My Mother's 2016 birthday cake

Another year, another birthday. There are 7 basic birthday cakes that I have to bake every year. Hubby's and my parents, plus hubby and the two kiddos. Note that I say basic....there are miscellaneous ones that pops up occasionally as well. I believe there are many home bakers like me out there that has the same duty yearly. Don't get me wrong, I love baking for these important people in my life. But sometimes it can get pretty challenging when it comes to trying to please a big group of people. Some like it hot, some like it cold, some like it in the pot 9 days old...yeah. :P So after cracking my head, I finally made the decision to go with a totally new flavor which I have never attempted to use in a birthday cake. Pandan Gula Melaka. Specifically, the cake consist of Pandan Gula Melaka cake, sandwich a layer of light cheddar cheese cake (to counter the sweetness) and frosted with Gula Melaka mascarpone cheese frosting and lastly coated the sides with shredded coconut masaked with gula melaka syrup. 

It never occurred to me to bake a coconut or pandan or Gula Melaka flavoured cake for my parents. It was always the obvious choice of fruit flavours. I guess I have to start somewhere right? After the whole cake was assembled, I definitely see parts where I can improve on. For starters, I can replace the mascarpone cheese with cream cheese instead , which will be more stable at room temperature, though might taste more jelut. :P 

I will still be posting this up for my own future references. If you would like to try this recipe, please bare in mind that it is my first time baking this as well, so please keep an open mind. And if you want to substitute certain ingredients, please go ahead by all means, but remember that the results might not be the same as mine.

Ingredients for Gula Melaka Pandan Ogura cake (makes an 8")

Pandan milk extract

6 pandan leaves, snipped

80 ml evaporated milk

• Snip the pandan leaves into smaller pieces and add evaporated milk together into the blender container.

• Blend these two ingredients together and sieve through a fine gauze cloth. Reserve the mixture for later use.

Egg yolk Batter

60 g gula melaka +20 ml water 

• masak these two ingredients together till the Gula Melaka is completely melted and mixture is slightly thicken. Set aside to cool slightly to be used later.

5 egg yolks (~70-73g)

20 ml coconut oil

80 g cake flour

• In a large mixing bowl, add in the egg yolks in. Follow by the pandan milk extract and the coconut oil.

•  Whisk well to combine all the ingredients. Then add in the warm melted palm sugar syrup. It is important that it is still warm. Once it cools down, it will become thicken and very difficult to blend into the egg yolk mixture.
• Lastly, sift in the cake flour and whisk it well so that all is well combined and smooth.

Egg white Batter

5 egg whites (~160-165g)

70 g caster sugar

1 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

• Preheat the oven to 155C with a water bath set up inside the oven. Grease and line with parchment paper a 8" by 3" round cake pan.
• In a large mixing bowl, add in the egg whites. Beat the whites till foamy. Gradually add in the sugar as it continues to beat at medium fast speed. Add in the fresh lemon juice before you add the last of the caster sugar in. 

• Continue to beat till stiff peaks. 
• Gently fold in the whites to the egg yolk mixture in 3 separate portions. Do not overfold and deflate the whites.

• Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Wrap the base of the pan with thick aluminium foil if it is the removal base type.

• Bake in the preheated oven with the water bath for 55-58 minutes till the tester comes out clean or the cake springs back when gently pressed.

• Once baked, remove from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes before inverting it to cool. It is NORMAL that the cake shrinks a little when it slowly cools down, so please don't freak out.

Yay! No cracks! I guess the low temperature and the water bath helps. And loving that nice colour tone. 

As for the cheddar cheese cake, I merely halved the recipe that I usually baked which you can find the recipe here. I baked it in a 8" by 2" round cake pan this time round also in the water bath at 155C.

Ingredients for Light Cheddar Cheese Cake

3 slices of Cheddar Cheese

50 ml fresh milk

50 g unsalted butter 

3 egg yolks

3 egg whites (preferably cold, place in fridge after separating)

50 g caster sugar 

50 g cake flour

• For instructions and steps on how to bake this, please hop over to here. 

• Slice the Pandan Gula Melaka cake in two equal thickness discs. Let the 3 cakes discs cool completely while you prepare for the frosting.

Gula Melaka Mascarpone Cheese frosting (to frost an 8" by 4" round with 3 layers cake)

60g Gula Melaka finely chopped

2 tbsp water

500 g mascarpone cheese

• In a saucepan, heat up the water and chopped Gula Melaka. masak the mixture until all the palm sugar has melted. Let cool.
• In the mixing bowl, add the mascarpone cheese in and beat it till light and smooth.
• Slowly drizzle the warm Gula Melaka mixture into the whipped cheese.

