MIL's Brithday Cake & Marble Crumb Cake

Mid year school holidays! A nice little break for the kids from books and school. ;) As for me, as much as I love my time with my kids, I always find that my so call "free" time seems to disappear real fast with the kids at home. ;P And that is also one of the reasons why I am not posting as much. :P And before I disappear again for my short vacation, I would like to post up a couple of cake recipes which was done a little while back.

First is my MIL's birthday cake. I have chosen to bake the same Eggless Tiramisu Cake which I posted last month. Main reason for this repetition was because my MIL seems to love this cake a lot the last time I baked it. She even requested to leave an extra slice for her to enjoy the following day (this happens rarely). With that I knew she would love this tiramisu cake for her birthday.

I decided to steal the same decoration method as last year's birthday cake, which is to have a sponge cake wrap around it. Perhaps not as tedious but still quite a bit of work if I do say so myself, lol! I shall only post up the recipe for the dual flavor swiss roll cake here. Please refer to my previous post for the tiramisu cake recipe.

This Swiss roll recipe uses the Egg separation method "分蛋式海绵蛋" which yields one of the softest cake, even after refrigeration. For step by step pictorial help, please refer to my previous post here.

Ingredients for Dual Flavor Swiss Roll Cake: (makes a 13"x10")

Set A:

30g unsalted butter, melted and cooled

4 large egg yolks

20g caster sugar

Set B:

4 egg whites

65g caster sugar

40g superfine cake flour

1 tbsp cocoa powder

Method:

• Melt the butter and let cool until needed.
• Line a baking tray with parchment paper and greased it again. Preheat oven to 170C.
• Again under double boiler, beat the egg yolks and sugar (from Set A) till triple in volume and thickens.
• At the meantime, beat the egg white from Set B with gradual addition of the sugar and beat till mixture is stiff peaks.
• In 3 separate portions, add the egg whites into the yolk mixture, folding gently till all is added in.
• Sift in the cake flour in 3 separate portions as well, using the electric mixer at its lowest speed. Do this till there is no visible lumps of flour and making sure not over beating and deflating the mixture.
• Take about 2 tbsp worth of the batter and mix into the melted, cooled butter mixture. Make sure it is well mixed and then add it back to the cake batter and gently stir to blend.
• Take about 190g of the batter and mix in the 1 tbsp of cocoa powder until uniform in color.
• Fill the 2 batters into 2 separate piping bags with a 1cm opening nozzle.
• Pipe along the shorter side of the tray, alternating the plain and chocolate batter until all has been piped out.
• 
• Bake in the oven for 13 minutes or till tester comes out clean. Let cake cool completely before use.
• Cut the cake into half length wise and should be long enough to wrap a 7" or 8" round cake. Alternatively, you can leave it as it is to make it into a Swiss roll cake. :))
• 

Remember to save some mascarpone cream to cream around the cake so that the swiss roll can adhere properly. An adjustable cake ring would be very handy here.

A look at interior...from the last slice which I salvage after the celebration. :) Actually, I like this cake a lot too, it has this well balance taste of mascarpone cream, soft sponge cake and chocolate. I will definitely bake this again for more family gatherings later this year. ;)

I would like to submit this to Bake-Along No. 25 1st Anniversary: A Layered Cake.
It's my first time joining in and I'm so happy that I'm finally taking part in this bake along! (^o^)

The other recipe I wanted to post up is Marble Crumb Cake which I saw over at Daily Delicious almost a month back. I knew the moment I saw it, I have to bake it!

Its so hard to capture a nice picture with this dark and brown cake! Doesn't look as good as it taste, trust me on that. :P

Perhaps this shot will better show how yummy this cake is. Fine crumbs, chocolaty and cookie like crumb toppings. :) I doubled the recipe and posted here for my reference

Ingredients for Marble Crumb Cake (Makes a 7"X7")

Crumb topping

170g all purpose flour

16g cocoa powder

100g light brown sugar

100g salted butter

Mix all the ingredients together until it resembles bread crumbs. Set aside for use later.

Cake:

230g salted butter

200g caster sugar

4 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

230g all purpose flour

2.5tsp baking powder

130g dark chocolate, chopped

120ml dairy heavy cream (divided in 30g / 30g)

Method:

• Heat 30ml of the heavy cream till almost bubbly. Add in the chopped chocolate and let seat for 5 mins. Stir well and let cool. Preheat oven to 180C.
• Beat the butter and sugar till it's light and fluffy. Add in vanilla extract and continue to mix. Then beat in each egg, one at a time till everything is incorporated.
• Sift in half of the flour, baking powder and mix well. Then add in 30ml of the heavy cream and mix. Then add in the remaining flour and mix well.
• Take about 1/4 of the batter and mix the melted chocolate in.
• Pour both batter in the prepared baking tin, alternating and then stir it with a tooth pick to create the marble effect.
• Bake in the preheated oven for 40-50 minutes till the tester comes out clean. If the crumbs are browning too fast in the oven, cover it with an aluminum foil. Remember to let cool before slicing, else the crumbs will fall apart easily.

I had reduce the sugar by 30g, plus I used 70% cocoa chocolate verses using milk chocolate, so this is really not that sweet. ;)

Hopefully these 2 cakes have inspired you to bake something nice for your love ones this holiday. :)