'Enchanted Garden' Matcha Azuki Bean Chiffon Sponge & Pudding Cake (with 3D macaron decorations!)

Adventurous me is out to try something new again! And this time it's for my mum's birthday cake. Presenting my first Charlotte cake in Matcha Azuki bean flavour!

Decorated with 3D macaron shells!

I was so thrilled to see the cut cross section of the cake. Yums!

Actually this bake came about because I had some ladyfingers at home and I thought better use it and not waste it. I made this sponge and pudding cake Charlotte cake style for a change. As usual, the cake was light, tasty and not too sweet. Even hubby who doesn't normally eat cake gave a thumbs up. I made this flavour of cake before but tweaked the sponge cake recipe. You may have a look at my first attempt here.

Recipe for Matcha chiffon sponge cake
Ingredients (makes one 10x12" and one 7x7"sheet cake):
3 egg yolks
5g caster sugar
42g canola/vegetable oil
6g (1tbs) Matcha powder
34g hot water
10g honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
60g cake flour
A pinch of salt

4 egg whites
50g caster sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Steps:
1. Line the baking trays with baking sheet. Set oven rack to second lowest position and preheat to 170℃.

2. Dissolve Matcha powder and honey in hot water. Strain mixture through fine sieve to remove large lumps. Set aside to cool.

3. Prepare egg yolk batter. Whisk egg yolks and sugar until pale and thick. Add oil and whisk until well combined. Add Matcha mixture and vanilla, and whisk until well combined. Gradually sift in flour and salt. Whisk until no trace of flour is seen.

4. Prepare meringue. In a clean metal bowl, beat egg whites with cream of tartar using an electric mixer until firm peaks form, gradually adding in sugar once the egg whites appear foamy.

5. Quickly but gently fold the meringue into the egg yolk batter in three batches. Scoop the batter into the prepared baking trays. Tap the trays on the table to release trapped air bubbles.

6. Bake for 10-11 minutes or until skewer comes out clean. Remove from tray immediately and cool with another baking sheet covering the cake.

Freshly baked Matcha chiffon cake

You may bake the cakes in advance and freeze it after wrapping with two layers of cling wrap. If you are assembling straight away, cut the cakes according to the size of your springform pan/ mould for assembly. My springform pan is about 7.5". I cut 6" round cakes as I had to account for the thickness of the ladyfingers. You may omit the ladyfingers if you would like to enjoy the sponge and pudding cake as it is.

Recipe for Matcha Azuki bean pudding
Ingredients:
A)
180g evaporated milk
375g water
3.5 tsp Matcha powder (Use premium type for best taste. Use bakeable type if you want to retain a more vibrant green colour)
40g hot water
2.5 tsp vanilla extract
85g caster sugar (you may add more if you prefer sweeter cake. My family prefers less sweet)
1/8 tsp salt
3 tsp agar powder
150-200g canned Azuki beans (I used less as my mum prefers a less sweet cake)

B)
60g custard powder (do not use the instant types)
350g water

Steps:
1. Combine all ingredients in B) in a jug. Stir until custard powder dissolves. Set aside.

2. Dissolve Matcha powder in hot water to form a paste. Put all ingredients in A) (except Azuki beans) into a large saucepan. Bring to a boil while stirring continuously.

3. When the mixture in A) is boiling, stir B) again and slowly pour into A). Continue to stir until mixture boils. Continue to stir while boiling for a couple of minutes more. Sieve the mixture.

Note that a skin will form quickly when the pudding is exposed to air. You may place a piece of cling wrap touching the surface of the pudding if you wish to prevent the skin from forming.

Assembly
Line the base of the springform pan with clingwrap if you wish to transfer the cake to cakeboard in an upright manner. There is no hard and fast rule in assembling the cake. You may start/end with cake or pudding, depending on how you want to display the cake. I will just show the steps for how I did it.

