Hidden Rainbow Chiffon Cake

Rainbows are my favourite sources of inspiration! Many of my cakes have been inspired by rainbows. I was to make this cake over Easter as we remembered God being faithful to His promises and wonderful resurrection of Jesus!

I was really nervous slicing into the cake!

This is actually not my first hidden rainbow chiffon cake but its my most successful one and the very first one I posted. The previous ones were given away so I couldn't get a nice shot myself. 

The recipes of this Hidden Rainbow chiffon cake has been shared in various recipes, namely the Chiffon Cake Rainbow in Book  1: Creative baking Chiffon Cakes, the Sky chiffon cake in Book 3: Deco Chiffon Cake Basics, and the double baked technique in all 3 Deco Chiffon Cakes books.

Hope this special creation made you smile too!

With lots of love,

Susanne

 

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Hidden Heart Hot Cross Bun Macarons (New Recipe for Low Sugar Macaron!)

Many of you may not know that I have been experimenting with super low sugar macarons for the past two to three years. I have tried a variety of substitutions and have always met with failures. Many have tried sugar substitutes but 100% of the verdict is it's bad tasting so don't bother trying. Those of you who have attempted cutting out sugar will also come to a conclusion that while zero sugar is not possible, low sugar is, but how low can you go?...That is the question which I think I have found an answer to. Presenting my version of hot cross bun macarons, with hidden heart candied cherry!

Before I delve into the topic of low sugar macarons, let me explain why I hid a heart in there. It's my personal preference to make something Christian themed for Easter. I thought of making simple spiced macarons hot cross buns style as a reminder of what Good Friday/Easter is all about -- God’s love for fallen mankind shown through the death of Jesus on the cross. And what better way to have both heart and cross in each macaron than what I did 😊. I filled the macarons with a spiced cream cheese based filling and used a delicious low GI sugar, so overall the whole macaron is not too sweet but oh so fragrant and flavourful!

Let me explain why sugar is necessary in macarons. Macarons are meringue based cookies and meringues need sugar for stability. Take sugar out and the meringue collapses easily. You may add an acid like cream of tartar, or semi cook the egg whites (Swiss and Italian meringues) to improve the stability of the meringue, but some sugar is still necessary.

You may ask then is icing sugar necessary as part of the dry ingredients? Answer is yes! I have made a couple of attempts with totally no sugar in the powdered ingredients and they fail miserably. If your meringue does not contain high amounts of sugar, your powdered ingredients portion needs the icing sugar to help the piped batter to form a membrane at the surface that is resistant to expansion during baking. This is necessary for feet formation. If the icing sugar proportion is too low, you will also end up with no feet, no matter how long or short you rest the piped batter before baking...

My attempt at hot cross bun macarons just before the successful ones

This is just a cookie, not macaron 😆

Icing sugar also gives macarons the melt-in-your mouth texture. The higher the icing sugar content, the more delicate the texture will be. As I reduce both icing sugar and caster sugar in my low sugar recipe, you can expect that the resulting texture will be less delicate but that's a small price to pay when the overall sugar content by weight is 35%! Most recipes have sugar taking up about 50% of total weight of ingredients. Some recipes have percentages that are even higher.

I have chosen the Swiss meringue method for creating low sugar macarons as it is more stable than French, and therefore requires less sugar in the meringue to be stable, but less complicated than Italian.

My older reduced sugar recipes for French, Italian and Swiss methods involve substituting part of icing sugar with rice flour and cornflour, which I adapted from for this low sugar recipe. How does this recipe differ from my older ones then you may ask. I substituted very safe amounts of icing sugar with rice and cornflour, while keeping the caster sugar amount relatively constant for my older recipes. In this recipe, my starting point is from my failed attempts, gradually increasing the amount of sugar until what comes out of the oven resembles a proper macaron with full shells.

Without further ado, let me share the low sugar macaron recipe, and a yummy low GI macaron filling! Feel free to upsize the recipe for macaron shells once you have adjusted the baking process to suit your environment and oven.

Disclaimer and important note: if you fail, it's not because the recipe doesn't work but instead, you need to tweak factors like drying time and oven temperature because my method here is very much oven dependent. Please also acknowledge me if you do publicise your work and people ask for the recipe because it has taken me a long time and countless failures to get here. Tag me on Facebook or Instagram with your results 😊

Hot cross bun macaron shell recipe
Ingredients (makes ten 4cm macarons, 20 shells):
Dry ingredients
55g almond flour
30g icing sugar (preferably with cornstarch already added)
8g rice flour
2g (1 tsp) cornflour
1/2 tsp cinnamon*
1/4 tsp allspice*
1/8-1/4 tsp cocoa powder*

Swiss meringue
36g + 1g (1/4 tsp) egg whites
24g caster sugar
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
1 drop orange gel food colouring*
1 drop yellow gel food colouring*

* Omit these items if making plain macaron shells.

Steps:
1. Line baking tray with template and parchment paper. Stick parchment paper down with some batter later on when you have made it. Preheat oven to 60-70℃. Set oven to second lowest rack. I use top and bottom heat only.

