baking sheet on baking tray.

2. Prepare mass. Sift almond, icing sugar, rice flour, cornflour and salt together. Add egg whites and mix well to form a thick paste. Divide into three equal portions. Colour each portion accordingly with charcoal and gel colouring.

3. Prepare Italian meringue. Heat caster sugar and water in a small saucepan until 115°C without stirring. In the mean time, beat egg whites with cream of tartar until soft peaks at medium low speed. Reduce speed if temperature of syrup is not reached yet. When syrup is ready, remove from heat, turn mixer speed to high and slowly pour syrup into egg whites in a thin stream, avoiding the beaters. Continue beating at high speed for 10-15 minutes or until cool, stiff and glossy. Portion about 1 tbs of meringue to stick baking sheet to baking tray. Divide the rest of the meringue into three equal portions.

4. Macaronage. Fold meringue into masses in two additions. First addition is about a third. Please refer to this post for video tutorials of macaron basics such as how to fold the batter. You may refer to my macaron book too. The batter is ready when it falls off the spatula in a slow moving lava-like manner.

5. Transfer batter into piping bag fitted with 6-7mm round piping tip. Pipe the body of the elephant. Switch to 4-5 mm piping tip to pipe trunk and legs. Use toothpick to pull batter in place. Bang tray in table to remove trapped air bubbles.

6. Dry the shells in aircon room and/or under a fan for about 2-3 hours (reduced sugar recipe tends to take longer to dry) or until dry to touch. You may use the regular macaron shell recipe without sugar reduction of you don't wish to wait for too long.

Piping the elephants!

7. Bake in preheated oven at 140°C for 10 minutes at lowest or second lowest rack. Rotate the tray and bake at 130°C for 8 minutes. If the feet appear wet, reduce temperature to 120°C for another 5 minutes and check again. Cool completely before removing from tray.

Freshly baked !

Decorate the shells with royal icing and edible black marker

All decorated!

Dry the icing thoroughly in the oven with the fan on but with the heater on briefly for several seconds. I used the wet-on-wet icing technique to create the polka dots on the elephants' ears.

Creating macarons with runny centers require the runny filling to be encased in another firmer filling that will not turn the shells soggy. Therefore you need an outer layer of buttercream to contain the runny salted egg yolk custard. Other examples of this would be salted caramel swiss meringue buttercream encasing runny salted caramel, and lemon swiss meringue buttercream encasing runny lemon curd.


Salted egg yolk Swiss Meringue Buttercream 
Ingredients:
250g vanilla smbc**
6 salted egg yolks
2 tbs (30g) milk

** Please refer to this post for reduced sugar vanilla swiss meringue buttercream (smbc) recipe.

Steps:
1. Separate the salted egg yolks from whites. Steam the yolks for 9 minutes and mash with a fork while hot. Add 30g of milk to form a paste. Sieve the paste through a fine sieve to remove big lumps.

2. Add mashed salted egg yolks in a few batches to vanilla smbc. Mix well with a whisk or electric mixer. If using frozen smbc, let the smbc come to room temperature, whip it up before adding the salted egg yolks. You may store the smbc in the fridge or freezer in ziplock bag if not using immediately. Thaw and rewhip before using.

Vanilla swiss meringue buttercream and salted egg yolk puree with milk

Salted egg yolk lava custard
This version of salted egg lava custard when eaten on it's own may taste like something is missing as there's no sugar and butter added. I made it without added sugar as it is paired with sweet macaron shells and salted egg yolk swiss meringue buttercream that is already slightly sweet and salty at the same time. Addition of butter to the custard causes it to cease to be runny or separate in my two failed experiments as it is harder to control the consistency with another variable ingredient included in the custard. Since there is already lots of butter in the buttercream encasing the custard, you will not miss the richness of butter in the entire filling. The overall effect of my version of salted egg yolk filling is a macaron that has a stronger salted egg yolk flavour without being too sweet.

Ingredients:
56g + 20g full fat milk at room temperature or slightly warm. Not chilled.
9g instant custard powder*
2 salted egg yolks
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

* Instant custard powder is different from regular custard powder as it does not require cooking. A custard/pastry cream can be made simply by combining instant custard powder with milk or water and whisk until well combined and thickened. The consistency of the custard can be easily adjusted because only milk and custard powder is required to make the custard :). Many thanks to Shirley, a home econs teacher who told me about instant custard powder! You may use more instant custard powder if you want a firmer custard filling. You may make your own runny custard from scratch using less processed ingredients if that's your preference. I love the convenience of instant custard when I had to experiment with creating a custard that is runny when refrigerated.

