Frozen Chiffon Cake

It's been Frozen cake mania for me. I made two Frozen chiffon cakes the previous week, one for my jc's bestie and another for my lovely mummy friend, and will have another two coming up, including one for my son. Yes his birthday is coming this week and he loves Frozen too! But so do I ;).

The side profile of the cake with the Frozen toppers:

The top view of the cake:

Similar to my previous Navy Stripes Chiffon Cake, I have used blue pea flowers to reduce the amount of blue coloring used, and here also reduced the amount of egg yolks by half (to 2 egg yolks with 5 egg whites) to obtain a whiter chiffon cake. I found it many many times easier to make 'waves' simulating the snow-capped mountains at the sides than straight lines in the Navy Stripes cake! Just need to scoop the batter into 'humps' without much care :D.

My snowflake cutters came in very useful this time. I had to manually cut snowflakes (from layer vanilla chiffon cake) in my previous Frozen cake which was incredibly difficult! The snowflakes cutters are really beautiful. I also made some white snow-covered Christmas trees to make the backdrop for the toppers. I had shared how to make chiffon Christmas trees before.

I also experimented with making sugar glass. I only made a small amount to try. They are really easy to make.

Easy Sugar Glass (from Pam's Party Tips - Elsa's Ice Candy)
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup
1/3 cup water
A pinch of salt
Blue pea flower extract (or blue food coloring)

1. Cook the sugar, syrup, and water on medium heat, stirring to make sure that all of the sugar dissolves.
2. Boil the sugar mixture until it reaches 300°C, or until it hardens into threads when a dropped into cold water.

3. Remove from the heat, and add a few drops of blue pea flower extract (or blue food coloring). 

4. Pour into a baking paper-lined baking tray. 

5. Allow to cool (picture below) and then break into pieces.

The blue sugar glass was meant for the backdrop of Olaf to contrast his white body, while the white Christmas trees for contrasting the blue dresses of Elsa and Anna.

Thank God my bestie and mummy friend both shared everyone loved the cakes!

I may also take this time to share that I may be blogging/writing less due to the demands of family (I have 3 young children), baking and blogging. It's been difficult juggling all three. However, I will continue to share my passion as and when I have the energy. Thanks for journeying with me the past year :).

With lots of love,

Susanne

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Lavendar Iced Gems

I have a request for Lavender flavoured iced gems along with other flavours of iced gems. Giving the Peppa pig series a break with this before resuming. Too many pig posts :p. Here's my all-natural lavendar gems without any artificial colouring or flavouring!

These are fragrant and crunchy, with a pleasant lavendar flavoured aftertaste that is not too strong (being hit by a soap box) or too mild.

The beauty about homemade iced gems is you can make about any flavour you can think of. I flavoured the milk used in the biscuit base by steeping dried lavendar flowers in hot milk, and by powderizing some dried flowers to add to the royal icing, in addition to using lavendar tea to make the icing.

The recipe and steps for these gems is almost the same as my earl grey gems. I only made a small batch as the requester wanted an assortment of gems. So feel free to double, triple or quadruple the recipe.

Ingredients (makes about 30 gems):
Biscuit base
35g plain flour
5g icing sugar
Pinch of salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
12g vegetable shortening
14g lavendar milk tea (steep 1 tbs dried flowers in 45ml of hot milk for 5 minutes. Sieve out the flowers and squeeze out as much milk as possible.)
1/8 tsp vanilla extract

Lavendar royal icing
1/4 tsp powdered dried lavendar, sifted (you may use mortar and pestle to grind half a tbs worth of dried flowers)
56g icing sugar
4g meringue powder
10-12g lavendar tea (steep 1tbs of dried lavendar flowers in 45ml of hot water for 5 minutes. Sieve out the flowers and squeeze out as much tea as possible)

 If you are unable to get hold of meringue powder, you may prepare royal icing using egg whites.  If you are concerned about using raw eggs, you may dry the iced biscuits in the oven at 90-100°C for half an hour to "cook" the egg whites as well as dry the icing.

Steps:
1. Add vanilla extract to the milk. Set aside to cool if milk is hot.

2. Preheat the oven to 170°C (fan mode).
Line baking tray with baking sheet.

3. Mix all dry ingredients together and sift into a large bowl. Rub in the shortening with your finger tips until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.

4. Gradually add in the milk until you can form a ball of dough. You won't need to use all 45ml of it. Roll it to thickness of about 3mm. Use a round cutter to cut out circles of about 2cm in diameter (or any size that you have).