2. Sift together all powdered ingredients. Set aside.

3. Make the Swiss meringue. Place 36g egg whites, caster sugar and cream of tartar in a clean metal or glass bowl. Set the bowl over a saucepan filled with some water. Make sure the water doesn't touch base of the bowl. Heat the water in saucepan using low or medium-low heat while whisking the egg whites. Use a candy thermometer or infrared thermometer to monitor the temperature of egg whites. I must stress that you should heat the egg whites slowly to make sure that all sugar is dissolved or your meringue won't turn out right. Heat the egg whites to 50℃. This should take about 5-8 min of continuous whisking over the stove. Remove from heat and beat the meringue with electric mixer on medium-low speed until stiff peaks form. Add gel food colouring and beat until evenly coloured. I don't use high speed to beat as a meringue that is built up slowly is more stable and has less large air bubbles in it. In fact for this attempt, I alternated between hand whisking (with the balloon whisk of my electric mixer) and beating with electric mixer to make sure that the meringue is always smooth and air bubbles are tiny.

This is how you test for stiff peak. The meringue should be upright at all points where you test, not just in the middle of the mixing bowl. Meringue should appear smooth and glossy, and the meringue should be able to form a foamy lump that keeps its shape when you use a spatula to gather it in the middle of the bowl.

4. Transfer the meringue into a bowl with wide base for an easier macaronage process. Scatter a third of powdered ingredients over the meringue. Fold gently until incorporated. Repeat for the other two-thirds in two batches.

Folding in sifted ingredients.

5. Once the dry ingredients are incorporated, add 1g of egg whites and mix well. Those of you who have made macarons before will notice that the batter is thicker than your regular one. This is because there is a significantly lower percentage of sugar in the batter. Adding a little egg whites at the end will help to loosen up the batter a little. Continue by pressing the batter against the side of the mixing bowl to deflate the batter. You may refer to this video tutorial for the macaronage technique. Be careful not to overdo the deflating as the meringue doesn't contain a lot of sugar. Check the consistency after each round of pressing the batter against the bowl. Instead of your usual lava consistency that you look for in regular macaron batter, you check the consistency by creating peaks in the bowl of batter and tapping the bottom of the bowl. If the peaks melt back into the batter, you are good to go.

6. Transfer to piping bag fitted with a Wilton #10 or #12 tip. Pipe rounds. Rap the tray on table to flatten peaks. Use toothpick to pop any stubborn air bubbles.

7. Dry in the warm oven until a membrane forms that does not feel sticky when you run a finger across the surface. This can take 10-25 min. Check every 5 minutes after the 10 minute mark. You may ask if it is all right to dry in air-con room or out in the open (if you live in a low humidity area). It should be ok although I haven't tried it because it's really humid here even with air conditioning so it would take too long to dry for my liking for a macaron batter that does not have much sugar to stabilize the meringue. I try to keep drying time as short as possible for this batter to prevent hollows too.

8. Once a nonsticky membrane is formed, increase temperature to 130-140℃ and bake for another 18-23 minutes or until feet do not appear wet. This membrane should be able to provide some resistance when you press it gently but not hard like baked shells. Cool completely on baking tray before peeling parchment paper away from the shells. If you dried your shells in the open/air-con room, bake in preheated oven at 150℃ for 12 min and reduce temperature to 130℃ and bake for another 5-10 min or until feet no longer appear wet.

I was jumping for joy at this beautiful batch! Nice even feet, relatively smooth tops and full shells!!

With significantly lower sugar in the macaron shells, I wasn't about to spoil it by using a super sweet filling (definitely no American buttercreams for me! Way too sweet!). I chose a cream cheese base as it is able to hold its shape quite well in Singapore's hot weather, and its tartness compliments the sweet shells. I used relatively low amounts of sugar in the filling and chose a low GI source.

Spiced brown sugar cream cheese filling recipe (adapted from here)
Ingredients:
115g cream cheese, room temperature
55g unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
40-45g Masarang Arenga forest sugar**
1/8 tsp salt
15g icing sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp allspice
Zest of an orange

** Replace with brown sugar if unavailable.

This is the sugar I used that is lower in GI but tastes great! It is similar to coconut palm sugar with a caramel flavour.

Steps:
1. Beat cream cheese with electric mixer until creamy, smooth and soft. Set aside.

2. Beat butter and brown sugar until fluffy and well combined. (I don't soften the butter much before beating as Singapore is really warm)

3. Add icing sugar, spices, zest, vanilla and salt and beat until well combined.

4. Gradually add whipped cream cheese and beat until just combined. Refrigerate for an hour or overnight before using. You may need to stir the mixture to make it creamy again after resting in the fridge.

I decorated the macaron shells with firm royal icing (somewhere in between flooding and stiff consistency).

Some people may find that hot cross buns are incomplete without sultanas in them so feel free to add some finely chopped sultanas to the cream cheese filling. In my case, I added a simple twist to it by inserting a piece of candied cherry in the middle. I halved the cherries and tried my best to cut it into a shape that will present a heart shape when you slice open a macaron.

A halved candied cherry with conical bottom. I carefully reshaped the top as well to make it a little more rounded. Use only the bottom half of the cherry for this.

Fill the shells!

Store filled macarons in the fridge in airtight condition for at least 24h. Let the macarons sit room temperature for 10 min before consuming to allow the filling time to soften a little.

I am happy to say that reducing sugar by this much didn't change the texture too drastically! It's definitely less delicate than higher icing sugar content ones but not any chewier than some of my regular attempts. Longer maturing time with filling will make the texture more delicate so do wait for a few days before eating if you prefer it that way.

