My mum suggested making a blue china themed birthday cake for my Grandma's 90th and Aunt's 70th combined birthday celebration, modelled after what I made for her last year over here. I took it a step further to incorporate the cheongsam style as well!
I followed the floral and berry flavour profiles of the cake that I made for my mum except that this wasn't sugar-free since it's for the the whole extended family clan to eat after a sumptuous meal together.
Cake composition:
- Lavender rose chiffon sponge (7 layers + 1 wrapping around the stack + all external decorative pieces except the wafer paper butterflies)
- Vanilla rose diplomat cream (6 layers between the hidden sponge stack)
- Fresh strawberries (in the cream layers)
- Raspberry reduction (brushed on all hidden sponge layers)
I omitted egg yolks when making the sponges to reduce the use of food colouring to achieve the white and blue colours. You may refer to my reel to see the recipe and process. The method is in the comments of the reel.
I will share the ingredient list here for your convenience.
Lavender rose chiffon sponge:
This quantity is good for a 7" round pan which I used for the hidden sponge stack. The sponge can be sliced half horizontally for a thinner layer. I used a total of 7x this portion for the whole cake including decorative cutout parts
15g oil
40g floral milk tea*
35g cake flour, sifted
pinches of salt
2 egg whites (about 75g)
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
30g sugar
* Heat 120 milk with 6g Moroccan rosebuds & 1 tsp dried lavender flowers. Steep for 30min. Strain.
Vanilla rose diplomat cream:
Feel free to scale up the portion as needed. I used 3x for the whole cake.
1 egg yolk
10-20g sugar
Pinches of salt
8g cornstarch
110g rose milk tea*
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
7g butter
100g whipping cream of choice**
2-3g gelatin (depending on serving ambient temperature and preferred firmness of cream, optional)
* Heat 140g milk with 6g Moroccan rosebuds. Steep for 30min. Strain.
** I used a mix of double cream (45% fat) & non-dairy whipping cream in 3:2 ratio. You may use gelatin to stabilize if you wish. I omitted as I used a higher fat percentage dairy cream. Sweeten with sugar of choice, adjust according to taste & whether pre-sweetened non-dairy cream is used. I omitted as the non-dairy cream is pre-sweetened
Raspberry reduction:
100g raspberry puree, sieved
10g sugar
4g lemon juice
Some useful tips about making this cake:
- I used melted bloomed gelatin as glue to glue the decorative pieces to each other or the main sponge
- The strawberries were sliced to the same thickness as the sponge layers to ensure even layers of sponge and cream with fruit.
Here are some photos of the process...
Tracing the mirror imaged pattern with edible marker on parchment paper
Painted sponge using cake paint
small decorative pieces made of blue chiffon sponge
Assembling the cake
Unfortunately I don't have a good photo of the much anticipated cross section slice because the waitresses whisked the cake away before I could get my hands on it and sliced the cake vertically AND horizontally 🤦🏻♀️.
This was one of the neater slices. The cake was really soft and moist so I imagine it was a challenge to slice it. You will have to imagine what you see x6 vertically with the strawberry slices intact. At least you can catch a glimpse of the cake crumb and even layers of sponge and cream
Everyone enjoyed the cake and the celebration was a blast!
with lots of love,
Phay Shing
