Black Sesame Panda Bread

I am always on a quest to look for good recipes to make soft and fluffy bread and I think I found one from The Baking Bee with the Breadtalk pork floss bun recipe. I copied the recipe with some minor changes since I don't have milk powder at home. I also reduced the amount of sugar as I prefer bakes that are less sweet. Instead of a plain loaf, I decided to have some fun and hide a panda face in it ;). See the panda staring at you from every slice!

The bread remains very soft even after storing at room temperature for 2 days! This is quite a feat since we don't add bread improver for home baking. I decided to flavor a portion of the dough with store bought black sesame powder to create the panda face.

Sponge Dough
Yeast - 1 Tsp
Water - 1 Tbsp
Bread Flour - 210g
Sugar - 1/4 Tbsp
Cold Water - 118g

1. Mix yeast with water and let it rest for 10 minutes.
2. Mix the above with the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl to form a dough.
3. Cover with cling wrap and let it rest at room temperature (in Singapore it's anywhere from 25-30 degrees Celsius) for 2 and 1/2 hours.

Main Dough (to be added to the sponge dough above)
Plain Flour - 90g
Yeast - 1/2 Tsp
Sugar - 35g
Salt - 3 g
Fresh milk - 20g
Egg - 1/2 (about 30g) (balance of egg can be used to brush on bread before baking)
Butter - 30g

1. Add sugar, salt and eggs to the sponge dough.
2. Mix in the flour, yeast and milk and knead until well combined. You may use the bread maker or hand knead. If you are hand kneading, you may need to throw the dough on your work surface and use a bench scraper as the dough is very sticky. I hand kneaded this and it took me about 5 minutes.
3. Add in the butter and knead to form an elastic dough. I hand kneaded the dough for about 20 minutes after the butter was added, in order for the dough to pass the windowpane test. If you are using a bread maker, use the dough function, follow the above sequence of adding  ingredients and let the machine knead to form an elastic dough.
4. Weigh out 85g of dough and knead 15g of black sesame powder* into it while keeping the rest of the dough covered with cling wrap. Add plain flour to the dough while incorporating the black sesame powder bit by bit if it gets too sticky to handle and shape. Try to work quickly as the yeast will continue to work through the dough while you are shaping.
5. Portion the black dough for the features of the panda face accordingly:

Eyes: 12g each

Nose: 6g

Ears: 9g each

Outline of face: the rest of the black sesame dough (about 52g)

6. Assemble the panda bread according to the Playdoh example below. I had to work fast so I couldn't take photos of each step with actual bread dough:

7. Line a loaf pan with baking sheet and place the assembled dough in it. Cover loosely with cling wrap and let it proof for 45 minutes.
8. Brush with egg wash and scatter some black sesame seeds on top.

9.  Bake at 170 degrees Celsius for 30-35 minutes.

10. Cool completely on a wire rack before slicing the loaf.

Look at how soft and fluffy the bread is!

* I bought the black sesame powder from Cold Storage which already has sugar added. Alternatively, you can make your own black sesame powder by toasting black sesame seeds in a toaster oven or frying pan, grinding it in a food processor or by using mortar and pestle, and then sifting the ground sesame.

With love,

Phay Shing

 

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Fish Raspberry and Vanilla Ogura Cupcakes -- New Batter Separation Technique

While Susanne gets most of her inspiration from dreams,  I get mine from daydreaming while doing mundane housework :p. I suddenly thought that it would be great if someone came up with a separator for separating different flavors of cupcake batters that is flexible, takes on the contour of the mould, yet sturdy enough to stand up in the mould and most importantly, CHEAP and CAN BE EASILY MADE AT HOME! I also wanted to try the very much raved ogura cake that is even softer than regular chiffon and melts in your mouth. I don't have a square pan of the right size so I made my first attempt using my trusty glass bowls and a small disposable aluminum tray that I have at home. Since there's lots of fresh raspberries in my fridge, I decided to make this bake raspberry flavored.  Presenting my raspberry and vanilla ogura fishes! *Bloop bloop*

As this type of cake is new to me, I decided to follow closely a similar recipe. I wasn't able to find a raspberry ogura cake recipe so I adapted from Ann Low's orange ogura cake. The DIY batter separator I used is made from fondant that is hand-shaped until a desired shape is reached and cling wrapped. Very simple idea but it works! You my use your kids' play dough or if your are not comfortable using inedible stuff in close contact with food, you can make your own edible dough. I happened to have fondant sitting in my fridge so I used it. I find the tips offered by Kitchen Tigress very helpful for newbies like me.