With love,
Phay Shing

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Spongebob Surprise in Pineapple Chiffon Cake

I am really honored and thankful for the opportunity to film with Food Network! <3

It was the most challenging chiffon cake I have made to date, a Surprise Spongebob face in a Pineapple!

The request was given by Food Network. I didn't think I was able to make it initially. Really thank God so much for providing!! <3 

As it's my first time trying out the concept, I almost had a heart attack when we sliced into the cake! =D I didn't have enough time to try out the cake beforehand as one cake took 2.5 days to make!

Video tutorial can be found here from Food Network FB. They had wanted to commemorate Spongebob Squarepants musical at the Tony awards!

Hope it made you smile too!! =)

With lots of love,

Susanne

Vide

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Matcha Azuki Bean Snowskin Mooncake with 'Hidden Heart' Matcha Truffles

Sometimes I get inspiration from nowhere and this is one of them! Despite my busy baking schedule, I couldn't help trying this out! My hands were itchy to start as I was icing Snoopy and gang cookies! Presenting my humble first attempt at hidden heart-shaped truffles inside a mooncake!

I must admit that not all cross-sections are that pretty as I was impatient, short of time and didn't have the ratio of truffle:filling down pat yet. You can skip the heart shape and just make roundish truffle centers. Will still be just as yummy! I was doing the hearts as a personal challenge :p.

These snowskin mooncakes have either a predominantly Matcha or plain flavoured snowskin. I added a dash of vanilla for the white skin to impart a bit of flavour. The filling is a mixture of lotus paste and Azuki bean paste. You may use commercially bought red bean paste suitable for filling mooncakes if you wish. I had those two ingredients so I used them instead. Pretty good Azuki bean paste from Hokkaido! Some lotus paste was added to make the whole mixture workable (less sticky and more cohesive) and less cloying than pure Azuki bean. A little toasted melon seeds was added to add some crunch to the mixture. The hidden hearts are Matcha white chocolate truffles. It's my first time making truffles too! I thought the whole Matcha Azuki bean combination is good! Instead of just plain Matcha with lotus paste base.


Ingredients (makes about 11-12 small mooncakes):
Matcha truffles (adapted from here and here)
94g white chocolate, chopped (I used Meiji)
1/16 tsp salt
1/2-3/4 tsp Matcha powder*
30g heavy cream
6g unsalted butter

Azuki bean lotus paste filling
115g white lotus paste
85g Tsubuan (Azuki bean paste)
A pinch of salt
1 tbs toasted melon seeds (optional)

Matcha Snowskin (based on my tried and tested recipe from here)
38g cooked glutinous rice flour (糕粉)
38g icing sugar
13g vegetable shortening
63g hot water
1/3-1/2 tsp Matcha powder*

Vanilla Snowskin
Same as Matcha Snowskin but replace Matcha powder with 1/2 tsp vanilla extract and 2-3 drops of white gel food colouring (optional)

* Use a good brand of green tea if possible. Adjust amount according to how strong you want the Matcha to be. The upper limit is about as high as you should go before it starts giving a funny aftertaste.

Steps:
Truffle
1. Warm cream and butter until butter is melted. Add salt and mix well.
2. Melt white chocolate in microwave oven at medium power in 10second bursts of heating, stirring well in between each cycle of heating until chocolate is nicely fluid.
3. Add sifted Matcha to the white chocolate. Mix well. Add cream mixture and stir well.
4. Transfer to piping bag. Pipe about 7g of Matcha white chocolate mixture in each paper cone made from baking sheet. I used 9g, which was too much for the hidden heart to fit nicely. Alternatively, fill round silicone ice cube tray with 10g of Matcha white chocolate mixture.

6. Chill the truffles for 30 minutes-1hour or until firm but still malleable. Use a chopstick to make an indent in the truffle-filled cones. Try to wiggle the top of the chopstick a bit to make a "V" for the dip in the heart shape.

7. Freeze the truffles for 1-2 hours until very firm. Unmould by popping truffles out of ice cube tray or tearing the paper cones.

8. Return the unmoulded truffles to freezer until time to assemble.

Filling
I used only 13g of filling per mooncake, which was too little for the mooncakes with hidden hearts. 15-16 grams would be better.

1. Combine lotus paste, Azuki bean paste and salt together until well mixed.
2. Add toasted melon seeds and knead with a spoon until well distributed.
3. Divide into 15-16g balls. Coat with some cooked glutinous rice flour to prevent it from sticking to your hands.

4. Flatten a ball of filling and place the heart shaped truffle upside down. Quickly wrap and return to refrigerator. Dust with more flour if it is sticky. Remember to place the wrapped filling with the heart upside down again!

 Snowskin
1. Sift together flour and icing sugar in a bowl.
2. In a small saucepan, place water, shortening, vanilla extract and white gel food colouring (if using) for white snowskin. Dissolve Matcha powder in hot water before combining with shortening for the Matcha Snowskin. Heat the mixture over low heat until shortening is melted.
3. Pour into sifted flour mixture. Stir until well mixed. Cover with clingwrap and rest for 15 minutes.
4. Knead the dough until smooth, adding some flour if it is too sticky. Divide into 5-6 balls of 24g each. Keep portioned balls in a bowl that is covered to prevent the dough from drying out.
5. If you are making the different coloured heart designs, pinch a bit of snowskin (e.g. Matcha snows for white snowskin base) and press it in with a finger to cover the design. Wrap your finger with cling wrap to prevent the dough from sticking.