Steps:
1. Separate the salted egg yolks from whites. Steam the yolks for 9 minutes and mash with a fork while hot. Add 20g of milk to form a paste. Sieve the paste through a fine sieve to remove big lumps.

2. Dissolve sea salt in 56g of milk. Add instant custard powder and stir for a couple of minutes until powder has dissolved and the mixture has thickened a little and appears smooth. Add vanilla extract and mix well.

3. Add salted egg yolk puree in 2-3 batches to the custard and mix well until well combined.

4. Place a cling wrap over the surface of the custard if not using immediately and store in refrigerator.

Assembly
Be careful how you pipe as you need to create an impermeable layer encasing the runny custard. Unless you have chosen to make a firmer custard, things can get quite messy if there's a hole in the buttercream layer.

1. Transfer the buttercream into piping bag fitted with a 4-5mm round tip. Pipe a layer of cream on the base shell.

2. Pipe a second layer to outline the elephant. This creates a wall to contain the custard. If you want to achieve a truly runny lava custard effect, pipe another layer of wall such that the cavity can contain more custard. A single layer of wall will just create a flavour enhancing salted egg yolk center, which is fine too :).

3. Transfer the custard into piping bag with a small hole cut at the end. Carefully fill the cavity with custard.

4. Carefully pipe more buttercream to cover the custard.

5. Carefully put the top shell over the filling and gently press down a little. Refrigerate in airtight container for at least 24h before serving.

Here are the other macarons filled with whipped Earl grey white chocolate ganache.

If you are a fan of salted egg custard in steamed buns, croissants, cakes, french toasts etc, you will enjoy this macaron version :). Thank God that these cute elephants were very well received in terms of looks and taste!


With love,
Phay Shing

'Smiley Poo' Chocolate German Cookies

Requests can get quite bizarre...like this one! Poo cookies!

You must agree you can't help but smile when you see them!

My elder kid laughed when he saw the smiley piles of turd. My little one said "mama, these poo look and smell good!" Hubby smiled when he saw rows of them in the box when he came home from work. How not to laugh or at least smile :p.

This is a really easy bake so my kids were involved. I wanted a more melt-in-your-mouth texture for the cookies so I chose a German cookie base.

The recipe is adapted from Small Small Baker 
Chocolate German Cookies
Ingredients (makes about 10 poo cookies):
63g unsalted butter
20g icing sugar
63g potato starch
40g plain flour
1 tbs (8g) cocoa powder (I used dutch processed but regular cocoa powder will do too)
1/4 tsp fine sea salt

Steps:
1. Beat butter, sugar and salt until light and fluffy. You may use the electric mixer or by hand. I used to cream butter and sugar by hand but I am getting lazy :p.

2. Sift together potato starch, plain flour and cocoa powder.

3. Gradually add flour mixture into creamed butter and mix well until a dough forms using a spatula.

4. Divide into 10 portions, about 18-19g each.

5. Roll into a log of about 18-20cm long with one end tapered.

6. You could prepare a template with 4cm diameter circles to help you make each pile of poo roughly the same size (optional). I used a macaron template for this under the baking sheet. Carefully roll the log into a spiral, using the circle as a reference for the base. The dough is very soft and may break while you are doing this. It takes a bit of practice to get a nice spiral so it's ok if you keep needing to redo the shaping. The cookie won't toughen up that soon!

My kids had fun playing with the dough too! They found the poo shape a little too hard to make so they made bars of chocolate instead using their fingers and a toothpick.

6. Chill the tray of shaped cookies in fridge while preheating oven to 170°C. Bake for 15-18 minutes at middle rack until the surface of the cookies appear dry.

Freshly baked!

Cool completely before adding on royal icing features.

You may use store-bought googly eyes candies or make from scratch like I did. I piped the eyes on a separate tray lined with baking sheet and oven dried using the fan mode for about an hour. Peel the eyes off the baking sheet and stick them on with some royal icing. Pipe a big smile using royal icing.

Let the icing dry thoroughly.

Store in airtight container at room temperature.


With love,
Phay Shing

Mt Fuji Lavender-Ginger Lemon Chiffon Cake

This is a chiffon cake version of my Mt Fuji Lavender-Ginger Lemon Chiffon cake pops to go along, also inspired by my trip to Japan, and also because I was afraid there wouldn't be enough food =). I wanted to call it Shinobi Mt Chiffon Cake because I inadvertently made the contour like a ninja mask hehe!