• Whip the mixture again till smooth and creamy. Bare in mind mascarpone cheese is lighter then cream cheese. So if you opt to use mascarpone cheese, please prepare to handle a much softer frosting. Else you can always go with cream cheese, which is more stable in room temp but will be more dense in taste.

• Chill the frosting in the fridge for at least an hour before use. 

Assembly of the cake

Gula Melaka grated coconut for deco:

100 g finely chopped Gula Melaka

5 tbsp water

250 g grated coconut (I used Heng Guan brand)

I used Heng Guan brand because it was readily available at the supermarket. But if you have access to freshly grated ones, go for it.

• In a saucepan, again heat up the palm sugar and water till the sugar melted completely.
  
• Add in the grated coconut and stir in to masak and let it slowly absorb the palm syrup.

• Let the coconut mixture cool completely and then chill in the fridge till you are ready to use it.
• Place the first layer of the cake on the cake board which you will be using. Remember to line the sides with parchment paper which can be removed after frosting.

• Frost about 1/5 of the palm sugar cheese frosting on the first layer. Spread it evenly over the top.
• Place the light cheddar cheese cake layer over the top.

• Trim off the baked brown top. Personally I feel it doesn't give a soft mouth feel if I leave the "crust" on the cake. But if you like it, by all means, leave it on.

• Next, spread another 1/5 of the cheese frosting over the trimmed surface.

• Lastly, place the 2nd Pandan Gula Melaka cake over. Again, you can trim away the crust on the cake or leave it on. I choose to trim. :) Then frost the whole cake with the rest of the cheese frosting. Notice that the frosting is not very smooth...not sure why it is slightly cuddling. But I suspect is the fat separating. Anyway, do try to work fast as the mascarpone cheese is rather unstable in room temp.

• Once the cake is nicely frosted, let it chill in the fridge for an hour. Once it is cold enough, bring it out and coat the sides with the Gula Melaka shredded coconut. Make sure to give it a light squeeze every time you grab some shredded coconut.

• Once done, chill in the fridge for at least an hour before serve. Enjoy!

The cake turned out great. It was fragrant, soft and delicious. Everyone in the family enjoyed it. Only someone complained the gula melaka shredded coconut was a wee bit sweet, else it was all compliments. Yay! And most importantly, my mum likes it too.  

Another shot of that last slice I salvage from the birthday party haha. :P Love the natural colour from the pandan and the soft texture of this yummy cake. Frosting was light and yet creamy sweet to satisfy anyone. :9 

If you ever do try this out, let me know how you like it. ;)

Happy baking guys!

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Earl Grey Lavender Cake with Lemon Vanilla ButterCream

I love baking for occasions. No matter how busy I am, I will try my best to bake a nice cake for the family. Frankly speaking, family matters most to me. No matter what you have done, or what you have not done, they still love you as much, haha! So doing little gestures like baking for them is really trivial I think. I always feel having a cake for any gatherings, puts a nice sweet ending to it. No matter how full you are, you will always have room for that slice of cake baked specially for you yes? And since I was particularly fond of the tea flavour Earl Grey Lavender from Gryphon, why not!

I was rather please with my first attempt. Used several different techniques here after reading up from books and recipes learnt from experience. I guess my only change next time is to lighten that frosting  by incorporating whipped cream into the buttercream and thus yielding a lighter texture and mouthfeel.

Tea floral mix powder:

2 tea bags amount of Earl Grey tea

5 g dried lavender (from Phoon Huat)

• In a blender, pour both the earl grey tea leafs and the dried lavender in. Zap for a good 1 minute at high speed.

• Sieve the blended mixture through a fine sieve. 

• This step removes the chunkier bits and also the calyxes of the dried flower. Set aside for use later. 

Tea syrup

1 earl grey tea bag

1/4 cup boiling water

2-3 Tbsp full cream evaporated milk

3 Tbsp caster sugar

• Place water, sugar and evaporated milk into a saucepan and bring the mixture to a boil. Remove from fire. Add the tea bag and let it sip for a good 30 minutes and stir it occasionally. 

• After the tea is well soaked through and it has a good earl grey flavour, set aside to cool and for use later.

Ingredients for Earl Grey Lavender Cake

200 g unsalted butter, room temp

180 g caster sugar

4 large eggs

All of the above Tea Floral mix

200 g cake flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

• Preheat the oven to 160C. Grease and line with parchment paper and grease again an 8" round  base removable cake pan.
• In the mixing bowl, add in the room temperature butter and caster sugar. Start beating the mixture till light and fluffy which will takes about 4-5 minutes. Lastly add in the reserved Tea Flora mixture above and beat for another minute.