6. Wrap each chilled ball of filling with 24g of dough and dust with a bit of flour. Press the assembled ball into the mould. Press the mooncake out with the plunger. Remember to wrap the filling with hearts with the hearts upside down. When placing the assembled ball into the plunger, take note of the orientation of the heart too. It should be placed such that no matter how you cut the mooncake into half, you should be able to see the heart ;).

And you are done :)

Store the mooncakes in airtight container that has not too much airspace. Chill in the fridge overnight before consuming. These mooncakes keep well for up to a week without drying out.

I shared these with my family and Susanne's. Everyone loved it! So glad that this experiment was a success taste wise. Do give it a try even if you want to give the heart shaped truffles a miss (simple roundish shape will do).  It was a joy to watch my dad's face light up and he went "Mmmm!" as he had a piece of this! My dad doesn't have a sweet tooth.

Update: my mum shared these mooncakes with her colleagues FIVE days after I made them and feedback was good! So do give this recipe a try!

With lots of love,
Phay Shing

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'Hidden Hearts' Azuki Bean Matcha Logcake with Whipped Azuki White Chocolate Ganache

 I have a request for Azuki bean Matcha log cake with Azuki cream from my ex-neighbour who missed this cake of mine! I made a small, totally kid friendly log for Susanne's family without Matcha added.

I adapted the recipe from one that my ex-neighbour loved, but changed the cream from fresh cream to whipped white chocolate ganache to make the whole cake withstand Singapore's hot weather a little better. I reduced the amount of sugar in the sponge cake to accomodate the sweeter cream. I also upped the amount of Azuki beans to make it really full of red bean goodness :). She requested for less Matcha cake as kids are eating so I thought why not make it special with striped patterns and "hidden hearts" inside the log!

Bake an Azuki bean layer cake. Use heart shape cookie cutter to cut out enough hearts to line the length of your log cake when stacked together.

Striped layer cakes
Ingredients:
Base egg yolk batter
3 egg yolks
15g caster sugar
43g canola/vegetable oil

Azuki egg yolk batter
23g Azuki bean paste
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
20g cake flour
Pinch of salt
Red liquid food colouring

Matcha egg yolk batter
12g water
2g (1 tsp) Matcha powder (go for high grade if possible)
11g cake flour
Pinch of salt

Vanilla egg yolk batter
12g water
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
13g cake flour
Pinch of salt

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

 Makes one 9x12" and one 7x7" cake. Alternatively, you can make a single 10x12" cake or not use up all the batter to fit your pan size.


Steps:
1. Line the pans with baking sheet. Preheat the oven to 160°C. Prepare 3 piping bags with piping tip adapters (without tips attached). Alternatively,  you may just prepare a ziplock bag with a hole cut. You can still create the stripes but it will be less neat.

2. Prepare the base egg yolk batter. Whisk sugar and egg yolks until pale and thick. Gradually add oil and whisk intil thick and well combined. Divide the batter into 2:1:1 for Azuki: Matcha: Vanilla. You actually need more matcha than vanilla if you used different sized pans like me but it's a pain to divide the batter into weird ratios.

3. Continue preparing the respective egg yolk batters following the steps in the above section.

Fold the meringue into the egg yolk batter in the same way and portion according to the weight ratio above.

4. Transfer the batter into the piping bags and pipe the batter in alternating stripes onto the pans.

I was rushing a bit so the lines are not so even.

Drop the pan onto the table a few times to release trapped air. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.

5. Immediately remove from pan, gently peel off baking sheet and cool in a rolled up position.


Azuki bean white chocolate ganache
Ingredients:
120g white chocolate, chopped
370g whipping cream
1/16 tsp salt
190g Azuki bean paste (Tsubuan. Use more or less according to your preference. My portion is considered very generous, so it's pretty sweet but full of Azuki bean flavour.)

Steps:
1. Place white chocolate in a large bowl. Bring cream to boil (just when bubbles start to appear) and pour over white chocolate. Stir with spatula until white chocolate has melted. Add salt and stir until it has dissolved.

2. Place in an ice bath and stir until cooled. Place in fridge overnight until chilled.

3. When ready to assemble, whip ganache to stiff peaks by placing bowl in ice bath. Be careful not to over whip.

4. Portion out 150g of Azuki paste and mix well with 50g of whipped ganache. Set aside this Azuki paste thinned with whipped ganache. This will be part of the filling.

Portion out 160g of whipped ganache and 40g of Azuki paste and mix well. Set aside. This will be the outer frosting.

Note that you may change the proportions to suit your taste.


Assembly
1. Unroll cooled cakes and brush surface with simple syrup (1:1 ratio of sugar:water). Apply a layer of Azuki paste thinned with some cream. Apply a layer of whipped ganache. Place the row of hearts upside down in the middle of the cake. Roll up the cake and refrigerate or freeze (1-2 hours) until cream is set. Make sure you shape the roll with the help of baking sheet to squeeze the cream into the crevices of the heart shape in the roll before chilling. Refrigerate any remaining cream.