The same recipe is used as the Mt Fuji Lavender-Ginger Lemon Chiffon cake pops but multiplied 4 times. For your convenience, I have scaled it up below. Have a try! Tea flavors come out really strongly compared to fruit flavors! I thought the experience of a slice is like a trip to the onsen! Soothing Lavender topped with refreshing Ginger lemon top!

Mt Fuji Lavender-Ginger lemon Chiffon Cake (makes one 9-inch cake)

Egg yolk batters (left: Ginger lemon, right: Lavender)

3 egg yolk                                                          3 egg yolk
20g castor sugar                                                  20g castor sugar
44g vegetable/corn oil                                         44g vegetable/corn oil
44g ginger lemon tea                                           44g lavender dream tea
60g prima cake flour                                           60g prima cake flour
                                                                        Dip of purple food/natural colouring

Meringue
8 egg whites
¼ tsp cream of tartar
90g castor sugar

1. Prepare ginger lemon tea by infusing 6 tsp ginger lemon tea in 60 g hot water. Prepare lavender tea by infusing 4-5 tsp lavender flowers in 60 g hot water. Allow to steep for 10+ min. Filter out the leaves/flowers to obtain the clear tea.

Ginger lemon tea

Lavender tea

3. Preheat oven to 160°C.

4. Prepare egg yolk batter separately for the 2 teas:
a. Whisk egg yolk with sugar using hand whisk.
b. Add in oil and tea and mix well.
c. Whisk in sifted cake flour and mix well.
d. Only for lavender batter, add a dip of purple food coloring. *You can also substitute with natural food coloring's eg blue pea flowers


5. Prepare meringue
a. Whisk egg whites with cream of tartar till frothy.
b. Add in ½ castor sugar for meringue and whisk at high speed till soft peaks form.
c. Add in rest of the castor sugar for meringue and whisk till firm peaks form.


6. Portion out ½ the meringue for each batter (using weight or just cut into half). Fold in meringue gently into each egg yolk batter 1/3 at a time. *Fold in unidirectional, gentle strokes and do not overfold.


7. Spoon the ginger lemon batter into the base of the cone, followed by the lavender batter. Gently tap to remove air bubbles.


8. Bake at 160°C for 15 min, then 150°C for 10 min, then 140°C for 20 min then 130°C for 15 min, or until skewer inserted into centre of cake comes out clean.

9. Allow to cool completely on wire rack.


10. Unmould the chiffon cake by hand (watch 'Hand Unmoulding' Video).

With love,

Susanne

Good news! There's a step-by-step recipe for Pandan Ogura Frog Cupcakes from Creative baking: Chiffon Cakes in June/July issue of Food and Travel magazine. It also features many other interesting recipes such as Thai food in this issue. Thanks F & T for the feature!

Hello Kitty Macarons with Strawberry White Chocolate Ganache

I had some leftover batter from making 750 cheery bear macarons for Mother's Day so I made these kitties!

I was pretty tired out from the marathon so I just rummaged through my collection of templates and picked out a simple one. Hello Kitty happens to be quite easy to pipe so I chose it.

You may refer to my cheery bear and panda macarons post for the recipe, and choose to use the regular or reduced-sugar version.

Use a Wilton #12 tip to pipe the head and #5 tip to pipe the ears and hands. Pipe the hands on only after a sticky membrane has formed (batter should not stick to your finger). The time may range from 15-30 minutes. Use a toothpick to pull the batter for the ears.

Freshly baked shells!

Pipe a yellow nose using royal icing. Draw the eyes and whiskers using black edible marker.

You may use ready-made sugar flowers or hearts to stick on Hello Kitty. I usually make my own royal icing bows and flowers like in this post. Make sure the icing features are thoroughly dried in an oven with fan on but heat off before attempting to peel off the flower or bow from the baking sheet.

I filled these kitties with strawberry white chocolate ganache.

Hope these kitties put a smile on your face like they did to me :).

With love,
Phay Shing

Snowskin Mooncake 'Apples' with Hidden Malteser Surprise

During my "sabbatical" from baking for orders, I had some time to experiment with what I planned for the August Culinary Arts event at my church. There will be a demo with hands-on for participants. I knew I would be really busy again towards the end of the June hols with back-to-back orders so this was a good time to do trials. Presenting my snowskin mooncake "apples" with a hidden surprise inside each one!