5. Place the cut out dough on baking tray. They can be placed pretty close together as the dough will puff up and not expand much sideways. Press it down a little in the middle. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on tray for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Freshly baked!

6. Prepare the royal icing. Sift icing sugar, lavendar powder and meringue powder into the mixing bowl.  Use a hand whisk to mix the powders for a minute. Gradually add lavendar tea and whisk for about 5-6 minutes until the icing turns pale and opaque, and stiff peaks form. Add a bit more icing sugar if it is too runny and add a bit of tea if it is too dry. This quantity is too small to deploy an electric mixer so hand whisk will do.

7. Transfer the royal icing into  piping bag fitted with a star tip. Pipe the signature dollop of icing on each biscuit. Dry the iced biscuits in the oven at 70-80°C using the fan mode for half an hour or until the icing is dry. You may pipe extra icing onto the baking sheet beside the iced bicsuits on the same tray as a test to see if the icing is dry. If you can easily lift the icing off the baking sheet, it is dry. Let the biscuits cool completely before storing them in airtight container.

Icing lavendar and earl grey iced gems at the same time!

Unfortunately I didn't take a photo of these gems in a bottle. These little treats are lovely with a cup of lavendar tea!

With love
Phay Shing

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Peppa Pig Macarons with Raspberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream & Chocolate Ganache

This is the second in a series of Peppa pig themed bake. Here are my Peppa macarons with raspberry swiss meringue buttercream (smbc) and chocolate ganache!

Have to show the preassembled pieces to see the chocolate ganache...

After my Mickey mouse macaron bake, I was waiting for a chance to make fancy macs again! Honestly, I was pretty nervous as usual but glad that they turned out well!

In order to pipe the shape of Peppa pretty regularly, I placed a template under the baking sheet:

(Update 20/8/2015: checkout my video tutorial for macaronage and testing of batter consistency).

Macaron shells
Ingredients (makes about 30 macarons, 60 shells):
163g almond meal (preferably superfine)
163g icing sugar
60g water
163g caster sugar
2x65g egg whites (preferably aged. I aged for 4 days but this is optional.)
Pink gel food colouring
1/4 tsp Strawberry paste (optional)

Royal icing decorations:
30g Royal icing sugar (or 28g icing sugar mix with 2g meringue powder, sifted)
Water
Charcoal powder
Red gel food colouring

Steps:
1. Sift together icing sugar and almond meal in a large bowl. Add half of egg whites (65g) into the mixture and mix well until a thick paste forms. Add pink food colouring and strawberry paste until desired shade of pink is obtained (right photo below).

2. Place caster sugar and water in a small saucepan and bring to boil without stirring while beating the rest of the egg whites with and electric mixer until foamy. When syrup temperature reaches 105°C, increase speed of mixer but be careful not to let meringue go past soft peak stage. Reduce speed of mixer if need be. Once syrup reaches 115°C, remove saucepan from heat. Turn speed of mixer to high and slowly pour syrup down the side of the mixing bowl. Continue beating on high speed until Italian meringue cools and stiff glossy peaks form. About 10 minutes. See left picture below.

3. Fold the meringue into the almond mixture one third at a time, until the batter moves slowly when the bowl is tilted and is able to fall off the spatula in a continuous ribbon. Be careful not to overfold. I left about 1/4 cup of meringue unused as I felt that the consistency of the batter would be too runny if I used everything.

4. Portion out about 2 tablespoons of batter and colour it dark pink. It is ok to overfold this small batch. Transfer this into piping bag fitted with a tip that is about 3mm in diameter. Place about 3 tablespoons of light pink batter into a piping bag fitted with a Wilton #5 tip or any tip with 3mm opening. Place the rest of the batter into piping bag with 5-10mm tip. Pipe rounds for the base shells. Pipe Peppa by beginning with the head, followed by the snout. Pipe Peppa's ears with the small portion of batter and the rosy cheek.

A little tricky to pipe!

5. Tap the tray a few times to release any trapped air bubbles. Dry the macarons either in aircon room or oven. I had always dried my macaron shells in aircon room until I saw someone made beautiful ones with oven drying. I thought why not give it a shot! I dried mine at 60°C fan mode for about half an hour. Ideally, they should be baked once dry but I still have kids to take care of so I dried mine for a longer time than necessary. Oven drying is really much faster! I usually need to dry in aircon room for about 2 hours. Make sure that the shells are completely dry to touch with a finger before sending them into the oven to bake. Never bake sticky macaron shells! Mine always cracked or have no feet when I was impatient and sent them for baking when they were still a bit tacky to touch.

