Neapolitan Chiffon Cake

My forever boring chiffon cake. ;p

Sorry if I really bored you with my bakes. Cos whenever I feel like baking, chiffon cake is always the first in my mind. Unfortunately, I love baking and eating chiffon cakes most of the time.

Maybe it's not so boring... Look!

Inspired by the Neapolitan ice cream which was is still my childhood favourite, I make a Neapolitan version of chiffon cake made up of vanilla, strawberry and chocolate layers.

I'm glad that the layers turn out quite well and even. Will share a little trick later.

Neapolitan Chiffon Cake

Ingredients: (17cm chiffon tin)

3 egg yolks (about 60g)
20g caster sugar
50ml vegetable oil
50ml milk/water
90g cake flour, divide into 3 portions 30g each

1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp strawberry powder
1 tsp cocoa powder

4 egg whites (about 160g)
50g caster sugar

Method:

1. Whisk egg yolks and sugar until the sugar dissolves.
2. Gradually add in vegetable oil, followed by milk/water.
3. Divide the batter in step 2 into 3 equal portions. (My batter weighs about 180g, so divide into 60g portion each).
4. For vanilla batter - add in 30g flour and vanilla extract.
For strawberry batter - add in 30g flour and strawberry powder.
For chocolate batter - remove 1 tsp of flour from 30g flour, add in the remaining flour and 1 tsp cocoa powder.
5. Mix all batters well and set aside.

6. In another bowl, whisk egg whites until foamy. Add in sugar gradually and continue whisking until stiff peak form.
7. Divide the whisked egg white in step 6 into 3 equal portions. (My egg white batter weighs about 210g, so divide into 70g portion each *see below*).
8. Gently fold in the egg white into the egg yolk batters (in step 5). Be gentle but quick to avoid the egg whites deflating.

The 3 batters

9. Pour the batters into an ungreased chiffon tin layer by layer. Give the tin a few slight knocks on the tabletop to remove air bubbles. Bake in preheated oven at 170 deg C for 35 minutes or 160 deg C for 40 minutes.
10. Remove from oven and invert the tin immediately onto a cooling rack.
11. Unmould the cake only when it is completely cool.

** For step 7, instead of dividing the egg whites equally, I divided them in 60g, 70g and 80g portions. Add the lesser 60g portion to the vanilla batter which is at the bottom of the tin during baking, 70g portion to the strawberry batter, and 80g portion to the chocolate batter which is at the top of the tin during baking. This is to get the layers as even as possible. You may adjust depending on how you want which colour to be in which layer. You may also omit this step.

Adapted from: 好吃戚风蛋糕轻松上手

Hidden Heart Chiffon Cake

I should have posted this yesterday, but just too lazy.

Few days ago, I did something that nobody has ever done before, or at least I have never seen anywhere online. Hidden heart in a cake is not something new. You probably have seen hidden hearts in pound cakes and cupcakes. But in a chiffon cake, it is just me daydreaming about it! So I daringly TRIED!

There's a HEART in my chiffon cake! It looks amazing right? But I can't say I succeed cos not every slice has a nice heart shape. Haha!

This is how I do it. I just use a chiffon cake recipe for a 17cm tin - 4 eggs (or any recipe that you like). Prepare the egg yolk batter as usual. Divide the batter into 2 portions. One portion I add strawberry powder to make it pink. The other I add cocoa powder to make it a chocolate chiffon cake.

Then beat half of the egg whites, for my case I beat 2 egg whites to peak first. Mix egg white to strawberry batter and bake in a square or any flat pan at 180 deg C for about 8-10 minutes until the top brown evenly. Set it aside to cool down, then cut the cake into as many pink heart shapes as you can. (Aiya, I should have used a smaller heart cutter.)

Next, I continue to beat the other 2 egg whites to peak. Another wrong estimation, I should have used extra white cos I end up not quite enough batter to cover the pink hearts. Then, mix the egg whites with the chocolate batter. Pour some chocolate batter into the chiffon tin. Place the pink hearts inside the tin all around - remember to place hearts upside down cos the chiffon cake will be turn over after baked. Try to place them as close as possible to avoid too many large gaps. Cover the hearts with the rest of the chocolate batter, then bake as usual.

