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 ::

*******

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:

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!

******

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

Non Bake Mango Cheesecake with Baked Tart Base

Non bake mango cheese cake is really one of the easiest dessert to do. No baking or cooking required. It is also very flexible. For me, I prefer a less pronounce cheeee taste so I add more fruit puree. The end result is a very fruity with tinge of cheese savoury. The texture is creamy, a cross between mousse and ice cream.

:: Non Bake Mango Cheesecake with Tart Base ::

Normally most nonbake cheescake recipe will use crushed digestive biscuits with butter for the base. This time round I use a tart base which requires baking. I personally prefer it as the butter taste is not so strong, but my family prefers the nonbake version. In any case, the ratio for the nonbake base that I used previously digestive biscuit : butter is  2 : 1, means for example, 100g digestive biscuits, use 50g butter. Just crush the biscuits, melt the butter and mix together.

For the baked tart base, please refer to my previous post here, the amount is for 8 tart shells.
I use about 15g of dough for each mini cheesecake and made 12 mini base and left with about 50g of dough. Bake for 12 min in my morris tabletop oven @ 140 degree on knob (160 degree on thermometer).

The recipe for this mango cheese cake is modified from Lirongs.

Ingredients for cheesecake fillings:

100g cream cheese (soften at room temp)
120g mango puree
1tsp lemon juice
1/2 tbsp gelatin powder
1 & 1/2 tbsp water
100ml non dairy whipping cream

Optional:
Small mango cubes

How to do:

1. Beat the non dairy whipping cream till firm peak and set aside in the fridge for later use.
2. Place 1 & 1/2 tbsp water in a bowl and sprinkle 1/2 tbsp gelatin powder on top, let it stand for about 10min.
3. Place the bowl in pot of simmering water and stir till fully dissolve and set aside.
4. Cream the cream cheese till smooth (I use a manual hand whisk)
5. Mix the mango puree, lemon juice and gelatin mixture till well-combined.
6. Add the mixture to the cream cheese and mixture till smooth.
7. Finally, combine the whipping cream with the mixture till well mix.
8. Pour into the moulds with the tart base at the bottom and chill in the fridge till the cheese fillings set.

It takes about 3 hours to set in my fridge, but I only remove from moulds the next day (12hrs later) as I want to give them more time to set and firm up.

I did not use any sugar here as my non dairy whipping cream is already slightly sweeten and the mango puree is already quite sweet. If you prefer it to be sweeter, you can add powder sugar to the cream cheese and cream together till it fully dissolves.

If adding the mango cubes, fill the moulds with cheesecake mixture till half full, add in the cubes then fill up the moulds fully. I didn't add in mango cubes but I cut the mango into strips and dress it up like a rose.

:: Pretty Mango Rose on Mini Mango Cheesecake ::

Mango Pudding Rose Tarts ~ So Pretty that I Almost Can't Bear to Eat Them!

It's been a while since I blog about my bakes. Finally found the motivation to blog about my latest bake because it turned out to be so pretty and so yummy! 

It is the mangoes season now and many bakers are posting yummy mango related cakes and desserts photos online. I am so tempted to try out some mango-y desserts.

Since my previous longan beancurd tarts were so well-received, so I thought why not make mango pudding tarts. And I wanted to make them look so pretty, so I used the mango strips to make into mango rose. I am very pleased with the result - both look and taste!

:: Mango Pudding Rose Tarts::

For the Tart Shell

The tart shell recipe is similar as my egg tart post here, but I made a small change to it. Instead of using a portion of a whole beaten egg, I use only egg yolk. The reason is that I can't think of how to use the remaining beaten egg yoke and I doubt it can be kept in the fridge for use another day. By using just the egg yolk, I can save the white by freezing it and use it for macarons or chiffon cakes recipes that require more egg white. The result of using just the egg yolk is that the tart shells seem to be a bit softer than when I use whole egg. I also use salted butter instead of unsalted simply because I ran out of the unsalted ones... haha...