2. Use a serrated knife to cut of the ends, cleaning it after each cut. Reserve the ends for decoration if you wish.

3. Place the cake on cakeboard with a bit of cream below to secure it to the board. Cover the cake with Azuki white chocolate ganache.

Add on branches if you wish, like I did for the Matcha Azuki roll. Use a fork to draw log patterns.

And you are done :). This log cake is pretty enough to do without decorations, especially if you have one or two branches extending out from the log.


I am submitting this to "My Treasured Recipes #4 - Ho Ho Ho It's Christmas (Dec 2014)" hosted by Miss B of Everybody Eats Well in Flanders and co-hosted by Charmaine of Mimi Bakery House.

Update: Both log cakes were well received :). Do go for the version without Matcha if kids are consuming as they would prefer a non-tea flavoured cake.

Blessed Christmas!

With love,
Phay Shing

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Azuki "Hidden Rainbow Hearts" Chiffon Cake

I had been rather busy with family lately, and almost forgot that the next day was 28th May, our wedding anniversary. My little baby Charissa was also going to be 3 months on the same day! I decided to combine rainbows (inspired by Charissa) and hearts (for hubby) into a chiffon cake. I choose azuki flavour as it was my hubby's favourite.

I made the chiffon rainbows according to Hidden Rainbow Strawberry Chiffon for Baby Shower and cut out hearts from the slices of the rainbows. Then I baked these into an azuki chiffon cake according to Valentine's Day Hearts-in-all-directions Strawberry Chiffon Cake, an earlier cake I made for Valentines' Day.

Azuki Chiffon Cake
3 egg yolks
20g sugar
38g vegetable oil
42ml azuki milk (32 g azuki in 10 ml warmed milk)
60g cake flour

4 egg whites
45g 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).
2. Beat egg yolks with sugar with whisk till pale yellow before stirring in oil and azuki milk.
3. Next add in sieved flour and whisk till no trace of flour is found.
4. Meringue: Beat the egg whites with ¼ tsp cream of tartar till stiff peak, mixing in caster sugar in 2 additions.
5. Fold in the meringue gently into the batter 1/3 at a time.
6. Cover the rainbow at the bottom and side, and the rainbow hearts in centre and cover with batter.
7. Run a chopstick around the sides of the hearts to ensure there are no trapped bubbles.
8. Bake the cake for 15 min at 160°C then 35 min at 150°C.
9. Invert immediately once out of the oven to cool.
10. Unmould after the cake is cool.

I always have a lot of joy making cakes for the family. This year we couldn't do much because of 3 kids but it was a simple but meaningful celebration. The cake was made with lots of love and my hubby said the cake was very nice :)

With love,

Susanne

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Azuki Matcha "Hidden Watermelons in the Ground" Chiffon Cake

Azuki-matcha-black sesame is my all-time favourite combination, and azuki is absolutely my family fave! It just so happened I was craving for some azuki on the morning I was supposed to try out a square chiffon hidden cake for my friend's daughter's birthday. On impulse, I scrapped my original idea to do strawberry yoghurt chiffon and changed it to azuki. The idea of azuki-matcha "watermelons" with black sesame seeds had me drooling! I decided to theme the cake as "hidden watermelons in the ground" with honey matcha chiffon cake and azuki flowers in the background. The watermelon skin will be a two-layered matcha-milk chiffon (to resemble the dark and light part of watermelon skin), and the watermelon flesh will be azuki chiffon with black sesame seeds (to resemble watermelon fruit and seed).

An important objective was to practise baking chiffon cake in large square tray (10-inches) without shrinkage. For this, I got some inkling from Nasi Lemak Lover's Pure Vanilla Sponge Cake to bake at a lower temperature at the start (she used 140°C for 25 min then 160°C for 30 min for an 8-inch pan) to have the cake rise slowly. From my previous experience with steam baking, I had also observed that steam baking chiffon at lowest rack at a lower temperature creates a nice smooth top with little shrinkage upon cooling. I used 150°C for 1h 10 min with steam baking for this chiffon with baking paper only at the bottom (to facilitate unmoulding of large square bottom) and let it cool right side up, following Kitchen Tigress' ogura blog post. I was quite happy this time I had no shrinkage of the chiffon upon cooling. The chiffon cake gripped well to the sides and maintained its height in the centre. There was little shrinkage at the sides that I needed to trim off :).

This hidden cake takes around 2 days to bake. Do keep an airtight container to keep the cake parts.

Ingredients

*You may choose to skip this section for "watermelons" if you only want to bake a chiffon in a large square tray with no tube without shrinkage.

For "watermelons"
4 egg yolks
27g sugar
51g vegetable oil
56ml azuki milk (28g azuki + 28g warm milk)
80g cake flour

5.3 egg whites (this is according to calculations for scaling, you can use 5 egg whites)
60g 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).
2. Beat egg yolks with sugar with whisk till pale yellow before stirring in oil and azuki milk (azuki milk in left picture).