And that's how I got the heart shapes in, although not perfect. My daydream comes true! LOL!

Summer Ice Cream Treat

I made Strawberry Yoghurt Ice Cream using the same recipe as the Mango Yoghurt Ice Cream. It was really refreshing to treat myself a Mango and Strawberry Ice Cream Combo in such a hot weather. :)

Strange! I have not been able to upload photos to Blogger for the past few days. I wonder why? You can take a look at the ice cream from my Flickr photos. Meanwhile, I will continue to try uploading my photos.

Update on 4 July:
I'm finally able to upload my photo. The Blogger problem still exists. I read from the forum and found the manual way to do it.

I need to cool down

First, it's fever. Then, comes the cough and sore throat. I tried to search for blogs that share recipes or any home remedies. With no satisfactory results, I made a pot of chrysanthemum tea learnt from Noobcook. Serious. I even need to look for reference to make such a simple chrysanthemum tea. I'm really clueless in cooking. This website is great and has a lot of easy recipes. Promise to learn some simple dishes and post here ok.


I couldn't find soups that helps to soothe coughs. So I made some lemon honey. Juice of 1 lemon + 1 cup hot water + honey to taste. At least, I get a boost of vitamin C and soothe the throat. Anyone has remedies for cough?


Anyway, I'm into baking sponge cakes nowadays. Tried to make green tea cake roll and spread with azuki beans and whipping cream. The cake roll cracked, not much surprise, I knew I can't make cake rolls. :( No choice, I turned it into a layer cake like this.


The other sponge cake I made is a strawberry sponge cake (recipe from HHB). Love its texture - soft and spongy, and it remains soft on the next day.



No chocolates and heaty stuff for me now. I'll see what I can bake.

Strawberry Chiffon Cake

Before you thought that I have just made a perfect chiffon cake, look at the photo below...


This is the sunken part that I have cut away before taking photographs. Haha!

Wait, I shouldn't sound too happy. This has been the Nth sunken chiffon cake that I have made. My previous orange, lemon, cheese and pandan flavoured chiffon cakes had all failed. All of them had the same problem of a sunken top after cooling. Everything was fine during the preparation, including beating the egg whites. The cake rose nicely in the oven, but when I unmoulded it from the pan, I always ended up in great disappointment.

Rei's Chiffon Cake Tips and Trouble II Tip #4 states that:
"If the cake's top (overturned, previously it was the bottom) is sunken in (like a small groove), the oven temperature is too high. If the oven temperature is too high, it will cause the cake to over-expand. So when the cake relaxes after cooling, it will cause this effect."

I might try stepping down the temperature to prevent the oven from getting too hot when making chiffon cakes again.

Strangely, my first few chiffon cakes did not have this problem. Is it me or my oven getting worse?

Recipe from Peng's Kitchen.

Easy Strawberry Ice Cream

I'm into ice-cream making again! :)


After my successful attempt in making the black sesame ice cream, I made another ice cream flavour upon my nephew's request. Erm... my excuse actually, I think I crave for the ice cream more than he does. But he has the privilege of choosing the ice cream flavour that he likes. I have a couple of ice cream recipes like green tea, red bean, cookies & cream, etc. In the end, he wants to eat strawberry ice cream, as simple as that. I told him, but we don't have strawberries at home. So I had to use strawberry paste to substitute the real strawberries.


Here's the strawberry ice cream for you. :)

Easy Strawberry Ice Cream (Modified from here and here)

Ingredients
3 egg yolks
80g sugar
200g fresh milk
1 tsp strawberry paste
250g non-dairy whipping cream

Method
1. Whisk egg yolks and sugar till white and creamy.
2. Double boil the egg yolk mixture and stir constantly. Pour in fresh milk and continue stirring until mixture is hot but not boiling.
3. Remove the milk mixture from heat and set aside to cool.
4. Add in 1 tsp of strawberry paste.
5. Whisk non-dairy whipping cream till fluffy and fold in the cooled milk mixture.
6. Pour into container and freeze overnight or until firm.

* You can add fresh strawberries in if you like.