I prepared two flavours of combinations : Pandan snowskin with white lotus paste filling  and strawberry snowskin with chocolate paste filling.

I would have preferred using my favourite snowskin recipe that stays soft up till a week but I chose the simplest and fuss-free recipe for demo purposes. It is the same recipe that I used for last year's Singapore flag snowskin mooncake for a carnival to celebrate Singapore's 50th birthday, which was very well received.

This is not the first time I am making apple shaped snowskin mooncakes. Checkout this post where I made the apples with homemade custard filling.

Ingredients (makes 8 red and 8 green apples):

1/4-1/3 cup cooked glutinous rice flour (糕粉) for dusting

Red dough
30g cooked glutinous rice flour (kao fien)
36g icing sugar
7g olive oil (choose the low odor type)
38g water
1/2 tsp strawberry paste/emulco

Light green dough
30g cooked glutinous rice flour
36g icing sugar
7g olive oil
40g water (use water boiled with a few Pandan leaves and  left to cool  for better flavour)
3 drops of green Pandan paste

Dark green / brown
10g cooked glutinous rice flour
12g icing sugar
2g (1/2 tsp) olive oil
13g water
1/4 tsp Pandan paste
1/8 tsp cocoa powder (may not use all)

Filling
16 pieces of Maltesers
100g white lotus paste
100g chocolate paste*

* If unavailable, simply combine  85g lotus paste with 18g melted dark chocolate and 1/2 tsp cocoa powder. This was what I did for this blog post.

Here's a picture of Maltesers just in case you don't know what it is. You may omit the hidden surprise but do add 1-2g more filling. You may add some toasted melon seeds for extra crunch if you wish. You may substitute with any other spherical chocolate coated biscuits like Kit Kat balls if you wish.

Here's the photo for Pandan and strawberry paste/emulco just in case you don't know what they are.

Steps:
1. Sift together flour and icing sugar for the respective coloured dough in mixing bowls. Combine water, oil and strawberry/ Pandan paste in separate small bowls.

2. Pour the liquid into the respective flour mixture. Use a spatula to mix until a dough is formed.

3. Cover with cling wrap and let the dough rest for 15 minutes. This is important to ensure that the dough is smooth.

4. Portion out the chocolate/lotus paste to 12g pieces. Flatten each piece into a round disc and place a Malteser in the middle. Wrap it up.

All 16 balls wrapped!

5. Take the light green/ red dough and place on a baking sheet about the size of A4 paper. Fold the sheet in half and use that as the non-stick surface to knead the dough a few times until smooth. If the dough feels very sticky, sprinkle a bit of kou fien while you knead. Unorthodox method of kneading :p. Most people use plastic gloves but I like to work with as few logistics as possible and I like to be able to feel the dough texture that I work with, whether it is snowskin, bao or bread dough.

Please excuse the use of this photo. I copied from an old post so you see white dough here :p. Lazy to retake photo.

6. Dust the surface of the dough with some kou fien and roll into a log. Cut the log to 8 equal portions with a bench scraper or knife. If you have a digital scale, you may weigh out 8 portions of about 14g of dough for each colour of mooncake.

7. Take one small cutout ball of dough and place on the baking sheet. Keep the rest of the dough in the bowl with cling wrap covering to prevent them from drying out. Knead it a few times with some light dusting of flour. Flatten it and place a ball of filling in the middle.

Wrap it up and pinch seal the seam. At any point the dough is too sticky, dust your fingers with a little flour before handling.

8. With the seam side down, place a small piece of cling wrap on top and gently make an indent at the top with a chopstick.

9. You may use your fingers to shape the apple gently  by pressing in the base of the apple so it looks more apple-like.

10. Knead the dark green dough until smooth with some dusting of flour. Portion out about 1 tsp of dough and add cocoa powder until a desired shade of brown is obtained. Dust with flour as necessary. Roll the dark green dough until about 3mm thick with a rolling pin or using your palm. If using your palm, simply place the dough between baking sheet before flattening it.

11. Use a leaf shaped cutter to cut out the leaf. You may use a knife to cut out the leaf if you don't have the cutter. Stick it onto the apple. Pinch out a little brown dough and roll it between your thumb and forefinger to form a little stub. Stick that onto the apple to form the stem. Use a toothpick to help you attach the stem firmly.

