'Milk and Mocha Bear' Brown Butter Chiffon Cake with Mocha Jelly

 Here's the cake that my Milk and Mocha bear plushiemallows landed on! 

The little pink hearts are marshmallows too!

I settled on making a butter chiffon cake because the thought of having a heavy, rich butter cake after a heavy birthday celebration meal just doesn't go down well. But to incorporate that buttery aroma without the heaviness on the stomach, I decided to use brown butter instead of regular butter. The middle of the cake is filled with delicious mocha jelly too to complement the butter sponge 😊.

Brown butter chiffon cake

Butter chiffon cake recipe is adapted from Apron's Youtube video. I took the liberty of using browned butter and brushing on some browned butter after baking to impart a stronger and richer butter aroma, while retaining the light chiffon cake texture. The eggs I used were smaller than Apron's.

Ingredients (for one 15cm and one 17cm tube pans):

Egg yolk batter
7 egg yolks

140g milk

105g brown butter*

200g cake flour

10g cornflour

1/2 tsp Himalayan pink salt

1 tsp Kahlua coffee liqueur (may replace with vanilla extract)

Meringue

7 egg whites

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

150g caster sugar

* Start off with more butter than you need to make brown butter as the water content evaporates off as you cook the butter. I use more butter too as the excess can be used to brush the baked cakes for an even more buttery flavour. I used about 180g of unsalted butter to make the brown butter. There may be leftovers after brushing the cakes.  You may refer to this post on how to make brown butter.

Scale down to 4 egg portion recipe for 17cm chiffon tin if using smaller eggs, and 3 egg portion recipe for 15cm chiffon tin. If using jumbo eggs, use 3 egg portion recipe for 17cm chiffon tin and 2 egg portion recipe for 15cm chiffon tin.

Steps:

1. Prepare brown butter and add to milk. 

2. Preheat oven to 170C, top and bottom heat only. I placed a tray of water at oven base to steam bake but you may leave it out.

3. Make egg yolk batter. Whisk egg yolks until smooth, pale and thick. Gradually add butter-milk mixture and whisk until well combined. Add salt and coffee liqueur or vanilla and whisk until combined. Gradually sift in flours and whisk until no trace of flour is seen.

4. Prepare meringue. In a clean metal bowl, beat egg whites with cream of tartar until firm peaks or just reach stiff peak, gradually adding sugar once egg whites are foamy. Use medium speed to slowly build up the meringue.

5. Quickly but gently fold meringue into yolk batter in three additions. Pour into chiffon tins. 

6. Bake for 15min. Reduce temperature to 150C and bake for another 45min. If skewer doesn't come out clean, bake for another 10-20min at 140C. Steam baking extends the baking time needed. Note that each oven is different so adjust

baking temperature and time accordingly. Invert immediately to cool completely before unmoulding by hand. Store in airtight container until ready to assemble or consume.

Dark chocolate ganache

This was applied to the inner cylindrical walls of the chiffon cake to act as a barrier for the mocha jelly.

Ingredients:

50g dark chocolate couverture

15g milk

Steps:

1. Heat chocolate and milk in microwave oven until warm. 

2. Leave it to sit a minute before stirring in one direction until melted and smooth.

3. Coat the insides of the chiffon cakes using a small spatula. Reserve the extra ganache for making mocha jelly.

Mocha jelly

Ingredients:

50g ice cold water

9g fish gelatin powder (you may use sheets or bovine/porcine sources)

16g erythritol or caster sugar (adjust amount to taste)

140g hot water

1 tbs (4g) instant coffee powder

50g warm milk

Dark chocolate ganache leftover from previous part

Steps:

1. Bloom gelatin by scattering gelatin in ice water. Set aside for at least 10 min 

2. Dissolve instant coffee and sugar in hot water.

3. Add bloomed gelatin to the hot coffee. Stir to melt the gelatin. 

4. Add milk a little at a time to remaining ganache, stirring until well mixed with each addition. 

5. Gradually add the coffee mix to the ganache and stir to mix well with each addition. 

6. Pour mocha jelly into the cavities of the cakes. I topped it off with a thin layer of ganache (I made more) but it's not necessary. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours or until set.