6. Bake in preheated oven at 130-140°C with the rack placed at lowest position for about 17-20 minutes. Let the shells cool on the tray for 5 minutes before removing them.

Freshly baked! Always happy to see feet!

7. Once the shells have cooled, proceed with drawing on the face. Prepare some royal icing that is of flooding consistency. Leave one portion white and colour the rest red and black. Pipe or paint on the facial features.

Finally done with shells!

Store in airtight container if you are not assembling yet. They can keep for up to two weeks in the fridge. But it is not necessary to refrigerate unassembled shells.

Raspberry SMBC
100g smbc*
20g raspberry puree

* Refer to this post on how to make the basic smbc

 Make raspberry puree by pressing fresh or frozen raspberries through a sieve. Gradually add to smbc and whisk until well combined.

You may make this in advance and freeze or refrigerate until it's time for assembly. Bring to room temperature and re-whip before using.

Chocolate ganache
136g milk or dark chocolate, finely chopped
7g unsalted butter, cut to small pieces, softened
95g whipping cream

1. Place chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl. Bring whipping cream to boil.

2. Pour cream onto chocolate and butter. Use a spatula to stir until chocolate is melted and smooth.

3. Leave the ganache to firm up for a couple of hours at room temperature. You will have leftover ganache. I made a slightly bigger batch to store some in the freezer for future use.

Assembly
1. Arrange the macaron pairs on a tray as shown in the second picture of this post. Place ganache and smbc in piping/ziplock bags with a corner snipped off.

2. Pipe a ring of smbc, followed by ganache in the centre on the round bottom shell.

3. Cover the macarons with Peppa shells.

4. Refrigerate at least overnight for flavours to develop. Let it sit out for 5-10minutes at room temperature before consuming if you prefer softer filling.

All packed and ready to party!

Update: checkout my next attempt at Peppa pig macarons along with three friends that join Peppa in my first attempt at making assorted macarons in one session :). I used natural source of pink food colouring for Peppa too!

With love,
Phay Shing

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Two Princesses 'Hidden Rainbow' Castle Chiffon Cake

This is a Princess Castle made for 2 princesses to live in! One princess stays in the polka dot towers while the other stays in the hearts towers. Everyday, they meet together in the main castle where a big beautiful rainbow resides! This is the tale of the two princesses and this is their dream castle =).

I had the great privilege to build the dream castle for my friend’s two princesses who dreamed of having this castle. The two little girls decided on the design of the swissroll towers as well as the details of the cake. One girl wanted a rainbow cake while the other didn’t want, hence we ended up with a hidden rainbow peeking out from the castle door. One of the princesses even wanted hidden m&m’s so I hid some colourful m&m’s under the main castle tower!

This Two Princess Castle Chiffon Cake is similar to my previous creation Princess Castle Chiffon Cake, except that this time I used Ochikeron’s decoroll recipe for the polka dot and hearts swissroll. In addition, I wrapped a Rainbow Chiffon Cake with a wall of vanilla chiffon layer cake cut with jagged edges.

It was one crazy cake to make! But a very special one!! I was really thankful that I pulled through and the two princesses were very happy (best reward at the end of the day)!!

Happy birthday to Charlotte and Chloe!!

With lots of love,
Susanne

PS: I have to thank dear Evon for lending me her silicone mats!! ♡

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PAW Patrol Chiffon Cake

This is another PAW Patrol Chiffon Cake for my lovely friend's son Cayden who likes PAW Patrol! The cartoon seems to be very popular among boys his age! My son likes it too :).

This is similar in concept and design as my previous Paw Patrol Orange Chiffon Cake except that this was a 9-inch and vanilla-flavored as I wanted to try a more cream colour scheme to get greater contrast. I also took the chance to try out the PAW logo. It is also a pinata cake with hidden marshmallows under the PAW crest!

There are dog bones running all over the sides of the cake. These were cut out from vanilla chiffon cake baked in layer trays using a bone cutter and attached on using melted marshmallows.

Happy belated birthday to Cayden!! How time flies!

With lots of love,
Susanne

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Peppa Pig Family & Friends Brown Sugar Cookies

This is the first of a series of Peppa pig themed birthday bake. Peppa and family cookie pops, Peppa pig door gift cookies and Peppa's friends as regular cookies!