Ingredients (makes 6 ogura fishes):
4 egg yolks + 1 whole egg (60g each)
40g vegetable oil (I used canola oil)
30g fresh raspberry puree (press fresh raspberries through a sieve, discard the seeds)
35g + 6g fresh milk
Pinches of salt
55g cake flour (divided into two portions and sifted)
1/2 tsp vanilla essence 
Red gel food coloring (optional)

150g egg white (about 4 eggs)
1/5 tsp cream of tartar
60g caster sugar

Steps:
1. Line bottom of tray with baking sheet. As mine was a disposable type of tray, I lined the sides as well to extend the height of my shallow 5 x 8" tray. I left my glass bowls unlined and ungreased. Shape your batter separator (fondant/ playdoh/ edible dough) according to the contour of the glass bowl such that it divides the circle into approximately 1:2 ratio. Wrap your separator with cling wrap with as little creases as possible. Wash and dry your glass bowl again as it is most likely stained during the shaping process.
2. Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius with boiling water at bottom most rack of the oven.
3. Whisk egg yolks, egg and vegetable oil until frothy. Divide mixture into 2 equal portions. Whisk in raspberry puree and 6g of fresh milk into one portion, and 35g of milk and vanilla essence into the other. Add in sifted flour and a pinch of salt into both portions gradually so as not to get lumps of flour in the mixture. You may wish to add a teeny bit of red coloring to brighten up the raspberry batter but it's optional.
4. Prepare the meringue. Beat egg whites with an electric mixer until foamy. Add cream of tartar (I used a bit less this time as raspberry is acidic) and beat until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar and whisk until firm peaks form, i.e. just before stiff peaks and the peak flops over a little.
5. Fold in 1/3 of the meringue into each of the egg yolk batters until no trace of egg whites can be seen. Fold in the remaining meringue in two additions. Tap the mixing bowls a few times to release any trapped air bubbles.
6. Place the separator in a glass bowl such that it divides the circle into approximately 1:2 ratio. Make sure that the separator follows the contour of the bowl to prevent any seepage of batter. Use a tablespoon to spoon the vanilla batter into the smaller segment and the raspberry batter into the larger segment. Fill the bowls until about 1/2-2/3 full. Carefully lift up the separator and wipe clean with paper towels before filling another bowl.

7. Pour the remaining vanilla and raspberry (if any left) batter into the metal tray slowly to allow any trapped air bubbles to be popped.
8. Put the bowls and tray in the oven and reduce the temperature to 150 degrees Celsius. Steam bake for 40 minutes. Remove and invert the bowls and tray onto wire rack to cool.
9. Carefully unmould the cakes from the glass bowls when they have cooled completely using a combination of hand and spatula/ small metal spoon. The cakes are really soft so this can be quite challenging so do it slowly. Remove the baking sheet from the rectangular cake after 10 minutes of cooling on the rack and continue to let it cool.

Here are my freshly unmoulded cakes baked in glass bowls.

Yes I made a mistake when pouring batter into one of the bowls :P. I dented most of the cakes during unmoulding as they are really soft!

And now for the Ogura cake softness test that everyone does....

I think I pass :P.

I used a heart shape cookie cutter for the fish tail, a letter "M" cookie cutter and triangle cookie cutter for the fins and free hand cut for the lips (hubby thinks the lips make the fish very cute and funny). I used store-bought "eye candies" for the fish eyes. Everything is "glued" on using royal icing (the just-add-water type). Here's my fishy prototype...

Many of my creations are unplanned and I come up with the designs as I go along. The fish parts are one example :). Here's a peek at the inside of a fish...

Very fine textured, soft and melts in your mouth! Everyone loved it! Good things must share so I packed away 4 fish to 2 neighbors.

They loved it too although one neighbor did find the raspberry one a little sour but still nice. You may have to increase the amount of sugar in the meringue if you have a sweet tooth but I personally prefer food that is not too sweet.

Overall I am happy with this bake and will definitely bake ogura cake again with other flavors and more exciting designs using the DIY batter separator :).