• Next crack in one egg at a time and beat after each addition. Making sure the egg is completely incorporated after each addition.
• Sift in the cake flour and baking powder in to the butter mixture. Then fold in gently, making sure it is well combined and no hidden lumps of flour.
• Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Check out the creamy luscious batter!

• Use a toothpick to give the batter a good swirl to remove any undesirable air pockets.
• Then bake in the preheated oven for 40-45 minutes, rotate in between time to get even baking if necessary.
• Once the cake tester or the toothpick comes out clean, remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes in the pan.

• Next invert the cake on a cooling rack till it is cool to the touch. Slice the cake horizontally across so you get two equal thickness of cake discs.

Ingredients for Lemon Vanilla Buttercream

3.3 oz egg white (from three large eggs, ~95 g)

3.3 oz caster sugar (~95 g)

1/2 vanilla bean pod with the beans scraped out

300 g unsalted butter, cut into chunks and room temperature

zest of 1 lemon

3 tbsp fresh lemon juice

• Place the egg white and sugar in a heat proof bowl and place over a double boiler of simmering water. Base of bowl should not touch the water.
• Stir constantly till the sugar melted. Then place candy theremaketer to check on the temperature to make sure it reaches 115C (for sanitary and prevention of semolina). 
• Immediately beat the egg whites at high speed till it reaches soft peaks.
• Gradually add in the chunks of butter and beat at medium speed. It may look lumpy at first, but continue to beat and it will eventually come together.
• Lastly, add in lemon juice and zest and continue to beat till all fluffy and light.
• Chill the butter cream in a container in the fridge till needed later.

Assemble: 

• On a cake board, grease 1/4 tsp of the buttercream on top. Then place half of the cake disc on top. This will prevent the cake from sliding when traveling with it.
• Next spoon small amount of the reserved earl grey milk syrup all over the surface of the cake disc. You should use half the amount of the syrup.
• You then frost 1/3 of the vanilla lemon buttercream over the surface.

• Place the other cake disc over and making sure the cut side is facing up. Repeat the drizzling of the remaining of the tea syrup all over the cake surface again.

• Do not worry, you are not gonna make your cake mushy with the syrup. I guarantee you that this step is essential to keep the cake moist and gives it that extra tea flavour. So please don't skip it.
• Next frost up the whole cake nicely.

• Chill the cake in the fridge for a good 30 minutes before you bring it out for decorations.

You can decorate your cake however way you want. With chocolate, with more buttercream, drizzle with ganache or topped with mixed fruits. I like mine with fresh flowers and berries this time. And my family actually loved this simplicity of it too.

Nothing is more satisfying when your bake is enjoyed and loved by the family. :') I wish I have made a better cake, but with only 4 hours at hand, I had to settle with this. 

Overall a success, but I would have made a taller cake next time. Perhaps up the egg ratio to 5 instead of 4. 

With this in my bag, I am ready to try out other flavour combinations. ;) Hopefully something nicer. Salted Caramel with Peanut butter? Or Holicks with Chocolate? We will see... ;)

Until then, have a good week ahead all!

Happy baking!

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Chocolat Fraise Cake, replica of Chocolat Framboise

Hello all! Apologies for my long absence! Almost 2 weeks since my last post but who's counting, haha! Can't really say that I am busy but just couldn't get my emakentum back in blogging. :P Although I do still bake and masak a lot lately, just didn't find the inspiration to post anything up. :( Damn...I hope I don't lose it, this blog has been my baby for 4 years now....*sigh*. I guess every blogger faces this issue some where along the way. :P I just hope this passion about blogging won't die on me anytime soon. :P *fingers crossed*

Back to today's post. It was my FIL's birthday last weekend, so it goes without saying that I had to churn out a cake for his big celebration. Although I was down with flu(recovering), it seems like a bad excuse to the old folks if you tell them I can't bake his cake because I ain't feeling too well. So by hook or by crook, I bit my lip and got to work. I browsed through so many cake books and finally decided on a recipe from this fabulous book from "Le Cordon Bleu (De la Cueillette, a la Recette)" also known as "法國藍帶糕點應用". I acquired this masakbook while I was touring in Taiwan last Nov and fell in love with it. I doubt I will be able to find a copy here in Singapore. I grabbed the opportunity to bake one of the simpler recipes in the book...yeah, Le Cordon Bleu...renowned French culinary school. ~stress~ At some point while I was preparing for this cake...I was asking myself if I was kidding myself to go with this recipe, lol! Anyway, I did made some changes to the original recipe, mainly because of the preference of taste in my family and also the fruit in season. 

