You Make My Life Special

Happy Birthday, son! I hope you had a great time. Each year on your birthday, I celebrate the blessings for being your mother for another year too.  It's through His grace that our souls are entwined together through this special bond that I treasure above all. As you grow from a little baby to a fine young man in years to come, my precious son you shall always be. I love you with all that I am. I pray that God will continuously shower you with his blessings, guide you and make you a man with virtue as your most treasured possession.  Amen!

This is the first birthday cake that I have ever made for him. He asked for a cake that looks like a true birthday cake, i.e. one with cream and all. Big challenge for Mum, I have been successful in staying away from the likes of it all this while. But...I would do anything for him...

He loves chiffons, so I went along this line, I found a Oreo Chiffon recipe at Honey Bee Sweets' blog.  She did hers in her tube pan but I wanted a round one.  From a link crediting the source of the recipe, I hopped over to Table for Two or More who did it without using a tube pan. With that as assurance, I was convinced a non tube pan would work too and it did.  Only thing was I thought it was a little 'short' which brought me to the idea of creating another layer.  I wanted to do strawberry but I couldn't find a single punnet of strawberry on that day.  I decided to use a sponge cake recipe and add some store bought strawberry filling.  Then came the disaster, the batter was too much for the cake pan, it overflowed!  I had to interrupt the baking process as the batter overflowed to the floor of the oven and it had begun to burn! It was really stupid of me to insist putting everything in that pan even though i felt that it was a little too much.  I think it was the size of the eggs that was the culprit.

Once bitten twice shy? I wonder where mine went on that night?? I should have just gone without the strawberry sponge, come to think of it the Oreo chiffon wasn't that short after all.  The stubbornness in me insisted that I stick to my new plan which was to surprise him with a double layer cake.  I salvaged whatever I could from the strawberry layer.  I put on some whipped cream, stacked the Oreo chiffon on top of the strawberry sponge and I got a taller cake.

So, here's the cake.  I was quite pleased with how it turned out.  I know the frosting leaves a lot more to be desired but I have to be a little forgiving to myself since this is my first attempt :)

Now let's take a look at what's inside... ta dah! See how imbalance the layers are! I swear that it wasn't that short, most probably the weight of what's above squashed it a little.  On top of that, if you scrutinized the photo, you will notice a small part at the bottom centre part of the cake that looks like a lump of flour.  Yucks and ugly, ugly when it came to that part of the cake, i really regretted putting on that strawberry layer.  The chiffon tasted really good though, I should have just stuck with it.  Next time I will remember that in occasions like these, 'Less is More'!  Thank God, this cake was just for the family...I have learned my lesson.

   

Apart from the cake, I made him this traditional birthday treat.  Red dyed hard boiled eggs and longevity noodles.   He said "Mum, do we need to be so traditional?" I guess he was just being nice instead of saying "Mum, you are so old fashion" :))

I took an extra step to make the yolks soft, just like the ones that you get in Japanese restaurants to go along with their ramen.  It turned out quite well.  As for the noodles instead of the traditional meat based savoury soup, i used our homemade Chinese Rice Wine.  Traditional or not, this was a simple but delicious bowl of noodles!

The finale for the day was dinner at his favourite Japanese restaurant, the Kampachi at Pavillion KL.  He never gets bored of the food there, it was just Oishii!

Recipe ~ Oreo Chiffon Cake

Source : Table for Two or More

Ingredients


(A)

• 65gm oreo, lightly pulverized together with cream 

(B)

• 5 egg yolks
• 50gm sugar
• 60gm milk
• 60gm corn oil
• 100gm cake flour, sifted

(C )

• 5 egg whites
• ½ tsp cream of tartar or 1 tsp lemon/lime juice
• 60gm sugar

Steps

1. Preheat oven at 180C.
2. Mix yolks and sugar together. Add in oil and milk. Then the sifted flour. Combine with a whisk until smooth. (Do not whisk or beat but just combine)
3. Beat egg whites until frothy, put in cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks. Put in sugar gradually and beat until stiff.
4. Fold ¼ of egg whites into (2) and then another ¼ of egg whites.
5. Pour egg yolk batter into the remaining egg whites and fold.
6. Put in pulverized oreos and fold until well combined.
7. Pour into a clean ungreased tube pan (22 or 25cm will be fine) and bake for 45 minutes.
8. Invert immediately upon removal from oven. Wait for it to cool down totally before removing cake from pan.

Recipe for Strawberry Sponge ? Next time maybe :))

Recipe ~ Hard Boiled Eggs with Soft Yolk

Ingredients

• Eggs
• Rice vinegar
• Ice cubes and cold water

Steps

1. Boil enough water in a pot to cover eggs up to 1 inch above the eggs.
2. Turn off flame.
3. Put eggs into the boiled water.  Cover the pot
4. After seven minutes, transfer the eggs into a bowl of ice water.
5. Add in a teaspoon of rice vinegar into the ice water.
6. Remove eggs after 10 minutes.
7. Peel to remove egg shells.

Refer here for Longevity Noodles with Rice Wine recipe.

Posted in: Cakes,Chiffons