With love,

Phay Shing

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Turtle Matcha Ogura Cakes

Having been won over by the ultra soft and flexible ogura cake, I had the sudden inspiration to make ogura turtles to delight my kids! Kitchen Tigress's post on ogura cakes is a must-read before trying! It has lots of useful tips.

I pre-baked a 9-inch cake according to the recipe from matcha ogura cake and saved 1/3 of the cake for creating the turtle patterns (alternatively, you can use the scaled-down recipe below for a 6-inch tray). The lighter-coloured portion of the turtle uses the same matcha ogura cake recipe but scaled down to 2 eggs and only 1/4 tsp matcha powder to achieve the contrasting colours. I lowered the baking temperature to 150°C to reduce browning so that the turtle patterns could be seen.

Ingredients (makes three 4-inch round bowls)
2 egg yolks + 1/3 whole egg
22g corn oil
27ml milk
22g cake flour
1/12 tsp salt
1/4 tsp matcha in 10 ml hot water

2 egg whites
25g castor sugar
1/6 tsp cream of tartar

Method
1. Pre-cut the dark green matcha ogura cake into squares and arrange at the bottom of the round bowls.
2. 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).
3. Whisk egg yolks, whole egg, corn oil, milk, salt and matcha tea until well combined.
4. Sift in flour and stir till smooth batter formed.
5. Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until foamy using an electric whisk. Add in sugar in 2 additions and beat until firm peaks are formed. The peak formed doesn't flop over but it's not overly stiff either.
6. Fold in 1/3 of the beaten whites into matcha batter and mix evenly. Pour into balanced whites and fold evenly.
7. Pour batter into a 3 glass bowls till 1/2-2/3 full. Bang on the counter top 3 times each side to get rid of big air bubbles (top left image on picture below).
8. Steam bake at 150°C for 40 min or when skewer comes out clean.
9. Remove from oven and invert immediately on cooling rack (top right image on picture below).
10. Unmould when cakes have cooled completely.

11. Carve out the turtle head, limbs and tail from the dark green matcha cake using a butter knife (bottom image).

12. Melt compound white chocolate and apply it on the different parts to "glue" them together (I used candy eyes, they work great but run after one day).

You can use the following recipe for Matcha ogura for a 9-inch square pan (same recipe, triple all ingredients). See my original post.

Ingredients
6 egg yolks + 1 whole egg
65g corn oil
80ml milk
65g cake flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp matcha in 30ml hot water

6 egg whites
75g castor sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Method
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. Whisk egg yolks, whole egg, corn oil, milk, salt and matcha tea until well combined.

3. Sift in flour and stir till smooth batter formed.

4. Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until foamy using an electric whisk. Add in sugar in 2 additions and beat until firm peaks are formed. The peak formed doesn't flop over but it's not overly stiff either.

5. Fold in 1/3 of the beaten whites into matcha batter and mix evenly. Pour into balanced whites and fold evenly.

6. Pour batter into a baking paper-lined (only at the bottom) 9" square pan. Bang the tin on the counter top 3 times each side to get rid of big air bubbles.

7. Steam bake at 160°C for 55-60 min or when skewer comes out clean.

8. Remove from oven and invert immediately on cooling rack for 10 min. Unmould, peel off baking paper and cool completely.


Useful notes:
*Some recommend baking at 160°C for 40 mins then reducing temperature to 140°C for 25+ mins to prevent cracks.
*It is important not to overfill the tin, leaving about 1 inch from the top.
*Steam baking helps to prevent cracks so ensure sufficient boiling water in the bottom pan.
*Do not overwhip the meringue for smooth fine pores in your ogura.


I was thrilled my daughter's first response was "wah!" and the cake was so soft and melt-in-the-mouth, you could really tell the difference from chiffons! This is my first "fun" loving creation with ogura cakes!

With love,

Susanne

The Creative chiffon cake books actually feature some ogura recipes eg the Froggy Pandan Ogura cakes.

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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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Matcha Ogura Cake

I fell in love with the ogura cake ever since I saw Shar's post on milo ogura cake. The name belies its origins from a bakery chain in Batu Pahat. The story tells about Kak Faridah (who lived in Batu Pahat) pining for her Japanese abang, Ogura-san (who died tragically but Kak Faridah didn't know that) and she baked a "xiang si cake" for him.

Story aside, the Kitchen Tigress's post on ogura cakes is a must-read before trying! It has lots of useful tips. The recipe is used is adapted from Food@Home Sweet Home and Peng's kitchen.

