‘Rainbow Shooting Stars’ Rainbow Tier Chiffon Cake (new natural colorings)

I made this cake for my dear daughter’s 5th birthday, inspired by her favourite song on Hi-5, ‘Make a wish upon a star’!

The recipes for the Rainbow tier chiffon cake as well as the Chiffon Cake Rainbows are in 'Creative baking: Chiffon Cakes'.

Here I made some minor modifications, instead of cutting stripes for the Rainbow tier chiffon cake, I placed the batter 2/3-1/3 into the chiffon tube pan. I modified the chiffon rainbow into a ‘shooting star rainbow' by cutting the rainbow short and then topping it off with a star made from chiffon cake.

I further baked a plain chiffon sheet cake, in which I cut out stars in which I arranged in a soaring pattern onto the tier cake using melted marshmallows.

Natural red, green and yellow colouring

The colours here are pretty light because I tried to use natural food colourings fully: pink from PME red (left), yellow from gardenia yellow (right), orange from PME red + gardenia yellow, green from PME green (middle), blue from a new acai powder (Brenntag Fruitmax, below), and purple from the blue acai powder + PME red.

New natural blue coloring from acai powder (Fruitmax, Brenntag)

The blue acai powder (Brenntag) was generously gifted from Chr Hansen who specializes in natural food coloring. I was really excited as it’s my first time trying and just ½ tsp gave me a very dark blue tone! However, after baking, the blue mostly faded, and I had to paint the cake over with more acai juice (made by dissolving the powder in water), mixed with blue pea flowers – must be some chemical reaction with baking! So blue pea flowers still hold better for baking.

Happy birthday dear Christine, you truly bring so much joy to us and we are so blessed to have you!

With love of love,
Susanne

I'm really excited! Pre-orders for my next cookbook, Deco Chiffon Cakes are open now for 2 weeks at a special preorder price of $33 (inclusive of $5 delivery)! I really love what they did for the cover.

This book takes into account all the feedback so there's a special extended 6-page troubleshooting guide, basic recipe, improved weights & measures and step-by-step pics of new 3D patterns, cutie animals and festive cakes!

The book will be out in bookstores around 15th Sept. People who opt to pre-order now will receive it one week earlier. Preorders have now closed. Thanks everyone for your overwhelming support! 29 Aug 2016

Thanks so much for your support! Big *hugs*

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Lavendar Earl Grey Pink Unicorn Macaron Carousel III

Ever since the unicorn macaron carousels gain publicity through Instagram and other media sources, I have been getting lots of request for them. Due to family commitments, I had to reject many of them as I limit myself to one major request or two simpler ones per week. I am not in favour of making the same thing over and over again too frequently because I prefer variety. Nonetheless, these unicorns along with the carousel structure they are set in never fail to exude an air of magical quality about them :). I suppose that's why this carousel is so popular.

Earl grey filling was requested but the brown hue of the filling does not match the sweet pink colour theme of the carousel. I took the liberty of including a layer of lavender filling encasing the Earl grey filling in order to have a filling that is visible but matches the colour of the carousel and requested flavour of filling.

You may find my other unicorn carousels over here and here.

I used the reduced-sugar macaron shell recipe. Both regular and reduced sugar recipes can be found here. You may refer to my Creative Baking: Macarons book for a systematic presentation of the basics and complex shaped macarons. You may refer to my video tutorials for macaron basics and piping of complex shapes on the blog too. You may refer to this post for the dimensions of the shells required to make the carousel and the respective baking times. I piped a scalloped roof like the one similar to the sheep macaron carousel as I think it's really pretty and it is very helpful for positioning the paper straws during the assembly. Checkout the sheep carousel post for detailed steps of assembly.

Here's the scalloped roof piped...

I pipe extra shells just in case some fail

Piping the unicorns...

Freshly baked shells...

In order to make lavendar flavoured white chocolate filling, I toasted about a tablespoon worth of dried lavendar flowers at 100°C for 10 minutes before using mortar and pestle to grind them. I sifted the powder to get it really fine, and discard whatever didn't pass through the fine meshed sieve.