3. Next add in sieved flour and whisk till no trace of flour found.
4. Scoop over 8 tsp of batter and add 2 tsp matcha powder for green layer. Scoop over 8 tsp batter for plain layer. To the rest of the batter, add 1 tsp black sesame. You may opt to put a dip of red colouring for sweet pink colour or omit.
5. Meringue: Beat the egg whites with ¼ tsp cream of tartar till stiff peak, mixing in caster sugar in 2 additions.
6. Scoop over 16 tbsp meringue for green and plain egg yolk batter respectively. Fold gently into the respective batter. Fold the rest of the meringue into the azuki batter in 2 additions (the final matcha, plain, and azuki batter after folding in the right column).
7. Fill the bowls with a layer of green batter, followed by plain batter. Then fill the remaining space with azuki batter for the watermelons. Gently tap on table to remove air bubbles.
**8. Pour the remaining azuki batter into the 6-inch tray (lined at bottom and sides) for the flowers. **This is optional if you do not want to decorate the cake with flowers.
9. Steam bake the cakes in bowls for 15 min at 160°C then 15-20 min at 150°C. Bake the 6-inch tray cake for 18 min at 150°C (also lowest rack, steambaking). Note: I have a separate smaller oven for the 6-inch tray. Otherwise, you can also bake the tray at 160°C for 14+ min and remove.
10. As an experiment, I inverted 2 bowls and left the other 2 bowls upright. I was surprised there was no reduction in height with and without inverting! Unmould when they are cool.
11. Flip over the cake onto a clean baking sheet and unmould when cool.
12. Cut out the flowers and slice up the watermelons for baking into the big cake.

Chiffon in large 10-inch square tray

6 egg yolks

40.5g sugar

76.5g vegetable oil

84 ml warm milk

120g cake flour

1 tsp honey

2 tsp matcha powder

8 egg whites

90g sugar

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1. Preheat oven to 150°C. Prepare a tray of water at the bottom of the oven (I used the lowest rack to bake the cake). Line bottom with baking paper (smooth and stick on with a little meringue).

2. Beat egg yolks with sugar with whisk till pale yellow before stirring in oil and warm honey matcha milk (1 tsp honey + 2 tsp matcha dissolved in warmed milk).

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

4. Meringue: Beat the egg whites with ¼ tsp cream of tartar till stiff peak, mixing in caster sugar in 2 additions.

5. Fold the meringue into the cake batter gently in 3 additions.
*6. Arrange the azuki flowers at the bottom and gently cover with batter. Place the watermelon cakes in ring around the centre. Spoon the batter around their sides and over them. Run a chopstick around the sides of the tray to ensure there are no trapped bubbles.
*You may choose to omit this step if you just want to bake a chiffon in a large square tray with no tube.
7. Steambake for 1 hr 10 min.

8. Cool right side up for the first 20 min. Unmould and leave to cool (I followed Kitchen Tigress to cool right way up and there was no reduction in height!).
9. I sieved the top with matcha powder to recreate grass fields with flowers over the watermelons :).

Reviews for the cake was that it was very moist and soft! I personally thought the azuki-matcha-black sesame combination was "heaven"! :p It was finished in no time even though it was a huge 10-inch cake :).

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs up organised by Bake For Happy Kids, and My Little Favourite DIY, hosted by Tze of Awayofmind Bakery House at this post. 

With love,
Susanne

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Hidden Bears Honey Matcha Chiffon Cake (Steam Bake Method)

Guess who's hiding in the woods? A bunch of bears!

I was so impressed with Susanne's steam baked honey matcha chiffon cake that I wanted to try it out too. I took the chance to try out another way of making hidden chiffon cakes to see if it is an improvement from the way we used to make.

I baked a vanilla chiffon cake for the hidden bears instead of the usual flat layer cake to minimize the gaps between the hidden slices. Be warned that this is a very time consuming bake so you may want to split the work over two days. Keep the cake that is works-in-progress in an airtight container to prevent it from drying out.

Black and white vanilla chiffon (15cm chiffon tin)
Ingredients:
1 egg yolk
10g caster sugar
23g canola oil
36g milk
1tsp Vanilla essence
40g cake flour
1/4 heaped tsp charcoal
White gel food coloring (optional)

3 egg whites
30g caster sugar
1/8 tsp cream of tartar

Steps:
1. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius with tray of water at bottom rack of oven.
2. Beat egg yolk and sugar until pale yellow. Stir in oil, milk and vanilla essence. Gradually add in sifted cake flour and whisk until no trace of flour can be seen.
3. Divide the egg yolk batter into ratio of 1:2 for black:white batter. Add charcoal to the batter for black color and white food coloring for white color.
4. Prepare the meringue. Beat egg whites until foamy and add cream of tartar. Beat until soft peaks form and gradually add in sugar. Beat until stiff peaks form.
5. Add in 1/3 of meringue into each of the batters and mix well. Gently but quickly fold in the rest of the meringue in two additions. Tap the mixing bowls to release trapped air.
6. Pour the black batter into the chiffon tin slowly and level it with a spatula. Pour white batter over black batter. Bake for 15 minutes then lower temperature to 150 degrees Celsius and bake for another 20 minutes.
7. Immediately overturn to cool and remove from tin by running a thin spatula around the sides and bottom of the tin. I used to love unmoulding by hand but for really soft cakes using a spatula may be better.
8. Cut the cake (as though you are going to serve it) into thick slices. Use a bear shaped cutter to cut out the white bear heads. Use a short length of straw to cut out the eyes and nose.  You may find it helpful to use a paper template to mark out the positions of the eyes and nose. Use the straw to cut out black circles to stuff into the white bear head to form the face. Repeat for all slices of cake.