The recipe I choose from the book was Chocolat Framboise, simply mean Chocolate Raspberry cake. It may sound simple, but it's pretty complicated when you read the recipe. It's a cake with layers of chocolate cake also called Sacher, Cremeux Framboise (raspberry cream jelly), Mousse Chocolat (chocolate mousse) and raspberry jam. One of the major change in the recipe is I used strawberries instead of raspberries. I know, it's like a totally different cake! I felt I didn't do the recipe justice by changing this main ingredient. :P But I thought strawberries are in season now and it won't differ that much maybe in taste? Anyway, I swore I will bake this again using raspberries, just you wait! Lol!

The other part which I made changes to is using a chocolate sponge cake recipe versus the sacher  cake as stated in the recipe. As the sacher uses almond paste and I didn't have any at hand, I decided to just go with my all trusty chocolate sponge cake. Without further ado, here is the recipe of the cake I made:

Ingredients for Chocolat Fraise Cake  (makes a 8" round)

Please refer to here for the Chocolate Sponge Cake recipe

Cremeux Fraise (Strawberry cream jelly)

140g strawberry puree

40g egg yolk

50g whole egg

40g caster sugar

3g gelatine sheet

50g unsalted butter

Mousse Chocolat (Chocolate Mousse)

113ml simple syrup (at 30C temperature)

(2 part sugar, 1 part water ratio, heated together till melted and cool to 30C)

98g egg yolk

45ml fresh whipping cream

225g quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa)

389ml fresh whipping cream

fresh strawberry compote (you can use strawberry jam)

Cocoa powder

fresh strawberries, halved  for deco

Method:

• After you have baked the chocolate sponge cake, let cool and then cut it into two 7" disc and two strips that are at least 3" height, as shown below:
• 
   
• Set the cake slices aside for use later. In the meantime, make the strawberry cream jelly layer.
• In a saucepan, add in egg yolk, whole egg, caster sugar and strawberry puree and mix well. Place over medium low fire and masak mixture till slightly thicken.
• Add in the soften gelatin sheet and stir well till completely incorporated. Remove from the heat and add in the butter and stir till butter has melted and combined. At this point you can sieve this mixture but I choose not to.
• Pour the mixture into a prepared 6" round cake pan and cover with plastic wrap and chill till firm. What happened to the colour?!? O well.... :P
•   
• To make the chocolate mousse: Beat the egg yolks till foamy, then gradually add in the warm sugar syrup and continue to beat till doubled in volume and lightened in colour.
• In another heat proof bowl, heat up the 45ml cream till almost bubbly and pour over the chopped chocolate. Let mixture stand for 5 minutes. Then stir well to get a thick chocolate ganache.
• In a mixer, whip the heavy cream till stiff peaks. Add half of the whipped cream to the egg yolk mixture. Then the other half of the whipped cream to the chocolate ganache. Then combined both these mixture together till well combined and be careful not to deflate the mixture. Chill chocolate mousse till needed.
• Assembly: Place the 2 (or less, cut away as per needed) strips of chocolate cake along the inner cake ring.
•  
• Next place a 7" round cake disc at the base...make sure there is no gap between the cake layers else the mousse will ooze out. 
•  
• Spread some strawberry jam at the surface of the base cake layer...generously.
• Next pipe a layer of chocolate mousse over the jam layer.
•  
• Next, place the strawberry cream jelly over the mousse. Make sure the jelly is firm enough to handle. Mine was a little wobbly but I still manage to slide it in ok. Else you can freeze it to firm it further. 
• Next, pipe another layer of mousse over the jelly and then place the other cake disc over the mousse. 
•   
• Lastly, spread some mousse over the cake layer and smooth it out. Chill the whole cake in the fridge for another hour before removing the cake ring.
• You can at this point frost the cake with more chocolate mousse and decorate at will.

My goodness...that is a load off! Sorry for being so long winded but these are basically the steps. :P But making this cake is a real experience...loads of work but sure pays off when you take the first bite~!

It's funny how sometimes we ordered such a cake and never really notice how all these wonderful and yummy layers that marry each other so nicely! After baking one myself, then I truly appreciate each individual layer much much more, haha!

Everyone that tasted the cake liked it, going for seconds and cleaning up their plates in no time. The strawberry did pair off nicely in place of the raspberries, lol! Come-on, you can't go wrong with strawberries and chocolate right? I declare this attempt a successful one! Yoohoo! Looking forward to tryinbg out more challenging cake recipes from this Le Cordon Bleu book....if I dare, lol!

If you ever do attempt to bake this cake, do drop me a note/comment and let me know how it turns out ya? 

There you go! An almost 2 weeks break and I came back with this super long post of a 5 layer cake! Hope I redeemed myself, haha! Have a great day all!

 

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