Recipe for Lavendar/ Earl grey white chocolate filling
Ingredients:
80g white chocolate, chopped
20g vegetable shortening
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
1 tsp finely ground dried lavendar flowers
OR
2 and 1/4 tsp instant Earl grey tea powder

Steps:
1. Place white chocolate and shortening in a microwave-safe bowl. Heat at medium power for 20 seconds and mix well with spatula. Repeat until mixture is smooth. Alternatively you may use the double-boiling method to melt the white chocolate and shortening.

2. Add lavendar or Earl Grey. Mix well. Add salt and mix well.

Transfer the two types of flavoured white chocolate into piping bags. Pipe onto the macaron shells.

Day 1 of assembly...

Pipe a ring of lavendar white chocolate and fill the middle with Earl Grey white chocolate

Filling the unicorns with lavendar white chocolate

Done with Day 1 assembly!

I used royal icing to create the name. The piped letters were dried thoroughly in the oven with the fan on at 60°C for a couple of hours. Carefully peel the baking paper away from the letters.

Day 2 of assembly involves assembling the central pillar structure, attaching the unicorns onto the frame and adding the letters for the name of the birthday girl. Stiff royal icing was used for attaching the former two. Stiff royal icing can be made by adding more icing sugar to the royal icing mix that I prepared earlier, until the icing is able to hold a stiff peak.

Finally all done!

Store the carousel at cool room temperature in a dry place away from sunlight.

With love,
Phay Shing

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Cartoon Bulldog Macarons with Dark Chocolate Ganache

My friend requested for some bulldog macarons for her dad's birthday :). This is quite a special gift as it is kind of modelled after their pet bulldog and her dad loves bulldogs.

I used the regular recipe instead of the reduced sugar recipe for macaron shells as I baked these along with Descendants of the Sun plush toy macarons, some Charlie Brown and Snoopy macarons and sheep macarons. Both regular and reduced sugar recipes can be found here. You may refer to my Creative Baking: Macarons book for a systematic presentation of the basics and complex shaped macarons. You may refer to my video tutorials for macaron basics and piping of complex shapes on the blog too.

I didn't want the hassle of trying to figure out where to pipe the eye and body patches on the dog so I tried another way of piping the macaron shells, which is to pipe the brown patches first before piping the white parts of the body. The resulting shells are thinner due to the complex piping path so if I were to do this again, I would stick with the more challenging way of gauging where the eye and body patches should go after covering the whole doggy shape with white batter. Much as many of you think that I am an expert at making macarons, I still have lots to learn and I still make mistakes :). If I don't try something different and fail, I will never know :).

Just to share some pictures of the process...

Piping steps that I took.

Please adjust baking time and temperature according to your oven. As a rule of thumb, use a higher starting temperature of 130-140°C for the first half of the baking time (about 10-15 minutes depending on size of your macaron shells). Lower the temperature if necessary for the second half of the baking time. This is to ensure that your shells are not hollow but not browned. Practice makes perfect when it comes to working with your oven. Always use an oven thermometer!

Freshly baked shells!

I used a combination of royal icing and edible marker to add in the details. Uncle is turning 70 soon so my friend requested for the number to appear on some of the doggies. I decided to include it on the dog tag :).

My friend had some of my macarons filled with dark chocolate ganache a few months ago and loved it much so she requested for it again for these doggies.

Filling up with dark chocolate ganache.

Thank God that despite the thin shells, the macarons were very much loved!


With love,
Phay Shing

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‘Singapore Flag’ Raspberry Jello-Milk Chiffon Cake & Cupcake

Sharing an easy and yummy way to transform our humble chiffon cake into a Singapore flag! Hope you will enjoy this yummy treat for National day! This is a creation for my dear friend’s National day ROM-family photoshoot and also to cheer up her ailing grandpa.

I used Raspberry Jello to impart yummy flavour and red colour to the chiffon cake and a special reduced egg yolk recipe to obtain whiter cake naturally without needing to add extra icing colorings for the chiffon cake. Thanks Michelle for first introducing the idea of jello/jelly powder into cakes!

Tada! My humble 'Singapore flag' chiffon cake that's really yummy! 

The recipe is actually a 5 egg yolk, 7 egg whites recipe, but I substituted 5 egg yolks with 1 whole egg to get a whiter base cake. I used a 6-inch tube pan but had a lot of excess for sheet cake and cupcake, so I would suggest you use a 7-inch tube pan instead, with some excess for sheet cake and perhaps a cupcake. The sheet cake was used to cut out the moon and stars to decorate the flag, as well as the heart with a '51' which is the symbol for this year's National day.