9. Proceed to prepare batter for matcha cake. I used Susanne's recipe so I won't be typing it out here. I just halved the recipe accordingly to 2 yolks and 3 whites. I just portioned out 1tsp of egg yolk batter for each color, brown and green to make the trees. I  steam baked those in silicone ice cube trays for about 20minutes at 150 degrees Celsius. About 3 tbs of meringue was used for each of the colored batter.
10. Fill the chiffon tin with matcha batter till about 1/4 - 1/3 full. Place the bear heads upside down in a tight ring. Carefully spoon the batter around the sides of the bears and then over the bears to cover them. Run a chopstick around the sides of the tin (inner and outer sides) to ensure there are no trapped bubbles. Tapping the tin may shift the bears.
11. Steam bake the cake at 150 degrees Celsius for 40 minutes. Overturn immediately to cool. Unmould when cooled completely.

12. Shape the little green and brown cakes into tree shapes using round cookie cutter and stick them into the chiffon cake with toothpicks to make a little forest.
13. Cut the cake and enjoy :).

I gave some away to neighbors and they said that the cake is really cute and nice. I found the soft texture much better than my hidden ladybugs bake although slightly drier than some of my super moist chiffon bakes (even without steam baking). This could be due to the longer exposure of parts when cutting out the bears.

With love,
Phay Shing

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"Hidden Eggs Garden Hunt" Pandan Chiffon Cakes

A dear friend of mine wanted to give her kids a nice school treat when she was going to do craft with them, so she asked me to bake something related. I decided to do a fun "hidden eggs in the garden" theme to delight the kids with hidden eggs in the chiffon cake. Flower designs in the pandan chiffon would be used to represent the garden.

These cakes took me about 2 days to finish. Using the vanilla layer cake recipe from my earlier post Hidden Rainbow Strawberry Chiffon for Baby Shower, I baked 4 trays of 10"x10" layer cakes with piped or layering designs of different colours. After that, I used egg-shaped and flower cookie cutters to cut out "eggs" and "flowers" for the cake (picture below).

Don't they make you smile? :)

These "eggs" and "flowers" were then baked into the pandan chiffon cake using the same method as my previous post Valentine's Day Hearts-in-all-directions Strawberry Chiffon Cake.

Before I baked my pandan chiffon, I did quite a bit of research into what makes a good pandan chiffon and finally decided on a recipe that incorporated ssb baker's (less cake flour - for moisture and softness), ellena guan's (more egg whites - for softness) and ieatishootipost's (salt and vanilla essence - for the extra flavour). I made sure to use fresh coconut milk and homemade pandan juice and paste from pandan leaves. I was pretty pleased with the soft. fragrant end result, so I thought I'll share the recipe :). Below is the recipe for plain pandan chiffon cake without patterns and hidden designs.

Pandan Chiffon Cake (for 17cm tin)
3 egg yolks
20g sugar
35g corn oil
13ml pandan juice
30ml coconut milk
¼ tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp (2.5ml) pandan paste
60g cake flour
A pinch of salt

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

Method:
1. Prepare fresh pandan juice by blending fresh pandan leaves (10 leaves cut into small pieces, omitting the tips) with 50 ml water. Strain with a sieve and press out all the liquid with a spoon.
2. Preheat oven at 160°C.
3. Beat egg yolks with sugar with whisk till pale yellow before stirring in oil, coconut milk and pandan juice. Add pandan paste and vanilla extract. Mix well.
4. Add in sieved flour and salt and whisk till no trace of flour found.
5. Meringue: Beat the egg whites with ¼ tsp cream of tartar till stiff peak, mixing in caster sugar in 2 additions.
6. Fold in the meringue gently into the batter 1/3 at a time.
7. Pour the batter into the chiffon tin from a height.  

8. Gently tap the tin on table 3x to remove air bubbles
9. Bake the cake for 15 min at 160°C then 35 min at 150°C.
10. Invert immediately once out of the oven to cool
11. Unmould after the cake is cool.

I had fun dressing up the cakes in my new boxes!

I was a little nervous on how the cakes would be received but thank God my friend said that the kids were delighted! She was also really encouraging and generous. I was also really happy that I managed to pack enough "eggs" to appear in every slice of the cake. From this bake, I learnt something about the size/curvature of the hidden objects as there were some small bubbles above "eggs" in some slices, something I did not observe for the hidden hearts or rainbows. Probably next time for larger and more curved objects, I need to bang the tin more to release the bubbles. This was probably my most complex and challenging bake thus far. 

I had enough leftover batter for one small cake, shaped to look like a cross on a hill, to remind the family about God's love displayed through Jesus' death on the cross for our sins.

1 John 4:10. "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins."

Happy Easter to all!

With love,

Susanne

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Matcha Azuki Ladybug Chiffon Cake with Hidden Ladybugs

Inspired by Susanne's Rainbow Themed Chiffon Cake with Hidden Rainbows, I gave some thought to how I can hide things in a chiffon cake other than simple shapes of cookie cut-outs, like my Matcha Azuki Sakura patterned Chiffon Cake with Hidden Hearts. This is more challenging than hiding things in cakes that have no holes in the middle. The whole project becomes an engineering problem :P. I gave my kids a few choices of what they wanted me to hide in a chiffon cake. They chose ladybugs! This is a challenge I do not want to undertake too often as it is time consuming and a little nerve wreaking since it's my first attempt to hide something other than simple cookie cutter cut-out shapes. And because I have to cook, do housework, take care of the kids as well, I (unwisely) left the cut-out teeny bits of cake out in the open for more than an hour and in the fridge overnight. The resulting cake was drier and the hidden parts were not as soft as most of my other attempts but I was really happy and surprised that the hidden ladybugs showed up in quite a few of the slices when I thought this bake was doomed to fail!