Ingredients
6 egg yolks + 1 whole egg
65g corn oil
80ml milk
65g cake flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp matcha in 30ml hot water

6 egg whites
75g castor sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Method
1. Preheat oven to 160^oC. Prepare a tray of water at the bottom of the oven (I used the lowest rack to bake the cake).

2. Whisk egg yolks, whole egg, corn oil, milk, salt and matcha tea until well combined.

3. Sift in flour and stir till smooth batter formed.

4. Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until foamy using an electric whisk. Add in sugar in 2 additions and beat until firm peaks are formed. The peak formed doesn't flop over but it's not overly stiff either.

5. Fold in 1/3 of the beaten whites into matcha batter and mix evenly. Pour into balanced whites and fold evenly.

6. Pour batter into a baking paper-lined (only at the bottom) 9" square pan. Bang the tin on the counter top 3 times each side to get rid of big air bubbles. 

7. Steam bake at 160^oC for 55-60 min or when skewer comes out clean.

8. Remove from oven and invert immediately on cooling rack for 10 min. Unmould, peel off baking paper and cool completely.

Useful notes:

*Some recommend baking at 160^oC for 40 mins then reducing temperature to 140^oC for 25+ mins to prevent cracks.

*It is important not to overfill the tin, leaving about 1 inch from the top.

*Steam baking helps to prevent cracks so ensure sufficient boiling water in the bottom pan.

*I may have overwhipped the meringue slightly as the pores are quite big and not as fine as it should be.


I think I'm in love with the cake! It's truly so soft, moist, bendable and addictive!

With love,

Susanne

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Calico and Striped Cat Chiffon Cupcakes

Those who know that I like cats will be wondering what took me so long to make cat shaped cakes (Hello Kitty is not counted)! These calico and striped kitties turned out looking more Japanese than I expected and Susanne's first response was "Kawaii!" (why am I not surprised :P).

The patterns on the cats are made using the double-baked technique that Susanne and I have been using for a few of our bakes. I combined this technique and the ear-shaping technique that I used for my panda and teddy bear cupcakes to create these cats who look like they are about to break out in Japanese any time. It's my first time playing around with homemade marshmellow fondant too to make the features on the cats' faces.

I began by baking a cake for the brown and black patches/ stripes using chocolate and vanilla flavoured yoghurt chiffon. I chose to use the cooked dough method, yoghurt and butter as key ingredients to keep the cake moist as it has to go through baking twice. The portion for this was too much but I don't have a smaller pan suitable for baking a flat cake so I made a 10x10" one.

Recipe for chocolate and vanilla yoghurt chiffon cake:

Egg yolk batter for chocolate yoghurt cake
1 egg yolk (I use large eggs that are at least 65g)
14g plain yoghurt
6g cocoa powder
9g hot water
10g unsalted butter
18g cake flour, sifted
1/8 tsp baking powder (sift together with cake flour)

Egg yolk batter for vanilla yoghurt cake
1 egg yolk
22g plain yoghurt
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
10g butter
18g cake flour, sifted
1/2 tsp lemon zest
Black gel food coloring

Meringue
3 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
32g caster sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius. Line a 10x10" pan with baking sheet.
2. Prepare the chocolate egg yolk batter. Make a chocolate paste by combining the cocoa powder and hot water in a small saucepan. Add yoghurt and butter to it and heat it over the stove until butter melts. Remove from heat. Add the sifted flour and baking powder in one addition and stir until well combined. Gradually add in egg yolk and mix until well combined. Transfer the egg yolk batter into another bowl.
3. Prepare the vanilla egg yolk batter. Heat yoghurt, butter and vanilla essence over stove until butter melts. Add in sifted flour and stir until well combined. Gradually add in egg yolk and mix until well combined. Fold in the lemon zest and add black food coloring until a desired shade is reached. Transfer the egg yolk batter into another bowl.
4. Prepare the meringue. Beat egg whites in a clean metal bowl with an electric mixer until foamy. Add in cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks are formed. Gradually add in the sugar and beat until stiff peaks are formed and the bowl can be overturned without the meringue falling out.
5. Fold in 1/3 of the meringue into each of the egg yolk batters. Gently but quickly fold in the rest of the meringue in two additions until no trace of egg whites can be seen.
6. Pour the batters into the cake tin and bang a few times on the table to release any trapped air. Bake for 15-16 minutes and cool completely before cutting out the patches and stripes. My cake looks like this:

I baked this cake the day before so as not to stress myself out, kept the cake tightly cling wrapped and refrigerated. I used a large round cookie cutter to cut out circle from each color and divided the circle into thirds. I also cut some strips of brown cake for the striped cat.