Tart shells are baked in my Morris tabletop oven.

Tart Shell Ingredients:

45g salted butter, softened & cut into small pieces
20g icing sugar
1 egg yolk
90g all purpose flour

How to do:

1. Cream the soften butter till it is smooth and pale yellow. I used hand whisk.

2. Add icing sugar and continue to cream till light and fluffy.

3. Add in the egg yolk nd continue to mix till well combined.

4. Sift in the flour in 3 installments using a spatula, mix well for each addition till the mixture becomes a soft dough.

5. Shape the dough into a cylinder shape, wrap in cling wrap and place in the fridge for about 15 - 20min.

6. Remove the dough from the fridge and cut the dough into 6 equal portion.

7. Shape them into a ball and placed in the tart mould.

8. Press the dough ball in the center against the mould and push it up against the wall till its full height. After baking, the crust will expand slight above the mould and it is easier to remove from the mould.

9. Use a fork to poke holes at the base of the tart shells. This is to prevent the base from rising during baking.

10. Place them in a preheated oven and bake at 150 degree (on my Morris oven dial, real temperature should be about 170 degree) for 7min.

11. Take out from the oven and egg wash* the tarts. The holes of the base will close up considerably after egg wash.

12. Put back into the oven and bake for another 5min or when the tart shells turn slightly brown.
13. Remove from oven, unmould once the moulds are slightly cooled down enough for hands to handle. Continue to let them cool on a metal rack.

*Can use some of the egg white for egg wash or for me, I used the evaporated milk

**DO NOT grease the tart mould, the tart shell can be easily removed with a gentle knock. Greasing the tart mould will cause it to stick to the mould instead.

:: Tart Mould ~ Size 3.5cm base 7cm top::

For the Mango Pudding 

This bake is quite an impromptu creation. As I was looking at various pudding recipes, most require condense milk and or coconut milk. I had non of those in my fridge so I was very happy when I finally found one recipe that require only evaporated milk which I had at home. My pudding recipe is modified from http://allthatmatters2rei.blogspot.sg/2008/05/mango-pudding.html  As my family and I like our dessert less sweet, I reduce the sugar considerably. 

Mango Pudding Ingredients:

2 mangoes
1/3 cup evaporated milk

2/3 cup water

1/8 cup sugar

1 tbsp gelatin powder

How to do:

1. Peel off the skin of the mangos.

2. Continue to use the peeler to peel the mango flesh into long stripes. 

3. Use the stripes of mango and arrange them to look like a rose in the tart shell.

4. After that, blend the rest of the mango stripes until they are smooth, yielded slightly more than 1 cup of mango puree.

5. Bring the water to boil in a saucepan, pour in gelatin powder and stir till fully dissolve.

6. Add in the sugar and continue to stir till dissolve.

7. Lower the heat and add in the evaporated milk and mango puree.

8. Stir till it starts to simmer, then remove from heat.

9. Pour the mango pudding mixture through a sift. This is to remove any lumps and give it a smoother texture.

10. Gently pour the pudding mixture into the tart shell, avoiding pouring directly onto the mango rose. As the mixture is quite thick, pour via different side of the tart shell so that the mixture is evenly distributed.

11. Put into the fridge and chill for a few hours.

They are ready to serve once the pudding is set.

*For the mango rose, you can check out how to do here. I prefer to do the rose first before pouring in the pudding mixture as I feel that it is less messy. It is my first time handling the mango stripes to make a rose so I don't want to risk it. However, this will also mean that the center part of the rose might not have the pudding as the mixture is quite thick and does not flow easily. I did pour a little bit of the pudding mixture into the center of the rose, but must be very careful else, might ruin the shape of the rose.

For the amount of ingredients above, I manage to do fillings for 6 tarts and 6 puddings in 3inch size ramekins.

:: Mango Pudding with Strawberries ::