Monday, June 22, 2015

Happy Father's Day ~ Edible Tree on Green Tea Chiffon Cake

This year's Father's Day is very special as it is the first time my hubby is celebrating in the role of a father. I had wanted to make a simple chocolate banana cake as both ingredients are his favourite. But considering that we are having steamboat at home and usually we will be very full after that, chocolate and banana seems too heavy for after dinner desserts. Moreover, it doesn't sound too healthy for my Dad too.

And so I decided to do a green tea chiffon cake. For fillings, initially I wanted to use red beans as they are known to complement green tea very well. There's no red beans in my pantry but I found a very ripe mango in my fridge so I thought mango and green tea, perhaps that could be a good marriage.

For the decor, I had wanted to do a flower garden look using mango to do flowers. But I already did a mango roses for Mother's Day, plus flowers and Dads do not sound quite right together. Then an idea struck me, how about having a tree in a garden look instead?

Why a tree? Well, I always feel that Dads are like a big tree, strong, resilient, always silently supporting the family. 

With this idea in mind, I went on search for ways to create a edible tree without fondant as I have not work with fondant before. I found this wonderful website with a beautiful edible tree using ingredients that I thought it looked amazing! And keeping my finger crossed, I started on my project of a tree cake!

Green Tea Chiffon Cake Recipe adapted from cookpad.japan

This cake is baked in 6 inch removable base cake pan in my Morris tabletop oven.

Green Tea Chiffon Cake Ingredients:

3 large egg yolks
10g sugar
53g milk
30g oil
1 drop of vanilla extract
57g all-purpose flour
1 tbsp bakeable green tea powder


3 large egg whites
30g sugar

*I have reduced sugar in the recipe as my family tolerance of sweetness is quite low and because I will be frosting the cake, the whipped cream will be sweeten.

How to do:


1. Sift the flour and green tea powder together, set aside for later use
2. Mix the egg yolks, sugar, milk, oil and vanilla extract together.
3. Add in the flour and green tea powder and stir till well-combined.
4. In another clean and greaseless bowl, beat the whites till foamy and add the sugar in.
5. Continue to beat till the meringue mixture becomes white, shiny and attain firm peak.
6. Mix in 1/3 of the meringue to the yolk mixture to thin the mixture.
7. Fold in the remaining 2/3 meringue gently in 2 installments.
8. Pour into the cake pan at one position slowly and shake the pan gently when done to level the cake batter.
9. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 150 degree (on oven thermometer, oven dial shows 130 degree) for 35 min or till the skewer comes out clean.
10. Invert the cake pan and let it completely cool before remove from pan.

I have yet to achieve crackless chiffon cake so here is my smiley chiffon cake!

:: My chiffon cake cracked into a smiley face ::
Once you flip it over, can't see the cracks any more!

:: Green Tea Chiffon as the Cake Base ::

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Edible Tree Recipe from Hungry Happenings

I think I didn’t do a great job with the tree as the branches did not hold out very well and the leaves keep dropping as I was molding. So I ended up with a small tree instead of a big one as I imagined it to be.

I have divided the ingredients listed on their website by 6. Change the leaves from popcorn to cornflakes. I have molded the tree trunk around 3 satay sticks so that I can stick into my cake later.

I can’t find candy melts so I used only use chocolate & white chocolate as the ‘glue’. Maybe that is the reason it didn’t stick very well.  

So do visit the Hungry Happenings for detailed instructions and ingredients as the author’s tree is really amazing!

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Filling & Frosting Ingredients:

1 mango, cut in cubes
100ml non-diary whipping cream (I use Whip Topping from Redman)
80g of shredded coconut 
Green tea powder
Cocoa powder
Green tea wafer sticks

How to do:

1.  Whip the cream to stiff peak and set aside for later use
      2. Add 2 tbspoon of water to the shredded coconut and mix with some green tea powder until you get the desired green, steam for about 5-10min.

To assemble the cake:




1. Slice the cake into 2 or 3 layer, depending on your preference. I did just 2 layers.
2. Spread the whipped onto the surface of the bottom layer.
3. Place the cubed mango on it and cover with more whipped cream, then the top layer of cake.
4. Cover the side with a thin layer of whipped cream.
5. Arrange the wafer sticks around the cake and tie with a ribbon or twine (I used twine for a more rustic look)
6. Mix the remaining whip cream with some color powder to get a brown color cream to resemble soil color and spread the brown cream on top of the cake.
7. Place the ‘Tree’ onto the cake and sprinkle the ‘grass’ (aka shredded coconut on the ‘soil’

And tadah! My Father’s Day cake is ready!

:: A Special Father's Day Cake ::

Some afterthoughts:
The wafer sticks turn a bit soft after I placed in the fridge for few hours so perhaps replace with sponge fingers next time.
The mango fillings give a very refreshing taste to the green tea chiffon but might be a bit acquired taste for some.
The shredded coconut goes very well with the cake, giving it a very nice fragrance.
The tree is rather heavy, I was worried it might topple on the cake, but luckily it held out very well till cake cutting. Perhaps next time I shall do a denser cake to hold the tree.


My family was rather amazed by my creative and everyone took out their phones to take photo of the cake. And everyone had fun plucking off the leaves and ate them.

I spent a lot of time molding the tree and though it didn’t turn out what I imagine it to be, I am glad I push through and get a decent looking tree. This little effort is nothing compared to the love, care and sacrifices that my Dad and hubby gave for the family.

Thank you, Dad & Dear! Happy Daddy’s Day! You both are simply amazing!


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I'm joining Best Recipes for Everyone June 2015 Event Theme: Secret of Chiffon & Roll Cakes. Organized and hosted by Fion of XuanHom's Mom Kitchen Diary

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