Next, I prepared the main batter for the cat face.

Ingredients:
2 egg yolks
44g plain yoghurt
1 tsp vanilla essence
20g butter
36g cake flour, sifted
1tsp lemon zest

40g caster sugar
3 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

The steps for preparing the batter are the same as that for the black cake except that no food coloring is added. Add a tablespoon of batter into each small glass bowl before lining it with the patches/stripes, and then filling them up with more batter (about 3 tablespoons more).

Bake at 160 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes and 150 degrees Celsius for 17 minutes. Invert the glass bowls to cool if possible. I had to wait for a while for a couple of them to shrink a bit before overturning them as I filled the bowls to about 3/4 for some of them this time.

 Carefully unmould by hand. Use a metal teaspoon to help you if the cake is a bit stuck as these cakes are really soft and fragile and may tear easily. Freshly unmoulded cakes!

 Carefully shape the ears of the cats using a butter knife. They are starting to look cute already!

 Add in the facial features of the cats. You may use melted chocolate or royal icing to paint/ pipe the features on. I decided to try something new... marshmellow fondant! It's like playing with playdoh :P. Pardon my amateur attempt at freehand shaping of the fondant. Glad that the cakes are cute enough :). They also taste good. Hubby and the kids loved the cute, soft and fluffy cakes! Do serve them chilled as they taste better that way.

Since I had leftover egg yolks (two of them) and lots of brown and black cake, I decided to make some fruit, pastry cream and cake parfait!

I decided to be cheeky and made the tops "animal skin" designed ;).

With love,
Phay Shing

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Hidden Rainbow Strawberry Chiffon Cake for Baby Shower

I like to pattern chiffons because my family do not like fattening cream or fondant (they call sugar paste!). Since I love rainbows, I decided I would decorate my baby shower chiffon with rainbows. I had the sudden inspiration to do "hidden rainbows" in the cake from a dream I had during the second week of my confinement (I am forever dreaming of chiffons!). 

Be prepared to spend 6 hours for this cake! In between taking care of baby and the kids, I took 2 days just to bake this cake! It was truly a labour of love, but I'm happy with how it turned out! ^_^. 

I used the recipe from my earlier post Valentine's Day Hearts-in-all-directions Strawberry Chiffon Cake for the letters and chiffon cake (requires 3 hrs). This cake requires an additional step of making chiffon rainbows (another 3 hrs). I made them vanilla-flavoured for an extra flavour to be embedded in the cake. 

Chiffon rainbows (makes three 4-inch round bowls)
3 egg yolks
20g sugar
35g vegetable oil
45ml boiled water
60g cake flour
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Wilton colours for rainbow

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

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 160°C.
2. Beat egg yolks with sugar with whisk till foamy before stirring in oil, water and vanilla extract. Next add in sieved flour and whisk till no trace of flour found.
3. Divide egg yolk batter into 6. Add in a tiny dip of wilton colour and mix thoroughly.
4. Meringue: Beat the egg whites with ¼ tsp cream of tartar till stiff peak, mixing in caster sugar in 2 additions.

5. Divide the meringue into 6 and scoop into the egg yolk batter.

6. Gently but quickly fold in egg whites into the 6 egg yolk batters till well combined and scoop the cake batter into the round glass bowls (in the sequence of rainbow colours).

*For steps 5 and 6, must work quickly before meringue breaks down.

7. Bake the cakes in the preheated 160°C oven for 30-35 min.
8. Unmould as soon as the cakes are cool. 

9. Shape the cakes into rainbow arc shape using a baking sheet (roll it slightly) and slice it into rainbows.

Aren't the rainbows pretty? :)

After this, bake the layer cake and chiffon cake according to the recipe from my earlier post Valentine's Day Hearts-in-all-directions Strawberry Chiffon Cake. Lastly, the clouds are made by sifting icing sugar (or dessicated coconut if you prefer) onto the cake with a "cloud" template.