Adding on the heart with 51!

This is the symbol I was referring to :p

Another finding I had was that if I passed the jello powder through a sieve before mixing into the egg yolk mixture, I had more uniform pinkish red batter without any red specks, hence the nice uniform colour.


‘Singapore flag’ Raspberry Jello-Milk Chiffon Cake (7-inch tube pan + sheet cake or cupcake)
1 whole egg
33g castor sugar
65g vegetable/corn oil
80g milk
100g Prima cake flour
Pinch of salt
26 g sifted raspberry jello (for ½ cake batter) + ¼ tsp baking powder
7 egg whites
70g castor sugar
¼ tsp cream of tartar

1. Preheat oven to 160°C. *Optional: I used steam baking, i.e. I placed a pan of water under the lowest rack before preheating – to control oven temperature, prevent cracks and for moister texture.

2. Whisk whole egg with sugar until light, fluffy and well-mixed.

3. Add in oil and mix well. Then add in milk and whisk till well-combined.

4. Whisk in sifted cake flour, a pinch of salt and mix till well-combined.

5. Divide the batter into two (approx 28 tsp or 9 tbsp). To one portion, add 26 g sifted jello powder and ¼ tsp baking powder. Whisk well till well-combined and uniform. Leave the remaining batter untouched for the creamy white batter.

6. Prepare meringue:

a. In a grease-free, dry metal bowl, using electric mixer, whisk egg whites with cream of tartar till frothy.

b. Add in ½ castor sugar for meringue and whisk at high speed till soft peaks form.

c. Add in rest of the castor sugar for meringue and whisk till firm peaks form, or just the point of stiff peak. Firm peaks give finer, softer texture.

7. Divide the meringue into two (approximately 56 tbsp). Gently fold in meringue gently into respective red and creamy white egg yolk batter 1/3 at a time.

8. Gently scoop the red batter into an ungreased 7-inch chiffon tube pan, till 40-45%, level the batter and then spoon the creamy white batter over gently, till the tube pan is 80-85% full. Gently tap on counter top to remove air bubbles.

9. Bake at 160°C for 15 min, 140°C for 31+ min, or until skewer inserted into centre of cake comes out clean. **If you use steam baking, you may need to bake for a few more minutes.

10. Invert pan to cool on a wire rack completely.

11. Unmould the chiffon cake by hand (see video tutorial ‘Hand unmoulding Chiffon cakes for a clean finishing’).


Sheet cake and Cupcake
You may pour the excess red and creamy white batter side-by-side onto a 6-inch baking pan.
Bake at 160°C for 15 min, and then flip onto a new piece of baking paper and cover with another piece to cool completely.
Cut out heart shape using a heart cutter and then slice off the edges to make jagged edges (to make the jagged heart like this year's symbol).
Use number cutters to cut out ‘51’.
Or you can also spoon the remaining red and white batter side-by-side into a glass bowl to make the National day flag cupcake.

Decoration
To decorate, melt some marshmallows by sprinkling some water onto a few marshmallows in a heat-proof bowl, and then popping in into the microwave for 30 s. This makes the ‘glue’ to stick the cake cut-outs.
Cut a ‘moon’ by making two cuts 1-cm apart on the white sheet cake.
Use a 1-cm star plunger to cut out small stars.
Use melted marshmallow to stick them onto the side of the chiffon cake in the pattern for the flag.

Hope you will enjoy this yummy treat for National day!

Made with lots of love,
Susanne


Creative Chiffon Cookbooks with Marshall Cavendish:
Creative Baking: Chiffon Cakes

and Deco Chiffon Cakes (photoshoots)
With a special expanded 6-page troubleshooting guide, basic recipe and new, simple 3D patterns. Preorders may open around mid-August!

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'Angry birds' Chiffon Cake

I made this simple small chiffon cake few months back for a friend (was following the Angry birds movie craze). It was lost in my phone until today I saw my son bring home the National day flag, I was suddenly reminded of it because of the National day colours, red and white lol! I made this by spooning cream and red batter side-by-side 2/3 and 1/3 in a ball pan. The beak was made by making some orange chiffon batter in a paper cone! =) The other features were cut from chiffon baked as sheet cakes. Thankful it was well-received!