1. Pour a thin layer of pudding such that it covers the base of the springform pan. Place a ring of ladyfingers as shown in the first picture below. Place a layer of chiffon cake on the pudding. Press the cake down firmly to make sure no air bubbles trapped.

2. Pour more pudding to cover the sponge cake. Add some Azuki beans (second picture below).

3. Pour a little pudding to partially cover the beans (third picture).

4. Place a sponge cake over and press down firmly (fourth picture).

5. Repeat for as many layers as you wish. Chill the assembled cake in the fridge for 2 hours or overnight.

To transfer the whole assembly to cakeboard, release the catch of the springform pan and carefully remove the ring. Lift the whole cake up with the help of the clingwrap at the base of the cake. Place the cake on the cakeboard. Carefully remove the clingwrap by rolling it under the cake.

Tie the cake with a pretty ribbon and add deco as you wish :)

Assembled cake!

I decided to make some simple 3D macaron deco for the cake. I had the idea of mushroom macarons some time back but never had the chance to try it out. Now I finally can :). You may refer to this post for making 3D hedgehog macarons.

I made some modelling white chocolate for the mushroom stems. The ratio of light corn syrup:white chocolate that I used was 32g:100g. I added a bit of white powder food colouring to lighten up the colour. You may refer to this post on how to prepare the modelling chocolate. I filled the hedgehog with a combination of dark chocolate and whipped Pandan white chocolate ganache.

Modelling white chocolate

Cute mushrooms and hog!

I have to thank hubby for taking quite a few nice pictures of the cake when we were eating it at a restaurant.

Looking cute!

Hedgehog looks like it is peeking over the fence.. :p

Gorgeous cross section!

Another view of a slice of cake

Mmmm!

We really enjoyed the cake. My kids had the macarons of course because mummy can't take too much sugar. As always, there is always room for sponge and pudding cakes after a sumptuous meal because it is light and refreshing :).

With lots of love,
Phay Shing

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‘Animal Family’ Pull apart Chiffon Cupcakes (Pull apart 'buns')

Happy 11th year wedding anniversary!! These are my first Pull apart Chiffon Cupcakes in a ring, inspired by those cute pull apart buns. I made this as a surprise for hubby as a special memory of our 11th year together (now with 3 more little ones). This ‘Animal family’ represents our small sweet family of 5 and our favorite animals/characters! Can you tell who is who?

(Obvious hints: Those who knew me in jc know that my favourite character is in pink ;). My son is my hubby’s mini ‘me’. My girls look alike and love the animal that ‘meows’).

I used my basic chiffon recipe below, and baked it in 2 bigger glass bowls (11.5 diameter) and 3 smaller bowls (8 cm diameter). Do look for thicker bake proof bowls, Pyrex or Iwaki brand.

I divided by batter roughly into 3 parts for the different animals/colours.

Egg yolk batter
3 egg yolks
20g castor sugar
39g vegetable/corn oil
42g water
5g vanilla extract
60g Prima cake flour, sifted

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

1. Preheat oven to 160°C.

2. Prepare egg yolk batter:

a. Whisk egg yolk with sugar using hand whisk until light and well-mixed.

b. Add in oil first, then water and vanilla extract and mix well.

c. Whisk in sifted cake flour and whisk well, ensuring that no lumps are formed.

3. Divide the batter into 3 parts.

To the first portion, leave plain. To the second portion, add approximately 1/5 of a teaspoon of strawberry paste/emulco. To the last portion, add approximately 1 teaspoon pumpkin powder. *You may substitute with your preferred food coloring/flavour.

4. Prepare meringue:

a. In a grease-free, dry 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 - peaks slope downwards forming a hook.

c. Add in rest of the castor sugar for meringue and whisk till firm peaks form - peaks point up but slightly hooked at the tip.

5. Divide the meringue into 3.

6. Fold in meringue gently into each colored egg yolk batter 1/3 at a time. *Fold in unidirectional, gentle strokes and do not overfold.

