Totoro Chiffon Cake Pop

Sorry for the lack of updates, quite slack these days, because I don't feel like turning on my laptop to blog at night. -_- I'm finally going to update another overdue recipe today, Totoro chiffon cake pops. Sorry, keep putting it off as I'm lazy to edit the photos and type out the recipe.


There you go, here's how they look like, quite happy with how they turned out. The way to make this is quite similar to the Gudetama Easter chiffon cake I've shared earlier.

I used charcoal powder to colour the batter grey. If you can't get hold of it, you can also use black food colouring or grinded black sesame to substitute.


Here's a closer look at how they look. Quite fun to eat them this way, and I also like that chiffon cakes are lighter and healthier than the usual cakes.


I used fried pasta sticks to attach on Totoro's ears, if you do not want to do this, you can also make a slit on the cake to insert in the ears.

TOTORO CHIFFON CAKE POP RECIPE

Ingredients:
(A)
2 egg yolks
30ml milk
30ml canola oil
15g sugar
60g cake flour
Pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla essence
Charcoal powder

(B)
3 egg whites
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
35g sugar

melted chocolate
fried pasta sticks
8 egg shells

Method:

1. Prepare egg shells by using a spoon to gently crack the narrow end of the egg, make a hole and drain the contents. Remove the white membrane inside the egg. 

2. Prepare (A), whisk egg yolk and sugar together till sugar melts.

3. Add in vanilla essence, oil, milk and salt and mix well.

4. Sift in cake flour and mix well.

5. Scoop out 5 tsp of batter into another bowl and leave it plain (A1), set aside. Add black charcoal powder to the remaining batter, half a tsp at a time, till you get a dark grey batter (A2). Make sure the colour is a shade or two darker than the eventual colour you want, as the batter will be lighter after mixing in (B). Set aside.

6. Prepare (B), whisk egg white with cream of tartar for 1 minute, then gradually pour in sugar and continue to whisk till firm peaks.

7. Scoop out 10 tbsp of mixture (B), gently fold into mixture (A1). 

8. Pour batter into muffin cups or mould. Bake at 150C for 15minutes or when a skewer inserted comes out clean.


9. Fold the remaining mixture (B) into mixture (A2) gently. 

10. Fill into egg shells till around 2/3 full. Bake at 150C for 15minutes or when a skewer inserted comes out clean.

11. Let cakes cool down completely before cracking and peeling off the egg shell slowly and removing them from the mould. Slice off the bottom of the cake to flatten them, keep the sliced off portion for step 13.

12. Slice out the white cake and cut out circles using cutter.

13. Using the sliced out portion from step 11, cut out ears using a cutter or a pair of scissors. 

14. Attach on the eyes and tummy using some melted white chocolate. Attach on the ears using fried pasta stick. Use melted dark chocolate to draw on Totoro's features. You can serve them standing on a plate or insert a cake pop stick to them.

Gudetama Easter Chiffon Cake

We are having a one week school break next week, I'm always happy to turn my alarm off, lol. I probably won't be making much cute food next week, I hope I still have time to make more Easter creations when school starts again, but meanwhile, you can check out my past Easter creations over here.


The first Easter creation I made this year are these Gudetama chiffon cakes. This silly egg is still one of my favourite character, lol.


They were baked in egg shells. The troublesome part of this recipe for me is to collect the egg shells, I can only bake these after I've collected enough egg shells.


I like the light airy texture of chiffon cakes, they are also healthier than the usual cakes as well.


These are lemon chiffon cake, if you want to make plain ones, just substitute the lemon juice in my recipe with milk or water, and lemon zest with vanilla extract.


You will need a little yellow food gel colouring, so that the cakes turn out yellow in the end, else they will turn out white instead. Alternatively, you can replace food gel with lemon or orange emulco, if you prefer.

GUDETAMA LEMON MINI CHIFFON CAKE RECIPE

Ingredients:
(A)
2 egg yolks
30ml lemon juice
30ml canola oil
15g sugar
40g cake flour
pinch of salt
1 tsp lemon zest
yellow food gel colouring

(B)
3 egg whites
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
35g sugar

melted chocolate
12 egg shells

Method:

1. Prepare egg shells by using a spoon to gently crack the narrow end of the egg, make a hole and drain the contents. Remove the white membrane inside the egg. 