With lots of love and happy National day in advance!
Susanne =)

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Black Glutinous Rice Chiffon Sponge & Pudding Sunflower Cupcakes

My friend requested for some pulut hitam sponge and pudding cupcakes for her daughter's 4th birthday. The little girl loves sunflowers so I made these for her :)

Details of how to make the sunflowers can be found in our Creative Baking: Chiffon Cakes book. Simply replace orange juice with Pandan water (water boiled with Pandan leaves) and use coconut oil instead of vegetable oil.

Recipe for the black glutinous rice chiffon sponge and pudding can be found in this post. But for your convenience, I will type out the ingredients enough to make 20-22 cupcakes (44x35mm size).

Recipe for black glutinous rice chiffon sponge (makes one 10x10" and 6x6" cake):
4 egg yolks
20g gula melaka, finely chopped
44g coconut oil
240g bubur pulut hitam
20g coconut cream
92g cake flour
1/8 tsp salt

6 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
60g caster sugar

Steps:
1. Set oven rack to second lowest position. Place a tray of water at base of oven (optional). Preheat oven to 140°C. Line the trays with baking paper.

2. Prepare egg yolk batter. Whisk egg yolks and gula melaka until pale and thick. Add coconut oil and whisk until well combined. Add bubur pulut hitam and coconut cream and whisk until combined. Gradually sift in cake flour, salt and charcoal powder and whisk until no trace of flour is seen.

3. Prepare meringue. In a clean metal bowl, beat egg whites with cream of tartar until foamy. Gradually add caster sugar and beat until firm peaks are formed or just about to reach stiff peaks.

4. Fold the meringue into the egg yolk batter in three additions quickly but gently. Pour batter into prepared tins. Tap the tins on the table to release trapped air bubbles.

5. Bake for 25 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.

6. Use a 4cm and 5cm diameter round cookie cutter to cut out circles from the sponge cakes. Cut each circular cut-out into two as each layer is quite thick.


Pulut hitam pudding
Ingredients:
A)
240g Pandan water (boil 500ml of water with a few Pandan leaves)
20g gula melaka
15g caster sugar
40g coconut cream
3 tsp agar powder
B)
2tbs mung bean flour (hoen kueh)
40g Pandan water
C)
220g bubur pulut hitam

Steps:
1. Mix ingredients in B) in a small bowl and set aside. If you are using frozen bubur pulut hitam, make sure it is fully defrosted and at room temperature or warm.

2. Place all ingredients in A) in a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Let the mixture boil for a couple of minutes while stirring continuously. This is to ensure that all the agar powder is dissolved.

3. Stir B) again and pour into A). Bring to a boil and stir continuously. Keep stirring after mixture boils again for a couple of minutes.

4. Add C) and bring to a boil, stirring continuously. Keep boiling and stirring for a couple of minutes. I must stress that you have to take time to stir and boil for a while at each mention of this step otherwise the agar and mung bean flour will not get incorporated fully and your pudding will have a grainy texture and not set properly. I learnt this the hard way with many failures along the way.

Assembly

Alternate layers of sponge and pudding in the cupcake cases, with the smaller circle nearer the base of the case.

Chill in fridge until pudding sets. In the meantime, assemble the sunflowers. Remember to brush with syrup to keep the cakes moist. Store in airtight condition in the fridge. The cake tastes better after 2-3 days of storage as the pulut hitam flavour mellows.

Birthday girl and her daddy!

With love,
Phay Shing

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Chiffon Rainbow ‘Drip’ Cake with Chiffon 'Lollipops'

Here's my first Chiffon Rainbow “Drip cake”! It's for a lovely mummy friend's sweet girl Olivia, and thankful it was well-loved!

It was an experiment to see if I could combine 'waves' with 'rainbow chiffon' from Creative baking: Chiffon Cakes to make Rainbow Chiffon “Drip” cake. I was really nervous but thankful it panned out neatly! 

Creative baking: Chiffon Cakes

The sweet chiffon 'lollipops' will be in Deco Chiffon Cakes coming soon within the next one two months. Preorders may open around mid August!

Photoshoots for Deco Chiffon Cakes

I made a ‘sweet’ from a cake pop and 2 hearts. Here's another angle of the sweet chiffon cake!

The photos were taken by the lovely mummy friend whom I made this cake for!