Isn't a slice pretty? :)

Thank God the experiment turned out well. The chiffon cake was extremely soft and light, and family commented it was very pretty on the outside! The best part was that the hidden rainbows came out really pretty when we sliced the cake open!

Happy 1 month to my little sweet baby Charissa :)

With loads of love,

Susanne

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Rainbow Themed Pandan Kaya Layer Cake

Susanne and I are really excited about our first big project together for Charissa's first month celebration! As Susanne really loves rainbows, we decided to make it rainbow themed. This is the first time we are making a cake for people we don't know too and we are very glad that it has been well received :). Presenting our 10x10" Rainbow Pandan Kaya Cake!

We used the recipe from my earlier post for Pandan Kaya chiffon cake but upsized it. This cake is made from two 10x10" pandan cakes using 2 egg yolks and 3 egg whites each, a separate black colored pandan cake using 1 egg yolk and 1.5 egg whites for the name "Charissa", and about 2 liters worth of pandan kaya fudge.

We baked the 2 uncolored pandan kaya cakes and 1 black cake 2 days before serving. Susanne has kindly offered to bake one plain and one colored cake despite still being in confinement. She used cookie cutters to cut out the letters for the name. We kept the cakes tightly cling wrapped and refrigerated until it is time to assemble the cakes and fudge.

I made the rainbow fudge using the following portion of ingredients:

(A)
143g coconut milk
75ml pandan water*
34g caster sugar
1/2 tsp agar powder

(B)
14g custard powder
75ml pandan water
A pinch of salt

Approximate weight of fudge for color portioning (I used gel food coloring)
Red: 70g
Orange: 60g
Yellow: 50g
Green: 40g
Blue: 35g
Purple: 30g

By the time I finished coloring the fudge, the consistency is about right for piping onto the cake tin. I had to keep stirring the fudge every few minutes to prevent it from setting as I worked on piping the rainbow. I drew a rainbow template on a baking sheet, cover it with another clean baking sheet and placed both sheets at the bottom of the 10 inch square tin. Here's how I piped, laid out the letters of the name, added in some heart shaped fudge decoration and layered the cake with alternate layers of fudge and cake.

Piping was done using a piping tip adapter without a tip because I realised the round opening of the adapter is just the right size (1cm) for piping the rainbow. I had to use a chopstick to pull the fudge a bit such that it fills the template nicely. The rainbow was refrigerated while I prepared the plain pandan kaya fudge using the following portion of ingredients:

(A)
955g coconut milk
500ml pandan water
225g sugar
1tbs + 3/4 tsp agar powder

(B)
94g custard powder
500ml pandan water
3/4 tsp green liquid food coloring
1/3 tsp yellow liquid food coloring
1/3 tsp salt

This portion of plain fudge was way too much and I had lots of leftover. I decided to err on the side of making too much than too little for this first attempt. In the future I would prepare 3/4 of the amount above. I placed the cake tin on top of reusable freezer packs to prevent the warm plain fudge from melting the rainbow as I layered the cake. Layering the cake was pretty tricky as the cakes were so soft and they were at risk of tearing. I was pretty relieved to have them in in more or less one piece :P. I poured the excess fudge into heart-shaped moulds and let them set for personal consumption.

After refrigerating for 2 hours, it was time to unmould the cake. *Nervous*

Eeks! Was my first response. Nice piping work and deco but it's WRINKLED! I was suspecting that that might happen as I lined the tin with baking sheets. Next time I should invest in some edible glue and glue the sheets down! I went ahead to add dessicated coconut for the clouds and the sides of the cake as I decided on how I should patch the cake. Doing up another batch of fudge to cover up the wrinkles was too time consuming so the first thought was, add dessicated coconut to the whole surface to cover up the wrinkles. Then I thought why not color the coconut flakes blue! As I was running out of time I just decided to go ahead and be gungho and experiment. I put some dessicated coconut in a ziplock bag and added about 1/4 tsp of blue liquid food coloring. I shook the bag until the flakes were more or less evenly colored and carefully covered the top surface of the cake with blue flakes.

*Phew* that doesn't look too bad although looks can be improved. I carefully packed this baby into a box with our very own sticker label....and keep my fingers crossed.

When I received the news that everyone loved the cake with it's right balance of flavours, I was really relieved (especially after the booboo with the wrinkles) and encouraged. Thank God that it turned out well! Susanne's hubby has kindly taken a photo of how the cake looks like inside:

And now I can enjoy the yummy leftover pandan kaya fudge, which I shared with my neighbors.