Some assembled apples!

Store in airtight container overnight in the fridge before consuming. The snowskin stays soft for up till 3 days. Make sure the container is not too big for the mooncakes to prevent them from drying out prematurely.

Everyone who had my maiden batch of "apples" (family and neighbours) loved how cute they look and of course how yummy they are. The Maltesers in the middle gives the mooncake a nice crunch and break in texture. Do give this easy no-bake dessert a try! I am sure your recipients will all be charmed :).

With love,
Phay Shing

Mt Fuji Lavender Chiffon Cake pops with Ginger lemon Snow caps

These cutie cake pops were inspired by my recent trip to Japan! These are actually not my first cute snowy mountain cake pops. Check out the Hokkaido version with cream spewing out during eruption 2+ years back =). Do they look like a couple? =p

I was also inspired by the heavenly combination of lavender tea with ginger lemon tea from Newby teas. They are a match made in heaven! Both are very striking, yet compliments each other so well, from a soothing lavender chiffon base, to a perky inspiring ginger lemon peak! It's like a trip to the spa or onsen hehe.

Ok, here are my soft, fluffy lavender-ginger lemon Mt Fuji chiffon pops. Tea flavours come out even stronger then fruity flavours I feel. Hope you like these cute creations too!

Mt Fuji Lavender-Ginger lemon Chiffon Cake pops (makes 8-9 cake pops)

Egg yolk batters (left: Ginger lemon, right: Lavender)

10g egg yolk                                     10g egg yolk

5g castor sugar                                  5g castor sugar

11g vegetable/corn oil                       11g vegetable/corn oil

11g ginger lemon tea                         11g lavender dream tea

15g prima cake flour                         15g prima cake flour

                                                       Dip of purple food/natural colouring

Meringue

2 egg whites (80g) 

¼ tsp cream of tartar

23g castor sugar

1.   Prepare paper cone holder by double wrapping a baking tray with 2 layers of aluminium foil. Makes holes using chopsticks and gently insert paper cones into the holes, gently widening as you go.

2.   Prepare ginger lemon tea by infusing 3 tsp ginger lemon tea in 15 g hot water. Prepare lavender tea by infusing 2 tsp lavender flowers in 15 g hot water. Allow to steep for 10+ min. Filter out the leaves/flowers to obtain the clear tea.

Ginger lemon tea

Lavender tea

3.       Preheat oven to 140°C.

4.       Prepare egg yolk batter separately for the 2 teas:

a.       Whisk 10g egg yolk with sugar using hand whisk.

b.      Add in oil and tea and mix well.

c.       Whisk in sifted cake flour and mix well.

d.      Only for lavender batter, add a dip of purple food coloring. *You can also substitute with natural food coloring's eg blue pea flowers

5.       Prepare meringue

a.       Whisk egg whites with cream of tartar till frothy.

b.      Add in ½ castor sugar for meringue and whisk at high speed till soft peaks form.

c.       Add in rest of the castor sugar for meringue and whisk till firm peaks form.

6.       Portion out ½ the meringue for each batter (using weight or just cut into half). Fold in meringue gently into each egg yolk batter 1/3 at a time. *Fold in unidirectional, gentle strokes and do not overfold.

7.       Spoon the ginger lemon batter into the base of the cone, followed by the lavender batter. Gently tap to remove air bubbles.

8.       Bake at 140°C for 35 min, or until skewer inserted into centre of cake comes out clean (or you can also use 150°C for 10 min then 140°C for 10-15 min.

9.       Allow to cool completely on wire rack.

10.   Unmould the chiffon pops by peeling off the paper, starting from the tips.

11.   Snip off the top of the cone. Decorate the cone with cake cut-outs using melted marshmallows or draw them on using food markers/melted chocolate.

12.   Keep them in an airtight container. Tastes best chilled!


Here's a chiffon cake version I made using the same recipe, multiplied by 4 =). I have scaled the recipe for you here.

With lots of love,
Susanne


Link to:

Creative Baking: Chiffon Cakes and Deco Chiffon Cakes (in the works)


Helping my friend give a shout-out to his wonderful instagram featuring bakers of SG:
https://www.instagram.com/bakersofsingapore/


And here's my instagram while we're at it! I'm actually more active there now =)
https://www.instagram.com/susanne.decochiffon/

Monkey Themed Macarons on Lychee Rose Chiffon Sponge & Pudding Cake

This request for a monkey themed lychee rose sponge and pudding cake was my last bake before I went on my break from baking for orders. I posted earlier on how the realistic looking banana macarons are made. Here they are adorning the cake :).