2. Prepare (A), whisk egg yolk and sugar together till sugar melts.

3. Add in lemon juice, oil, salt and lemon zest and mix well.

4. Sift in cake flour and mix well.

5. Add in yellow food gel colouring using a toothpick, mix well,  make sure the colour is a shade or two darker than the eventual colour you want, as the batter will be lighter after mixing in (B). Set aside.

6. Prepare (B), whisk egg white with cream of tartar for 1 minute, then gradually pour in sugar and continue to whisk till firm peaks.

7. Gently fold mixture (B) into (A) one third at a time. 

8. Place egg shells in cupcake cases, so that they can stand upright. Fill 12 egg shells with batter till around 2/3 full. Pour the remaining batter into muffin cups or mould (these will be used to cut out Gudetama limbs). Bake at 150C for 15minutes or when a skewer inserted comes out clean.


9. Let cakes cool down completely before cracking and peeling off the egg shell slowly.

10. Remove cake from mould and use knife to slice out the cake, then use a pair of scissors to cut out Gudetama limbs and attach on using some melted white chocolate. Use melted dark chocolate to draw on Gudetama's features. 

Totoro Black Sesame Chiffon Cake

It's quite a happening week over here in Singapore as our General Election are upcoming. And my boys are having a one week school holiday, happy to have a break so I can sleep a little longer every morning. I will be taking a break from making cute food next week, but you will probably still see me posting both on the blog and on Instagram, as I still have things on backlog to share.


It's been so so long since I last made a chiffon cake. Chiffon cakes are one of my favourite, love the light airy texture. And looking at the ingredients used as compared to other cakes, it also seems slightly healthier. This time, I tried making a black sesame chiffon cake, and then I decorated it into Totoro. :)


I love black sesame and IT does not mind it. However, black sesame bakes can be a hit-and-miss thing with LT. He does not really like the taste of black sesame, if it's too overpowering, he'll probably refuse to eat anymore after the first bite. But he is fine if the taste is more subtle, and I guess the taste of this cake lean more towards subtle, as he was okay with eating the cake. I think the whipped cream helped too.


LT started singing the song from Totoro when he saw the cake. -_- My boys loved the bottom half which was covered with whipped cream, I regretted not keeping some of the leftover whipped cream to serve with the top half.


I'm sharing the recipe of the cake below. Hope you like it. :)

BLACK SESAME CHIFFON CAKE

Ingredients:
3 egg yolks
20g caster sugar
30ml fresh milk
20ml corn oil
30 g black sesame paste
48g cake flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder

Meringue Batter:
3 egg whites
40g caster sugar
5g cornflour

Whipped cream:
50g heavy cream
5g castor sugar

Method:

1. Beat egg yolks, caster sugar, and salt over a water bath until the sugar and salt have completely dissolved, and the egg yolks are creamy. 

2. Add in black sesame paste and milk to the egg yolk mixture and continue to mix them well over the water bath. Leave to cool down, stir in oil.

3. To make the meringue, beat the egg whites with a mixer on low speed until they become white and frothy. Gradually add the sugar and cornflour in intervals and beat until stiff peaks have formed. 

4. Add 1/3 of the meringue to the egg yolk mixture and mix well. 

5. Sift in the cake flour and baking powder and mix to combine. 

6. Fold in the rest of the meringue. 

7. Transfer to a 5 inch chiffon cake mould. Tap against the table to allow air bubbles to escape.

8. Bake in a preheated oven at 170C for 20-25 minutes. Remove and rest the cake tin upside down. Make sure it is completely cool before unmouldng.

9. For decoration, beat the heavy cream and sugar until soft peaks form. 
10. Frost bottom half of chiffon cake. 

11. Place a little whipped cream in pipping bag and pipe out Totoro's eyes.

12. Use melted chocolate to pipe on eyes, nose, whiskers, and details on its stomach. 

13. Make small incisions on the side of the cake for its ears. Use almond and dip the ends in as 'glue' and attach the ears.