7. Fill the bowls with the batter till 3/4 full.

8. Bake at 160°C for 10 min then at 140°C for 20-25 min, or until skewer inserted into center of cakes come out clean.

9. Pour excess pink batter into 15-cm baking pan lined with baking paper. Pour excess plain and orange batter into cake pops molds. These are for the ears. Bake at 160°C for 15 min.

10. Allow to cool completely on wire rack, before unmolding by hand.


I used charcoal chiffon sheet cakes (from another bake) to cut out facial features using bento cutters. You can also pipe on using melted chocolate. I cut out ears from the sheet cakes/cake pops and used melted marshmallows to stick everything together. You can also use melted white chocolate to stick them together. 

Hope you like my simple, sweet ‘family of 5’ pull apart buns! Thank God for the blessings of family!

With lots of love,

Susanne

More loving, chiffon creations here =)

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Happy Cat Earl Grey Lavender Salted Caramel Macaron Carousel (updated recipe)

Someone saw my first Happy Cat carousel and was so charmed by it that she wanted one too! But this version has different type of cats and another cute little critter thrown in ;).

I used the non-reduced sugar macaron shell recipe but used icing sugar that already has cornflour added in. Both regular and reduced sugar recipes can be found here. You may refer to my Creative Baking: Macarons book for a systematic presentation of the basics and complex shaped macarons. You may refer to my video tutorials for macaron basics and piping of complex shapes on the blog too. You may refer to this post for the dimensions of the shells required to make the carousel and the respective baking times. I piped a scalloped roof like the one similar to the sheep macaron carousel as I think it's really pretty and it is very helpful for positioning the paper straws during the assembly. Checkout the sheep carousel post for detailed steps of assembly.

Just to share some pictures of the process...

Piping cats!

Piping mice!

In an effort to try and make the carousel macarons less sweet, I decided to try reducing the white chocolate content in the filling. Previously I used a ratio of 1:4 for vegetable shortening:white chocolate. Now I try to use a slightly smaller percentage of white chocolate, 1:3.5. Here's the updated recipe for non-refrigerated filling that can remain stable in hot climate like in Singapore.

Recipe for Earl grey lavender white chocolate filing
Ingredients:
140g white chocolate
40g vegetable shortening
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
4 tsp Earl Grey tea powder
1 tsp dried lavender flower powder*
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste

* Toast about 2 tsp of dried lavender flowers at 100℃ for 10min in the oven. Use mortar and pestle to grind until powder form. Sift the ground lavender.

Steps:
1. Place white chocolate and shortening in a microwave-safe bowl. Heat at medium power for 20 seconds and mix well with spatula. Repeat until mixture is melted and smooth.

2. Add salt and mix well. Gradually add tea powders and vanilla and mix well.

3. Leave to stand for a while until toothpaste-like consistency. Transfer to piping bag and pipe onto shells.

I piped the middle of the shells with salted caramel.

Filling the large shell!

Do not fill the shells on paper straws with salted caramel or the macaron will slide down the pole.

Assembled cats and mice!

I decided to add on extra royal icing fish and cheese deco :)

Pipe these on baking sheet, dry thoroughly before carefully peeling them off.

I stuck the fish and cheese deco onto the carousel base with some royal icing.

I couldn't resist taking a photo of the loose pieces!

Too cute!

With love,
Phay Shing

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'Peanut butter and Jam' Iced Gems Chiffon Cakes (Recipe Video)

Recipe video of Iced Gems Chiffon Cakes (from Deco Chiffon Cakes book) is finally completed, thanks to Food and Travel for helping to film and compile (I'm very bad at these)!

Video link here:

It will also be on June issue of Food and Travel magazine.

Blessed Wednesday!

With lots of love,
Susanne

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'Sheep on Bench' Mango Sponge and Pudding Cake

Someone requested for mango cake with cute sheep deco. I came up with mango sponge and pudding cake with whipped mango ganache filled sheep macarons!

Bear with me as this is going to be a long blog post because there are a couple of firsts for me for this bake. It's my first attempt at making a bench out of homemade modelling chocolate and my first attempt for this flavour of sponge and pudding cake.