Have a sweet week ahead!

With lots of love,
Susanne 

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Sheep Matcha Macaron Carousel

Ever since I posted the pink unicorn macaron carousel, I have been getting lots of requests for macaron carousels. I had to turn down many of them due to my full baking schedule. I was secretly hoping someone would request for a different design because I don't like to repeat my designs. Here's a variation of carousel that I had fun with although the assembly was nerve wrecking as usual. Presenting my first sheep themed macaron carousel!

I used matcha to colour the shells a little besides adding gel food colouring to reduce the use of artificial colouring. As Matcha powder oxidizes when exposed to air, artificial colouring is needed to prevent the carousel from appearing duller over time.

I used the regular non-reduced sugar version of the macaron shell recipe to make the sheep and carousel structure. I added 6g of Matcha powder to 200g of almond meal recipe. You may refer to this post for the detailed steps with reduced sugar and non reduced sugar versions of shells.

Here's how the mass looks like when coloured with just matcha powder. I didn't add too much as I didn't want the shells to turn out too dull.

I divided the mass into two equal portions and coloured one light green and one dark green. I used a bit of charcoal powder (about 1/4 tsp) to colour dark green.

You may refer to this post for the dimensions of the shells required to make the carousel and the respective baking times. One thing I did differently here is I made a scalloped roof (seashell pattern) instead of a simple circle. I find this effect very pretty and also very helpful for positioning the five poles later on during assembly. The regular stripes serve as a ruler/marker for positioning the poles at regular intervals easily.

In order to create the scalloped pattern, pipe alternate stripes and dry until a sticky membrane forms in an air-conditioned room and/or under a fan. About 15-30 minutes.

Pipe the other set of stripes when the first alternate set has partially dried.

Remember to bang the tray on the table and use a toothpick to pop air bubbles if necessary.

I baked the carousel shells and sheep shells on different days. The sheep macaron shells were baked along with the Fox and Rabbit plush toy macarons from Descendants of the Sun, some Snoopy and Charlie Brown macarons, and some bulldog macarons.

Here's how I piped the sheep in stages...

Here are some freshly baked shells! Looking pretty already!

Decorate the sheep with royal icing and edible marker.

I filled the shells on the carousel with Matcha white chocolate. The recipe can be found in my Creative Baking: Macarons book or over here. Carousels need to be able to withstand room temperature storage and display in warm Singapore so I always use non-refrigerated fillings for carousels. You may use very firm ganaches too if you like.

It takes two days to assemble a macaron carousel as the central pillar needs time to stabilize.

Day 1 of assembly involves mounting the sheep (or whatever subject matter) onto paper straws. It doesn't matter if the pole length is an estimated one. You can trim just before mounting onto the structure.

Filling a sheep!

Sheep on poles!

The central pillar also has to be assembled on Day 1. Fill the largest macaron, one 6cm macaron and two 3.5cm macarons with filling. Use royal icing to attach the largest macaron to a cakeboard and all the macarons to each other as shown below. I decided to add on some store-bought sugar flowers to add some colour.

Assemble the roof with Matcha filling as glue. I forgot to take photo of this. My apologies.

I had some loose pieces as well but I filled them with dark chocolate ganache and lemon curd. Replace lime with lemon from the recipe. These macarons have to be stored in the fridge.

Day 2 of assembly involves mounting the roof onto the central pillar, glueing them together with royal icing.

Stick the poles onto the structure with royal icing. Cut the poles to appropriate length before you attach it to the main structure.

Decorate as you wish :).

Here's a top view of the carousel! I really love the scalloped roof!

Store the carousel in airtight condition at cool room temperature. It can keep for 1-2 weeks.


With love,
Phay Shing

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'Monster Truck' Snowy Chiffon Cake

Can you spot the odd one out among the Monster trucks? ;)

This was a very unique request for a friend. She wanted me to make one chiffon Monster truck together with her toy pals on a snowy Frozen landscape. If you find this cake familiar, yes the cake and recipe is in Creative baking: Chiffon Cakes!

It may look simple but carving and assembling of the Monster truck was a lot of work! I was rather apprehensive about this project but thankful the cake came out well and it was well-received.

Am out of steam still with blogging and family so this will be a short post. Sorry and have a great weekend!

With love,
Susanne

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