'Flying Doraemon' Rainbow Cloud Chiffon Cake

This is a chiffon cake for my son’s birthday! Doraemon is one of the things he has likes and the only cartoon my hubby encourages as it’s in Chinese =p. The idea I had in mind was the flying Doraemon scene which I find super cute! I made a chiffon flying Doraemon on a Rainbow-Cloud sky chiffon cake backdrop. The cloud backdrop was inspired by the cartoon and a dear friend.

Cloud-Sky

Cloud-Sky Chiffon Cake (8-inch tube pan)
Egg yolk batter
6 egg yolks (or 2 egg yolks + 1 whole egg)
40 g castor sugar
79 g vegetable/corn oil
76 + 5 g water
10 vanilla extract
120 g Prima cake flour, sifted
1.5 tsp blue pea flower extract (40 blue pea flowers in 10g hot water)
Blue gel food colouring

Meringue
8 egg whites
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
90 g castor sugar

1. Preheat oven to 160°C. Prepare a tray of water under the lowest rack for steambaking. *Optional but helps to increase moisture and control oven temperature for ogura-like texture.

2. Beat egg yolks with sugar with whisk till pale and light before stirring in oil, water, and vanilla extract.

3. Add in sieved flour and whisk till no trace of flour found. Divide the batter 2/3 and 1/3. To the 2/3 portion, add blue pea flower extract and a dip of blue gel food colouring (optional but brightens up the colour). To the 1/3 portion, add 5 g water.

4. Meringue: Using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites with ¼ tsp cream of tartar till frothy. Add in half the castor sugar for meringue and whip till soft peaks. Add in all the castor sugar and whip till firm peaks form or just to the point of reaching stiff peak.
*Firm peaks give finer, softer texture, especially with steam baking.

5. Divide the meringue 2/3 and 1/3 for each coloured batter. Gently quickly fold in the meringue into respective batter in 3 additions.

6. Spoon the plain batter in cloud-like blobs at the base and sides of the pan, then fill the surrounding spaces with blue pea flower batter. Repeat till the batter is 2-cm from the brim. 

7. Bake the chiffon cake for 15 min at 160°C, then 150°C for 10 min and then 140°C for 25+ min, or until skewer inserted into centre of cake comes out clean.

8. Invert the chiffon cake once removed from oven and allow to cool completely.

9. Unmould the chiffon cake by hand (‘Hand Unmoulding Chiffon Cake for a Clean Finishing’ video tutorial).

*The cake is a little similar to 'World map Chiffon Cake' (right most pic in collage below) from my 2nd book Deco Chiffon Cakes. You may find the picture tutorials in the book useful for patterning the clouds in the chiffon cake.

After unmoulding, I filled the centre hole with marshmallows surprise and covered it up with a circle cut out from leftover batter baked as sheet cake. 

Rainbow

You may find the recipe for Chiffon Cake Rainbow (also right most pic in collage below) with picture tutorial in Creative baking: Chiffon Cakes (1st book).

Doraemon

I piped on the face with chiffon batter in a Doraemon mold, then added the rest of the features using chiffon sheet cake cut-outs with marshmallow cream. 

Here's a slice of my chiffon cake finally! Sorry it wasn't cut too beautifully as it was cut on the spot at the celebration using the blunt cake knife.

Happy birthday dearest Caleb!! 

With lots of love,

Susanne