I made the macarons a few days in advance before the cake...

You may refer to the banana macaron post for the basic recipe. The giant monkey and coconut tree macarons were filled with dark chocolate ganache. Baking large macaron shells require longer baking times  with the temperature at 110-120°C after 20-25 minutes of baking to prevent browning of the shells.

Just to share some photos of the macaron making process...

Piping the large shells in stages

I decorated the shells with royal icing and edible marker.

Filling the shells with dark chocolate ganache and adding in long lollipop sticks

The original lychee rose sponge and pudding cake can be found here. I made some minor changes to the ratio of ingredients to include a bit more liquid in the cake batter. I used an adjustable cake ring instead of a springform pan to make a slightly larger cake. This cake has always gotten very good reviews as it is light and refreshing, perfect for eating after heavy birthday meals.

Lychee rose chiffon sponge
Ingredients (two 9"round pan):
4 egg yolks
15g caster sugar
65g canola/ vegetable oil
65g canned lychee puree (sieved to remove woody bits)
1/4 tsp rose water
1/4 tsp lychee flavouring
1 tsp vanilla extract
90g cake flour
A pinch of salt

6 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
60g caster sugar

Steps:
1. Line the pans with baking paper. Set oven rack to second lowest position and preheat to 150°C. Place a tray of water at the base of the oven (optional).

2. Prepare egg yolk batter. Whisk egg yolks and sugar until thick and pale. Add oil and whisk until well combined. Add lychee puree, rose water, lychee flavouring and vanilla extract. Whisk until combined. Gradually sift in flour and salt and whisk until no trace of flour is seen.

3. Prepare meringue. In a clean metal bowl, beat egg whites with cream of tartar until firm peaks (just before stiff peaks), gradually adding sugar once the egg whites are foamy.

4. Gently but quickly fold the meringue into the egg yolk batter in three additions. Scoop the batter into the two prepared pans. Tap the pans on the table to release trapped air bubbles.

5. Bake at 150°C for 20 minutes or until skewer comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan.

Freshly baked!

I used an adjustable cake ring instead of a 9" springform pan this time so I increased the amount of pudding.

Lychee rose pudding
Ingredients:
A)
300g evaporated milk
660g water
500g canned lychee puree in syrup
2 tsp rose water
1/2 tsp lychee flavouring
100g caster sugar
1/4 tsp salt
5 tsp agar powder
Liquid  green food colouring
Liquid yellow food colouring

B)
96g custard powder
480g canned lychee syrup
80g water

Steps:
1. Wrap the base of the cake ring with aluminum foil and place the assembly on a baking tray.

2. Combine ingredients in B) in a large jug or bowl and stir until custard powder dissolves.

3. Combine ingredients in A) in a saucepan and bring to boil, stirring continuously.

4. Stir B) again before pouring into A), stirring the contents in the saucepan continuously. Bring to boil again while stirring. Boil for a minute more.

Assembly
1. Scoop some pudding into the base of the cake ring.

2. Place a sponge cake on top.

3. Scoop more pudding to cover the sponge, taking care to cover the sides as well.

4. Put the second sponge cake in the cake ring. Cover the sides of the sponge with pudding.

I tried to play around with slight change in shades of green by adding colouring along the way as I filled the cake ring but it doesn't show up very clearly :p.

The cake tastes better after a day or two of chilling in the fridge to let the flavours come together.


I baked green layer cake in 10x12" tray for grass deco on the cake. I used a daisy cookie cutter to cut out the cake and half it to create the grass.

In order to attach the banana macarons at the side of the cake, I carefully inserted a short length of toothpick into each banana.

This is the first time I am assembling a sponge and pudding cake with macaron deco this way so I learnt that the macarons must not come into direct contact with the pudding....during my short photography session! I quickly lined the sides of the pudding cake with bits of chiffon cake "grass" as a barrier between the macarons and the pudding, and dried the parts of the macaron shells that were wet with paper towel.

The macarons have to be packed separately from the sponge and pudding cake to prevent them from turning soggy. Assembly of the macaron deco has to take place before eating the cake at the party venue.

All packed! I made a spare set of monkey  and coconut tree just in case.

Thank God despite the hiccups along the way, the cake and macarons were very well received!

With love,
Phay Shing