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:
10g sugar
53g milk
30g oil
1 drop of vanilla extract
57g all-purpose flour
1 tbsp bakeable green tea powder
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 :: |
*******
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!
*******
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:
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.
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’
 |
| :: 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!
******
So creative!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Fion! =)
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