I had lots of fun making the bench and it can be made ahead of time and stored in the fridge. There's room for improvement since it's my first attempt but I have learnt a lot from this experience. For one, I should include another leg in the middle of the bench even if aesthetically it may not be as nice as I didn't realise how fast the structure can soften in hot Singapore! I will also reduce the amount of corn syrup by a little the next time I need to make a chocolate structure that needs some strength and rigidity.

Recipe for dark modelling chocolate bench
Ingredients:
100g Dark Chocolate couverture
35g Light corn syrup

Steps:
1. Melt dark chocolate in microwave safe bowl by heating at medium power for 30 seconds and stir. Repeat until chocolate is fully melted and there are no lumps.

2. Add corn syrup and stir until well mixed. The mixture will harden immediately.

3. Pour onto clingwrap and wrap it. Refrigerate for about 15 minutes or until firm.

4. Knead it until it becomes pliable. You may find that wearing gloves or kneading the chocolate through clingwrap helpful as the chocolate may melt and stick to your fingers.

5. Pull out a small handful of chocolate and roll it between two pieces of baking sheet to thickness of 6mm for the legs and 4mm for the bench planks. Use an oiled bench scraper to cut out portions of the chocolate. Stick the pieces together using a bit of semi-melted modelling chocolate. Simply pinch a bit of the chocolate and rub between your finger tips to melt it.

Useful tips:
- Place the rolled chocolate on top of reusable freezer packs to firm up the chocolate a little so that it is more rigid but not so hard that you have difficulty cutting through.
- Place the cutout pieces on smaller pieces of baking sheet to facilitate moving them around.
- Chill the cutouts until rigid before assembly.
- You may use straw or cookie cutter to make patterns on the bench back.

I needed to prop up the middle and refrigerate until rigid before removing the baking paper support. On hindsight, I should have added a leg there.

6. Store finished product in fridge until ready for assembly.

So cute!

I have made macaron sheep in rainbow scarf before sometime last year. You may refer to this post for the macaron shells. I decided to make the scarves appear more vibrant this time. The macarons are filled with whipped mango ganache. Recipe can be found here.

Sheep in vibrant scarves!

Recipe for mango chiffon cake
Ingredients (makes two 7" round cakes):
3 egg yolks
5g caster sugar
42g vegetable/canola oil
52g mango puree
60g cake flour
A pinch of salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp mango flavouring (optional)

4 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
50g caster sugar

Steps:
1. Line the base of the pans with baking sheet. Set oven rack to second lowest position. Preheat to 150℃.

2. Prepare egg yolk batter. Whisk egg yolks and sugar until pale and thick. Add oil and whisk until well combined. Add puree, vanilla and mango flavouring and mix well. 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 form, gradually adding sugar once the egg whites are foamy.

4. Quickly but gently fold the meringue into the egg yolk batter in three additions with a spatula. Pour the batter into the two prepares pans. Tap the pans gently on the table to release trapped air bubbles.

5. Bake at 150℃ for 10 min, followed by 130℃ for another 25-30min or until toothpick comes out clean.

6. Let the cakes cool in the tray for 5 min before removing.

Freshly baked cakes!

Recipe for mango pudding
Ingredients:
A)
113g evaporated milk
247g water
188g mango puree
1/4 tsp mango flavouring
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
40g sugar
1/16 tsp salt
2 tsp agar powder

B)
36g custard powder
210g water

Steps:
1. Place all ingredients in B) in a jug and mix well. Set aside.

2. Place all ingredients in A) in a saucepan and bring to a boil while stirring.

3. Stir contents for B) again and slowly pour into A) while stirring the contents in the saucepan. Keep stirring and bring to a boil again. Boil for a couple of minutes before removing from heat.

4. Sieve the custard before assembling.

Assembly
1. Scoop some pudding to line tbe base of the spring form pan. Note that the sponge cakes should be about 1-1.5" less in diameter than the spring form pan. Cut the sponge cake if necessary to fit the pan.