Buffalo check patterned picnic mat and mocha decorations

Ingredients:

2 egg yolks

20g oil

30g milk

45g cake flour

white and teal gel food coloring

1/8 tsp coffee emulsion (emulco)

1/8 tsp chocolate emulsion

2 egg whites

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

40g caster sugar

Steps:

Follow above but divide egg yolk batter and meringue into ratio of 1:1:2:2 for white: dark teal: light teal : mocha. Add chocolate and coffee emulcos for the mocha colour/flavour. 

Prepare one pan for the picnic mat and another pan for the mocha decorations. I prefer lining my trays with teflon sheets but you may use parchment paper too. 

As the cakes are very thin, bake for only 8-10min. Preheat oven to 180C but reduce temperature to 170C once tray is in. Use top and bottom heat without fan to bake.

Added a small dip of coffee emulco for dark teal to make it appear less neon bright.

Just to share some pictures...

Batter for the picnic mat. Note that it should be glossy, smooth and able to hold its shape.

Piped batter for picnic mat

Mocha decorations and picnic mat added to brown butter chiffon cake with mocha jelly!

Couldn't resist squishing the plushiemallows again!

As hubby came down with Covid the day before we were supposed to meet as a family for a birthday meal, I could only pass the cakes to my dad and he helped me take a photo of a slice of the cake. Both mum and dad said it is delicious!

I made another cake for my uncle too since he was the one who requested for butter cake but he just wanted plain sponge. I took the liberty of brushing his cake with more brown butter to impart more butter flavour.

Does this look inviting?

with lots of love,

Phay Shing

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Milk and Mocha Bear Plushiemallows

Some bakes come about because I did a "reverse engineering" type of thought process. I was clueless about what to bake for my dad's and uncle's birthdays so I asked them what type/flavour of cake they would like. As usual my dad just said anything will do. Uncle said he wanted butter cake. My mind went..."Hmm...butter cakes can be quite rich so coffee may complement it well. Or perhaps mocha...Ooo Mocha bear!...and Milk bear!"

So here they are 😊

It was a good excuse to practice my templating method for making character marshmallows. I am excited to announce that I will be writing the 7th book in our Creative Baking series, Deco Marshmallows some time next year! My schedule is pretty full this year so I can only do some limited writing or brainstorming, while I clear my schedule of classes so I can concentrate on writing and making marshmallows for the book. This templating technique is much better than the traditional piping on bed of cornstarch method as you can see the outlines to pipe clearly, which is great for those who are artistically challenged. It also uses a lot less cornstarch and does not have the problem that piping on bed of cornstarch has --- the marshmallow may stick to the piping tip/bag instead of the baking tray as you pipe so you need to start over when that happens.

Just to share some photos of the piped marshmallows before they were dusted!

Milk bear

Mocha bear

While making Milk was a breeze and I successfully did it in one try, Mocha was challenging and it took me 3 tries. That's because I tried to flavour/colour it mocha. Vanilla base is easy but addition of flavourings other than extracts can be tricky as it messes with the consistency sometimes. I added instant coffee and cocoa powder at first but seems like due to the high fat content of the cocoa powder I am using, it is problematic for the meringue. Thank God I managed it eventually!

Recording the recipe for Mocha marshmallow for reference in case I forget!

Ingredients:

50g egg whites

130g caster sugar

54g light corn syrup

40g water

1/8 tsp salt

6g fish gelatin powder (may use other sources. This is the only one where different religious groups have no issues with).

1/2 tsp Kahlua coffee liqueur

23g ice water

1/2 tsp chocolate emulsion (emulco)

1/2 tsp coffee emulsion (emulco)

White, orange, yellow, espresso gel colouring as needed

Steps:

You may refer to this post as reference. I tweaked it so I don't follow it exactly now although I started out following it. I can't reveal too much technical details due to the book as I have a contract to honor with the publisher. For this flavour, I brought the syrup temperature higher to about 115C. 

Here's a video of Milk and Mocha in squishy action!

Don't worry about the wrinkles on the bear faces. They were there because I squeezed a little too hard 😅. The wrinkles disappear after letting the marshmallows rest for several seconds more, as you can see in my next post for using these bears as cake decoration! 

with lots of love,

Phay Shing

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