Dear Mum's Birthday: Passion Fruit Swiss Roll Cake & "寿桃" (Peach) Buns

It's my mother's birthday again. It goes without saying I have to bake a nice cake for her as well this year...nicer then the one last year. But because of the recent Father's Day cake I made, my family kind of fell in love with the passion fruit cake flavor. So I decided to bake a passion fruit cake but in the same Swiss Roll cake deco I made for my MIL's birthday cake in June. I have to say this cake is like a marriage of 2 recipes & technique I learned in these months. And this is the result of the happy "marriage", heehee.

I know I should have come up with a new design on the outside, but I really don't have that kind of time leisure, so I just went to the same design as the previous one. But bare in mind that this is a Passion Fruit Swiss Roll Cake...meaning the cake is rolled up just like the one in the Father's Day & my Hubby's Birthday cake I made. Meaning the cake layering are in vertical form. Anyway, I will upload a picture of the sliced cake after tonight's celebration. :)

Instead of using the same recipe of sponge cake (whole egg technique); I decided to change the recipe to using the egg separation method "分蛋式海绵蛋". Main reason is this method yields the softest of all the techniques (i.e. Chiffon, Sponge and egg separation). Here is my recipe:

Ingredients for Passion fruit Cake Batter (13" by 15"):

Set A:

5 large egg yolks

60g caster sugar

110g superfine or cake flour

2 tsp corn flour

Set B:

50g unsalted butter

50ml fresh passion fruit juice (~ 3 passion fruits)

Set C:

6 egg whites
pinch of salt
50g caster sugar

Ingredients for Passion Fruit Cream Cheese Filling:

150g unsalted butter

250g cream cheese, room temperature

80g confectioner's sugar

50ml passion fruit pulp

100ml non dairy whipping cream

1.5 tbsp gelatine powder melted in 2 tbsp boiling water

Method:

• Melt the butter together with the passion fruit juice from Set B under double boiler 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 with gradual addition of the sugar in Set C 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 flours 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.
• For the Swiss Roll decoration details, please kindly refer to this post.
• Finally, pour the batter into the baking tray and level out with a scraper. Then bake in the oven for 13 minutes or till tester comes out clean. Let cake cool completely before use.
• In the meantime, prepare the cream cheese filling: Cream the butter, cream cheese, sifted powder sugar, gelatine mixture and passion fruit juice together till smooth.
• Pour in the whipping cream and continue to whip at high speed till mixture fluff up and increase in volume more.
• For details on how to assemble this cake, please refer to this post.

I really have to work on my piping skill...my Chinese characters are not very nicely done. ;P And hopefully the taste of the cake will work out nice as well tonight. *fingers crossed*

Latest update!

Managed to get a shot of a slice....the cake was indeed very yum, just like the previous time, heehee!

I will be submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #9 - Swiss Rolling Good Times hosted by Obsessedly Involved with Food.

Besides the cake, I also made some "寿桃" (peach) buns for my mum's birthday. Traditionally, these buns that are served during an elder's birthday celebration. Since this was my first attempt, I had a very rough work done...but still presentable...I think, lol!

I had these buns filled with white lotus paste (no sugar added). Had thought of adding salted egg yolk in it too but decided not to, as there's too much work!! :P As for the bun recipe, it's none other then my trusty soft mantou recipe of course, hee. :D

Hope you guys are not laughing your pants off looking at my ugly "寿桃" (peach) buns. :P Seriously need some practice on the shaping. Luckily it is just for my family's consumption....hee. :D But let's hope my mum won't be disappointed in these. *double fingers crossed*

Okay folks, gotta go and prepare for the celebration tonight, will post again soon! Have a great week!

Chocolate Swirl Bread Loaf & Pork Floss Swiss Roll

Another month is coming to an end, and it is almost August. And before we know it, we'll be marching into the last quarter of 2011. Time is just swishing by really fast and sometimes I feel kind of helpless thinking about it. Wonder if anyone of you felt the same. :P Anyway, I'll try to minimize the wasting of time here by posting two recipes in this post. First up is Chocolate Swirl Bread Loaf. I have again adapted the 17hr pre-fermentation method in this recipe. Using the plain white loaf recipe, I incorporated some cocoa sugar powder to create the swirl effect.

Pardon me if you find this loaf rather hideous looking...kind of like the incredible hock loaf, lol! I guess I should have dine a better job on the shaping. But it's really kind of messy and hard to handle as the cocoa sugar powder melts into the dough as I place it into the loaf tin....so lessonlearn ; choose a cooler day to bake this. ;P

Ingredients for White Bread Loaf (makes 2 loaves of 9X5X5)

Pre-ferment Dough

480g bread flour

274ml water

14g fresh yeast ( I used 8 g instant active dry yeast)

7g sea salt

14g skim milk powder

Dissolve the yeast in water. Add bread flour, sea salt, skim milk powder and knead until soft. Cover the dough in cling wrap or a big zip log bag. Refrigerate to let it prove for 17 hours.

Note: The dough will expand in the fridge. So whatever container you put the dough in, do give some allowance for growth.

Main Dough:

206g bread flour

7g sea salt

69g caster sugar

199ml water

3g fresh yeast (I used instant active dry yeast)

48g unsalted butter, room temperature

Chocolate Mix:

40g cocoa powder
100g caster sugar

Method: (*note that I use only half of the dough portion for this)

• Knead all ingredients of the main dough together, except the butter. Add pre-ferment dough piece by piece. Knead after each addition until soft and smooth. Add butter. Knead until stretchable consistency.
• Put the dough into a big bowl. Cover with cling wrap and let it prove for 30minutes till double.
• Punch out the air and roll the dough into a flat rectangle, about 250cm by 30cm. Sprinkle the chocolate mix all over the dough surface.
• Cut the dough into 8 equal strips and stack them one on top of the other. Then further cut the dough log into 6 equal squares.
• Take the stacks of square dough, place them standing up like books until it fills up the whole

I apologize for the lack of visual aid in the shaping of the loaf this time. But no worries, normal Swiss roll style shaping will work just fine. :)

A shot of the bread's soft texture. Didn't bother to slice it this time, lol! Anyway, it's a good recipe, will make it again, perhaps with cinnamon sugar & chocolate chips next round.

The other recipe is Pork Floss Swiss Roll. I have done this Swiss Roll before...quite awhile back. Although this combination may seem unorthodox, cake with pork floss? But trust me, it is surprisingly delicious. So far anyone that has tasted it has changed their own opinion about this unusual marriage of ingredients and rave it's yumminess. :)

This time I used the vanilla sponge cake recipe from 孟老师的美味蛋糕卷 cookbook. This vanilla cake recipe uses the same egg separation method which always yields a soft texture. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients for Vanilla Sponge Swiss Roll cake: (makes a 14cm X 10cm)

Set A:
40g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
100g egg yolk (about 5)
20g caster suagr
Set B:
160g egg white ( about 4)
75g caster sugar

55g cake flour

For detail steps; please refer to my earlier post for the technique.

I will be submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #9 - Swiss Rolling Good Times hosted by Obsessedly Involved with Food. If you have not submitted yet, do hurry as it's only a few days left! Don't miss out the fun and the attractive gift that might just be yours! :)

Okay all, have a great weekend ahead! Cheers!