2. Place a sponge cake over the pudding. Pour more pudding to cover the cake.

3. Add the second sponge and pour more pudding over, making sure that the sides of the cake are covered.

4. Refrigerate for two hours or until firm before unmoulding onto a cakeboard.

I decorated the cake with a park scene using chiffon cake. The centerpiece is of course the chocolate bench with the macaron sheep on it. Here's a picture of the cake without the occupants on the seat ;)

Thank God the cake was very well received!

With love,
Phay Shing

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Penguin Igloo Checkerboard Chiffon Cake

This is my humble attempt at a Checkerboard Chiffon Cake for my nephew (whose class just visited bird park). As a cute Penguin on Igloo was requested, the base design is an Igloo-inspired design, made by patterning Checkerboard ‘Ice cubes’ using Chiffon Cake. This is one difficult cake which I don’t think I will attempt again so soon =p. Briefly, the checkerboard design was made by using 8 homemade dividers in the chiffon pan (picture tutorial in Deco Chiffon Cakes, similar to 6-flavour Earth Tones cake), and filling in layers like my Rainbow Chiffon Cake (in Creative baking: Chiffon Cakes, then removing the dividers. Quite a stressful project as you can tell =p. The cake is also not my tallest chiffon cake due to its complexity, but thankfully the texture was not compromised.

The Penguin was made by joining two oval chiffon bowl cakes together. The snowflakes were cut from chiffon cake sheet cakes using snowflakes plunger, and glued on with melted marshmallows. Sorry for the short post! As my kids are not well at the moment. Everyone please take care!

With lots of love,
Susanne


As mentioned above, on the 6-flavour Earth Tones cake on Deco Chiffon Cakes cover.

And Rainbow chiffon on Creative baking: Chiffon Cakes cover.

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Dancing Princess Chocolate Macaron Carousel

My friend requested for a princess themed macaron carousel for her sister's birthday and gave me free reign on the design. Here's what I came up with :)

 In my opinion, it is the prettiest and daintiest macaron carousel I have made! Some may beg to differ and say that my unicorn carousels are probably prettier. I love the happy look on the faces of the princesses who are lost in ecstacy of their dance.

Designing such a complicated subject usually requires me to search for references. I seldom copy wholesale the designs I find from the internet and make improvisations as such...

I used the reduced-sugar macaron shell recipe. Both regular and reduced sugar recipes can be found here. You may refer to my Creative Baking: Macarons book for a systematic presentation of the basics and complex shaped macarons. You may refer to my video tutorials for macaron basics and piping of complex shapes on the blog too. You may refer to this post for the dimensions of the shells required to make the carousel and the respective baking times. I piped a scalloped roof like the one similar to the sheep macaron carousel as I think it's really pretty and it is very helpful for positioning the paper straws during the assembly. Checkout the sheep carousel post for detailed steps of assembly.

Just to share some pictures of the process...

Piping the shells! More tedious than I thought!

Freshly baked shells!

I decorated the shells with royal icing and fine tipped edible black marker. I added a dash of peach coloured lustre dust for the rosy cheeks. The royal icing crowns were piped onto baking sheet, thoroughly dried before sticking them onto the macaron shells with some royal icing.

I must qualify that the slender limbs of the princesses were very fragile and I broke one of them by accident. So do be extremely careful when handling macaron shells with thin bits sticking out. Make extra shells just in case you break some.

So dainty!

I filled the centers of the macaron shells with dark chocolate as requested but line the outer ring with white chocolate ganache as dark brown will spoil the dainty girly effect of the carousel. I filled the princess shells with white chocolate. The white and dark chocolate fillings have shortening, salt, vanilla bean paste and coffee liqueur added. Choose your favourite eating chocolate or couverture for this.