That's not all... I made 20 Peppa door gifts...

That's less than half of them!

Five of each: Suzy sheep, Candy cat, Rebecca rabbit and Danny dog (iced a couple of days before the rest of the friends)...

All these took me a few days to complete!

The recipe for brown sugar cookies and royal icing is the same one that I have been using. I will just highlight some pointers and share some works-in-progress pictures of my hard work.


Making cookie base
As you can see, all the cookies are not standard shaped and you probably can't find a set of cookie cutters that are that specialized. I made my own template by printing out the figures to the size that I want and then tracing the outline on a rigid clear plastic sheet. Cut out the outline and I have a washable and reusable template :). Here are some pics of it in use which I didn't get to record in pictures for my Barney cookies...

I needed to use 3-4 times the quantity specified in the recipe link as this is quite a large batch of cookies.


Cookie pops
It's my first time making cookie pops but this concept is not new. In order to make these, I stacked 2 cookie cut-outs with an ice-cream stick sandwiched in between. Make sure that enough of the stick is sandwiched to ensure a good grip. Instead of rolling the dough to 5-6mm, I rolled each piece to 4mm such that the cookie is about 8mm thick when the two pieces are stacked together. Lightly press the two layers of cookie cut-outs together to ensure a good seal. Baking time is about 14-15 minutes for Peppa and George (small pops, ~1.5-2") and about 18-20 minutes for Daddy and Mummy pig (large pops, ~3"). Best gauge for baking time is still visual.  When the cookies are lightly browned, they are ready.


Icing the cookies
Nothing really new to mention here except that the rosy cheeks should be iced while the base icing of the head is still wet. Hubby commented that Danny dog looks like he has a large pimple on his face! I iced Danny before all the other friends and did my usual wait-till-bottom-icing-dries-before-icing-on-top. You can see the difference in the results from the earlier photos.

I used flooding consistency throughout. It helped to prepare a big batch of icing (royal icing made from about 400g of icing sugar) and refrigerate it. I kept the remaining icing in an airtight container with clingwrap touching the surface. Remember to stir the icing before use each time. Royal icing can be refrigerated for month but try to finish using as soon as you can as fresher icing is better to work with.

Fine features like the limbs and facial features were painted on using toothpick or a fine paintbrush. Charcoal and cocoa powder were used whenever there's black and brown involved. I only used a Wilton #2 tip for outline of the Peppa door gift. Everything else was just piped from a ziplock bag with a small hole cut at the corner.

Last but very important tip...always keep a damp paper towel handy to wipe off any mistakes! All these are iced by freehand drawing so there's bound to be some mistakes. Unless you are a superb artist, which I am not :p.

Here are some works-in-progress pictures...

Danny dog

Candy cat

Suzy sheep

Rebecca rabbit

Peppa and family

Peppa pig

Yes it takes an awful lot of patience to do this but the end result is rewarding :). If you don't have the patience to do all this artwork, do try this soft cookie recipe anyway because it is simple, not too sweet, yummy and stays yummy for a month in airtight container. I have mummy friends asking for the recipe for the cookies after their kids can't stop eating them.

Peppa with birthday message!

With love,
Phay Shing

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Rainbow Magic Custard Cake

Happy new year everyone! Just sharing my madcap experiment to see if I could create a Rainbow Magic Custard Cake!! It's something I had dreamed about but not sure whether possible (definitely not seen it anywhere yet!).

It was actually a simple bake for my birthday because for my birthday, I get a break from chiffons (though they are my first love)! =p

The magic custard cake is a magical cake that self-separates into 3 layers of different textures (chiffon, custard and kueh) on its own during baking.  Cheryl Lai, our dear baking taitai is our magic cake expert! It is A MUST to go to her wonderful blog to find out all you need to know about them!

I fell in love with it a few months back and experimented with the concept of a 'Triple Magic Custard Cake' a magic cake that self-separates into 3 colors and 3 flavors in addition to 3 textures. Here, I have used this concept to create a magic cake that can self-separate into Rainbow Colors!

This 6-color Rainbow Magic Custard Cake is actually made up of two 3-color Rainbow Magic Cakes. The two rainbow magic cakes are stacked on top of one another (top: red-orange-yellow, bottom: green-blue-purple). The vibrant purple is colored with blueberry powder (from iherb), the green with pandan paste, pink with strawberry paste, and yellow with lemon paste. The orange layer was created during the baking 'magic', and so was the bluish custard layer.

