Christmas Holly Durian Logcake

Christmas is my favourite festive season of the year. It is a period where there will be lots of feasting and gathering. I love to host Christmas gathering with family members and friends too! This year, I invited my family members and in-laws over to my place (separately) for a mini celebration. For occasions like this, I will usually bake some kind of desserts. And one of the common desserts will have to be Christmas logcake.

Ploughing through the patterned swiss rolls recipes in the blog, I decided to try this recipe from Reese. As I wanted to make two log cakes, I increased the quantity of the ingredients. I made one with strawberry jam and the other with durian. The durian logcake was very well received by my in-laws! I was glad they enjoyed it!

I am submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #26 - Creative Christmas Motif Bakes! hosted by Alan of Travellingfoodies.
 
Recipe for Christmas Holly Durian Logcake, adapted from Reese.
Makes two 10 x 13" sheet cake

Ingredients:

Egg yolk batter:
8 Egg yolks
27g Caster sugar
80g Milk
2 tsp Vanilla extract (may omit this. I prefer to add vanilla extract as I found it very eggy without)
60g Vegetable oil
133g Cake flour
20g Cornflour

Egg Whites:
8 Egg whites
94g Caster sugar

For picture: (I originally use more. However, there were a lot of left over. This is the original recipe)
20g Egg whites
10g sugar
[with 30g egg yolk batter from the top]
Green colouring
Red colouring

Frosting:
60g Durian flesh
130g Whipping Cream
13g Caster sugar

Method:

1. Egg yolk batter: Whisk egg yolks together with sugar, then add in milk and oil and mix well.
2. Add in cake flour and cornflour and stir well. Set aside.
3. Scoop out 30g egg yolk batter with 10g (for red) and 20g (for green) respectively. Mix in red colouring to the 10g batter and green colouring to the 20g batter. Mix well.
4. Whisk the 20g egg whites and sugar (ingredients for pictures) till half soft peak form and add 1/3 in the prepared 10g red egg yolk batter, and remaining egg whites in the green yolk batter. Stir well.
5. Spoon the red batter into a piping bag with tip #3. Pipe 3 rounds to form a little triangles onto lined tray.
6. Spoon the green batter into a piping bag. Cut off the tip and pipe it to form a leaf. Pipe three leaves around the red triangle.
7. Bake at 180C for 1 minute then set aside.
8. Egg whites: Whisk the egg whites together with the sugar until stiff peak.
9. Fold into the egg yolk batter. Then pour batter over the half-baked hollies. Split them (almost) equally into the two trays. (As I have left over from the picture batter, I piped them onto the surface of the batter, to prevent wastage.)

10. Flatten the top with a spatula and bake at 180C for 13 minutes, or browned. (Then baked the other tray)
11. Transfer onto wire rack to cool completely.

To assemble:

12. Whisk the whipping cream with sugar till stiff.
13. Spread the durian flesh onto the swiss roll, followed by whipped cream.
14. Roll it up and decorate with Christmas decorations.

Wish you a Merry Christmas & a very Happy New 2013!