Recipe for dark and white chocolate fillings
Ingredients:
Dark Chocolate
90g dark chocolate, chopped
20g vegetable shortening
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/2 tsp Kahlua coffee liqueur

White chocolate
45g white chocolate, chopped
10g vegetable shortening
1/16 tsp fine sea salt
1/4 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/4 tsp Kahlua coffee liqueur

Steps:
1. Place chocolate and shortening in microwave safe bowl. Melt on medium power for 20 seconds for dark chocolate and 10 seconds for white chocolate. Stir well. Repeat until mixture is totally smooth.

2. Add salt, vanilla and coffee liqueur one at a time and mix well with a spatula.

3. Wait for mixture to thicken to toothpaste-like consistency if it is too runny. Transfer to piping bag and pipe onto shells.

I couldn't help smiling and admiring the princesses on the carousel!

Thank God the carousel was very well received in terms of looks and taste!

With love,
Phay Shing

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'Safari' Pink Leopard Prints Chiffon Cake

Happy Mother’s Day!!

This is my humble attempt at a Leopard Prints Chiffon Cake! It's vanilla chiffon with chocolate spots. The giraffe and lion are made from orange-chocolate chiffon cake, similar to my previous Giraffe Print safari chiffon cake.

I made the Leopard prints pink and sweet-looking for ladies, but feel free to change it to the normal brown/dark brown leopard prints!

Leopard Print Chiffon Cake (9-inch tube pan)

2 whole eggs (60g eggs)
53g castor sugar
106g vegetable/corn oil
110g water
12g vanilla extract
160g Prima cake flour, sifted
1/2 tsp cocoa powder, sifted (alkalized)
Pink gel or natural food coloring
(you can also replace pink with light brown colour using less cocoa powder)

11 egg whites
120g castor sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1. Preheat oven to 160°C. Prepare a tray of water at the bottom of the oven (I used the lowest rack to bake the cake). *You may omit steam baking; I like to use it to control my oven temperature rise.

2. Beat eggs with sugar with whisk till pale yellow before stirring in oil, water and vanilla extract.

3. Next add in sieved flour and whisk till no trace of flour found.

4. Spoon out 10 tsp and add ½ tsp cocoa powder, mix well. Spoon out 15 tsp and add a dip of pink food colouring, mix well.

5. Meringue: Beat the egg whites with ¼ tsp cream of tartar till firm peaks, mixing in caster sugar gradually in a few additions.

6. Divide out the meringue: 20 tbsp for cocoa batter, 30 tbsp for pink batter, leaving the rest for plain batter. Gently but quickly fold in the meringue into the respective egg yolk batter. *You need to work very fast for the meringue not to deflate.

7. Transfer the pink and cocoa batter into piping bags. Pipe pink ‘10-cent coin’ blobs at the base of the pan. Pipe small cocoa dots or crescents beside each pink blob. Then spoon the plain batter gently into the spaces between the pink-cocoa blobs. Cover the blobs gently with more plain batter. When the blobs are fully covered, repeat the above process 3x until batter is 2-cm from the brim. *You need to work quickly as chiffon batter deflates very much faster in the pink/cocoa piping bags.

8. Bake the chiffon cake for 15 min at 160°C and then at 150°C for 10 mins and 140°C for 30-31 min, or until skewer comes out clean. *This is just a guide as each oven’s internal heat is different, do optimize for your own oven.

9. Invert the chiffon cake once removed from oven.

10. Unmould the chiffon cake by hand after cake is completely cool (watch Video tutorial 'Hand Unmoulding Chiffon Cakes for a Clean Finishing'). 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.

Orange-Chocolate Giraffe and Lion Chiffon Cake pops

The giraffe’s head was from a cake pop mold, filled with half orange and half cocoa batter. The body and limbs were from a patterned swissroll (orange with cocoa spots). The lion was from a 'lion' chocolate mold. Other details were cut from sheet cakes, and assembled using melted marshmallows.

This is such a special day. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my mom for being so wonderful. Wishing all mummies a very happy blessed Mother’s day!!

With lots of love,
Susanne

More fun chiffon creations here =)

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