I was of course apprehensive about the final taste with such a myraid of flavors. But I was very surprised the rainbow magic cake got a super BIG THUMBS UP from the family and everyone who tried it! Somehow everything went well together. I think credit goes to the buttery and rich custard taste of the magic cake!

So here goes my fun experiment!

Rainbow Magic Custard Cake

Ingredients (makes a two 6-inch round trays) 

*I used disposable paper round baking trays from Daiso, but you can also use a baking tray with removable base and line with baking paper

56g unsalted butter
240g milk
8g water
2 egg yolks
56g plain flour
72g icing sugar

1/2 tsp blueberry powder
1/4 tsp lemon paste

1 egg white

7g caster sugar

1/4 cream of tartar

Strawberry paste (approx 1 tsp)

1 egg white

7g caster sugar

1/4 cream of tartar

Pandan paste (add to desired color, approx 1 tsp)

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 160°C.

2. Prepare two paper baking trays or for two removable base trays, grease and line the bottom with baking paper.

3. Melt the butter and set aside. Warm the milk to lukewarm and set aside.

4. Strawberry meringue: beat the egg white and cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Add in the castor sugar slowly in 2 additions and beat until peaks are stiff and glossy. Fold in the strawberry paste till well-incorporated (top row, left pic). Set aside.

5. Pandan meringue: beat the egg white and cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Add in the castor sugar slowly in 2 additions and beat until peaks are stiff and glossy. Fold in the pandan paste till well-incorporated (top row, right pic). Set aside.

6. In another bowl, beat the egg yolks and icing sugar (on medium-high) until light yellow and fluffy. Add in the melted butter and water and beat (on medium-low) for about 2 min until well incorporated. Sift in the flour and mix well on medium-low (second row, left pic).

7. Add in the milk slowly and gently beat on low (to prevent splashing as the batter is runny) until everything is well mixed. Batter will be runny (second row, right pic). Divide the batter into two (by weight, remember to weigh the weight of the empty bowl!).

8. To one batter, mix in lemon paste and continue to beat on low till well-mixed. Then fold in the strawberry meringue, 1/3 at a time, until no big curds are found (third row, left pic). --> for pink-orange-yellow magic cake.

9. To the other batter, mix in blueberry powder and continue to beat on low till well-mixed. Then fold in the pandan meringue, 1/3 at a time, until no big curds are found (third row, right pic). --> for green-blue-purple magic cake.

10. Pour the respective batter into the prepared pan and bake at 160ºC for 35-40 min until skewer comes clean. The centre of the cakes will be slightly jiggly.

11. Let the cakes cool totally before unmoulding.

Pink-orange-yellow magic cake: last row, left pic

Green-blue-purple magic cake: last row, right pic

12. Cut the cake (I used hearts cutter for mine) to reveal the layers. Then stack both together! They stick very well due to the soft chiffon layer on top!

Here's a close up of a cake slice after cutting it! Top to bottom: Pink chiffon, orange custard, yellow kueh, green chiffon, bluish purplish custard, deep purple kueh. My orange custard layer was very thin while my bluish purplish custard layer was super thick LOL! Oh well, can't control the magic so well but at least I got the colors separated!

The rainbow cake is by no means perfect but just sharing the fun experiment I had! My kids loved it and had fun blowing it out! =) Thank God for simple blessings like this. 

I have had so many blessings the past year and am so grateful for everything. Thanks for being part of it. May everyone have a 2015 filled with rainbows and blessings!

With lots of love,

Susanne 

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Mosaic Rainbow First Birthday Cake -- Milo & Horlicks Chiffon with Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Here's a colourful First birthday cake as my first post for a new year of creative bakes!

This is a four-layered Milo and Horlicks chiffon cake with extremely chocolatey Swiss meringue buttercream and vanilla chiffon cake as rainbow decorations. Most first birthday cakes are either polka dot or stripe themed so I thought why not make something more unique!

Vanilla layer cakes (for rainbow colours, makes two 9x12" flat layers or any pan of similar size)
Ingredients:
3 egg yolks
15g caster sugar
45g vegetable/ canola oil
45g water
1/3 tsp vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
60g cake flour
Gel food colouring

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

Steps:
1. Line the trays and preheat the oven to 160°C.