I used a combination of piping design on chiffon tin and using another cake to create the ladybugs to make this cake. I took this chance to experiment with adding condensed milk into a Matcha cake as suggested by hubby because it reminds him of Hokkaido Matcha ice cream. First, I baked the Azuki flavored cake. On hindsight, I should have increased the portion of the recipe to 3 egg yolks as the bugs were a little too thin to handle easily. I chose the cooked dough method for this cake hoping that it would be more moist.

Ingredients:
Egg yolk batter
2 egg yolks (large, more than 65g)
20g Azuki bean paste (I used homemade one)
14g condensed milk
10g water
20g butter
36g cake flour, sifted
1/4 tsp baking powder (sifted together with flour)
Red and black gel food coloring

Meringue
3 egg whites
30g caster sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius. Line a 10x10" tin and a smaller tin (mine was approximately 5x8") with baking sheet.
2. Heat Azuki bean paste, condensed milk, water and butter over stove until butter melts. Add cake flour and baking powder in one addition and mix well until no trace of flour is seen.
3. Gradually stir in the egg yolks.
4. Divide the egg yolk batter into ratio of 3:1 by weight. Color the larger portion red and the smaller potion black.
5. Beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until foamy. Add cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.
6. Fold in the meringue into the egg yolk batters one third at a time, taking care to fold in quickly but gently. Pour the batters into the trays, bang them on the table a few times to release air bubbles and bake for 15-16 minutes.

7. After the cakes have cooled, use a round cutter (I used the largest medicine cup I have at home) to cut out the body of the ladybug, a smaller round cutter to cut out the head of the bugs (divide each circle into half), and a straw to cut out the spots on the bugs. This is really fiddly work and took me more than an hour to complete 28 bugs but aren't they cute?

The cakes dried out quite a bit since I left them out in the open in between too :( (busy with my younger kid). Ideally, the assembly should be done within a day to minimize the drying out of cakes but I left these bugs wrapped with cling wrapped and refrigerated overnight.

The main cake was baked in a 17cm chiffon tin with the following recipe:

Ingredients:
Egg yolk batter
3 egg yolks
32g Canola oil
30g condensed milk
40ml water
1/4 tsp vanilla essence
4g + 1/4 tsp Matcha powder (You should use more like 6g for a stronger tea flavor but I wanted a bigger color contrast between the leaves and the cake background)
64g cake flour (reserve 1/2 tsp from this batch)
1/2 tsp baking powder
Green and brown gel food coloring

Meringue
4 egg whites + 1 egg white
40g + 10g caster sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Steps:
1. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius.
2. Prepare the egg yolk batter by whisking the first 5 ingredients together in the order listed, taking time to whisk the egg yolks and oil together for a couple of minutes. Gradually whisk in sifted flour (64g minus 1/4 tsp), green tea powder (4g) and baking powder until no trace of flour can be seen.
3. Take 1 heaped teaspoonful of batter and add 1/4 tsp of sifted flour and 1/4 tsp of green tea powder and mix well. Add green and brown food coloring until a desired shade is reached.
4. Prepare 1 egg white worth of meringue using 10g of sugar and a pinch of cream of tartar. Add 4 heaped tablespoons of meringue into the colored egg yolk batter in 3 additions. Put the batter into a piping bag with a Wilton No.5 tip and pipe the four-leaf clover onto the tin with 2 ladybugs on it. Make sure that the piped pattern is thick enough for good transfer of pattern onto the main cake. Otherwise it will be left on the cake tin. Bake for 2 minutes or until the batter seems dry.
5. Prepare the meringue for the main batter using 4 egg whites, the rest of the caster sugar and cream of tartar. Fold the meringue into the main egg yolk batter in 3 additions and cover the leaf and ladybugs pattern with enough batter to just cover.
6. Arrange the ladybugs in a ring and fill the cake tin with the rest of the batter. I took longer than I would have liked to do this step as the bugs were really thin and hard to handle. I was afraid of deflating the egg whites because of this! Bang the cake tin on the table a few times to release any trapped air and bake for 15 minutes before reducing the temperature to 150 degrees Celsius and baking for another 25-30 minutes.
7. Immediately invert the chiffon tin after removing from the oven and cool completely before gently unmoulding by hand.

The Matcha portion of the cake turned out nicely soft and fluffy despite a long delay before sending the cake into the oven but the bugs were really hard and dry by regular chiffon standards. I steamed the cake before eating it and it helps. My kids loved the steamed cake with condensed milk (since I have lots left) mixed with some red bean paste. *Phew* at least I don't have to throw away this bake! It's wonderful to see the smiles on their faces when they see the hidden bugs too :). After this experience I have a better idea of what to do and what NOT to do when making chiffon cakes with hidden surprises. For now I am taking a break from this type of bake until inspiration strikes, I am feeling brave or someone requests for it :P.

With love,
Phay Shing

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