It's been a great learning experience for us and we are so glad to share our creation with others :).

We are submitting our post to Aspiring Bakers #40: Rainbow and Ombre Party! (March 2014) hosted by Cynthia of The Baking Biatch.

With love,
Phay Shing & Susanne

* I boiled 1.5L of water with 8 pandan leaves cut into 2cm strips for 5 minutes then set aside to cool.

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Osmanthus Macarons with Osmanthus Pastry Cream and Wolfberries

My successful attempt at making green tea macarons motivated me to try making macarons again, particularly tea flavored ones as the green tea macs were really yummy without being overly sweet. Just as matcha and azuki beans are a natural pair, osmanthus tea and wolfberries are often paired together too. I happen to have osmanthus tea leaves and dried wolfberries at home so I didn't wait to get started. Here's my round and flower-shaped osmanthus macarons with osmanthus pastry cream filling topped with succulent wolfberries! Had a busy day so I only did simple decoration on four macaron shells.

Most recipes you find from the internet for making tea flavored macarons involve grinding almond, icing sugar and dried tea leaves/flowers together. I don't have an appliance at home suitable for this step and I didn't want to risk the almond powder forming a paste during the grinding process so I resorted to a primitive but very effective method of making fine tea powder from osmanthus tea flowers!

I took 6g of osmanthus flowers, lay them out in a thin layer on a tray and toasted them at 100 degrees Celsius for half an hour. This is to dry the flowers completely. I poured the flowers into the mortar you see in the picture and pound away for a few minutes until I got tea powder. I sifted the powder with a fine sieve and put any dried flower bits that couldn't pass through the sieve back into the mortar and rework it for a couple of minutes until almost all the dried flower bits could pass through the fine sieve.

The recipe for making osmanthus macaron shells is exactly the same as that for matcha macarons except that you replace green tea powder with osmanthus tea powder. I added a teeny bit of yellow gel food coloring to the almond powder, icing sugar, egg white and tea powder mixture to bring some color to the final product. My mixture looks like this:

I was careful to turn up the speed of my stand mixer when pouring the syrup into the egg whites this time and it only took me 4.5 minutes to get a smooth and stiff meringue.

I am still trying to get the hang of gauging how much to fold during the macaronage stage and I think I may have overfolded a little this time as the feet of the macaron shells were smaller and some of the flower shaped ones had no feet! They still look great when piped onto the trays :P

I used a cookie cutter as the stencil to draw a template for piping the flower-shaped macarons. I used a similar piping technique as the one that I used for piping heart-shaped green tea macarons for these flower-shaped ones. I.e. Instead of filling the flower shapes on the template completely with batter, I "drew" the flowers by:
1. Position piping tip vertically over the center of a petal and squeeze the piping bag.
2. When the petal is almost filled (about 2mm away from the template border), drag the tip towards the center of the flower as you gradually release the pressure on your piping bag.
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 for all the other petals.

Filling the templates right up to the border will result in flower patterns that look like irregular shaped blobs.

Freshly baked macaron shells!

I decorated four macaron shells with some chopped wolfberries that have been soaked and patted dry with paper towels and two tiny osmanthus flowers for the round macs. I painted the tops of the shells with dilute royal icing sugar and stuck the decorations on. The royal icing sugar that I use is the just-add-water type.

Recipe for osmanthus pastry cream is adapted from here. I halved the recipe for my small portion of macarons and reduced the amount if sugar by a teaspoon or two. I also strained the pastry cream before transferring it into a bowl and covering it with cling wrap touching the surface of the pastry cream. It's my first time filling macarons with pastry cream and I love it for it's simplicity and the fact that it uses up the left over egg yolks from making the shells. After letting the pastry cream set for 4 hours, I filled the shells and topped the cream with dried wolfberries that have been soaked in osmanthus tea for 5-10 minutes and dried with paper towels. I didn't want to risk the juicy wolfberries thinning out the pastry cream so I didn't fold them in although that would have made the work easier.

We had some friends over at our house tonight and they enjoyed the macarons :). My younger kid loves it too although my elder one prefered the macs without the wolfberries (that kid thinks it's strange to put wolfberries in desserts). If you are a fan of osmanthus tea and wolfberry combination, this would be a wonderful sweet treat for you!

With love,
Phay Shing

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