2.  Prepare the egg yolk batter. Whisk egg yolks and sugar until pale and thick. Take a few minutes to do this. Gradually add oil and whisk until consistency is like mayonnaise. Gradually add water and vanilla extract while whisking until well combined. Gradually add in sifted flour and salt and whisk until no trace of flour is seen. Divide the batter into 6 portions and add food colouring according to the colours of the rainbow.

3. Prepare the meringue. In a clean metal bowl, beat egg whites until foamy with electric mixer. Add cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar and beat until stiff peaks form. You should be able to overturn the bowl without the meringue falling out.

4. Fold the meringue into all the different coloured egg yolk batters in three additions. Pour three coloured batters into each pan, side by side each other.

5. Bake for 11-12 minutes or until skewer comes out clean. Immediately remove cakes from pan and gently peel off baking sheet. Cool with a fresh baking sheet over the cakes. Store the cakes in a large ziplock bag or airtight container until it is time for assembly.

Chocolate swiss meringue buttercream (smbc, adapted from Baking Library)
Ingredients:
100g egg whites (3-4 eggs)
68g caster sugar
180 unsalted butter, cut to tablespoon-sized pieces, softened but cool
1/8 tsp salt
35-50g cocoa powder (Adjust according to how chocolatey you want. I used 50g as my requester wanted it to be very chocolatey.)

Steps:
1. Heat a saucepan of water (water about 1" deep) and set to simmer. Place egg whites, sugar and salt in a big metal bowl that can be placed over the saucepan. Whisk the egg whites with the bowl over simmering water without letting the bottom of the bowl touch the water. Keep whisking until warm to touch and all sugar has dissolved. This takes about 6 minutes. If you have a thermometer, keep whisking until temperature is 71°C.

2. Take the bowl off the heat and use the electric mixer to beat on high speed until meringue is stiff, glossy and cool to touch. This takes about 10 minutes.

3. Add the butter one piece at a time, beating at low speed. Make sure the butter is well incorporated before adding more. Don't worry if it curdles. Just keep beating and adding more butter gradually. Beat on medium high speed until fluffy when all butter has been added. About a couple of minutes.

4. Gradually add in sifted cocoa powder and beat until well combined.

You may make this in advance and freeze for up to a month or refrigerate for up to a week in ziplock bag. Just bring the smbc to room temperature and whip it again before using.

Horlicks/ Milo chiffon layers (makes two 9"x12" layers. I made 2 of each flavour. Adapted from my Milo log cake.)
Ingredients:
6 egg yolks
24g caster sugar
84g vegetable oil
84g hot water
66g Milo or Horlicks
75g cake flour
1/4 tsp salt
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
Blue gel food colouring (for Horlicks layer)

8 egg whites
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
88g caster sugar

Steps:
1. Dissolve Milo/ Horlicks in hot water. Set aside to cool.

2. Follow steps 1-4 for vanilla chiffon layers, except that you bake at 165°C for 14-15 minutes or until skewer comes out clean. Divide the egg yolk batter and meringue ingredients into two if your oven can't fit 2 trays at once. You may wish to apply some oil on the baking sheet for the horlicks layer that is showing to prevent it from sticking to the baking sheet.

Freshly baked Horlicks cake!

Assembly
1. Use a small triangle cutter to cut out about 50 triangles for each of the rainbow colours and keep in airtight container or cling wrapped bowls.

2. Make a "1" template and cut out 2 layers of Milo and 2 layers of Horlicks layer cakes using a sharp serrated knife.

3. Alternate layers of cake and re-whipped chocolate smbc. I find it helpful to pipe on the cream but you may apply using spatula.

4. Carefully apply some cream at the sides of the cake. Add on the name. You may stick the name on using smbc or melted marshmellow. If using smbc, be careful not to let the cream show.

5. Stick on the triangles with the same colours staggered in different rows. Brush the surface of the cake, especially the small pieces of stick-ons with simple syrup (1:1 ratio sugar:water) to prevent the cake from drying out.

6. Keep the cake in a cake box in the fridge. Let it sit at room temperature for a while before serving if you prefer softer buttercream.

Finally done!

Unfortunately, there was some miscommunication and the requester actually planned for a polka dot themed party! I had to redo the cake deco and tried my best with whatever cake that was left, and came up with this...

The cake is really soft and moist, overall very chocolatey and well received by the guests! I would personally prefer fresh cream to chocolate smbc for this Milo and Horlicks chiffon sponge combination to let the cake flavours shine through.

With love,
Phay Shing

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