Red Velvet Christmas Logcake

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Early November, in the Facebook group of the Singapore Bakers, someone posted a red velvet logcake. I thought it might be a good idea to make red velvet logcake this year. There were already some famous bakery selling this. I supposed the recipe for red velvet logcake will be different from the normal red velvet cupcake. As shared by the member, the recipe was modified from Yummyholic site. The batter from the original recipe was too stiff that it was really difficult to fold. So I added oil and milk to it, to make it more foldable.

Recipe for Red Velvet Christmas Logcake
Makes a 11" x 14" cake sheet

Ingredients:
Cake Sheet
4 Egg yolks
30g Caster sugar
25g Whole milk
20g Vegetable oil
60g Cake flour
10g Cocoa powder
3/4 tsp Baking powder
1/4 tsp Fine salt
A few drops of red colouring

4 Egg whites
1/4 tsp Cream of tartar
90g Caster sugar

Method:

1. Prepare a cake tray and lined with parchment paper.

2. Sift the cake flour, baking powder, cocoa powder and salt; set aside.

3. Whisk egg yolks and sugar till light and frothy. Add milk and vegetable oil, mix well. Then add colouring.

4. Add in the sifted flour mixture into the batter and mix well.

5. Beat egg whites in a mixing bowl till frothy.

6. Add the cream of tartar into the caster sugar, mix well. Gradually add in the caster sugar into the egg whites. Beat till stiff peak.

7. Fold the egg whites into the egg yolk batter. Mix well.

8. Bake for 12 mins in a preheated oven of 180C or until browned.

Cream Cheese Frosting

300g Cream Cheese

90g Unsalted Liv butter, room temperature

100g Icing sugar, sifted
2 tbsp Lemon juices
1 punnet of fresh blueberries (optional)

Method:
1. Beat cream cheese and butter until light and creamy.
2. Add in sifted icing sugar and mix well.
3. Add in lemon juices and combine well.

Assemble:

1. Spread the cream cheese frosting onto the swiss roll, followed by blueberries if using.

2. Roll it up tightly.

3. Trim both sides of the cake and placed the swiss roll to the main log.
4. Frost the whole cake with cream cheese.
5. To make the spikes, just use the spatula to gently pat on the cream cheese frosting and lift it up quickly. Repeat the process for the whole cake.

6. Decorate with X'mas cake ornaments as desired, then chill it in the fridge before serving.

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!

Aspiring Bakers #2: Chocolate Logcake

It's time to do some baking for Christmas! I realised that I've been very lagging this year. Last year, I was enthusiastic in baking my X'mas presents. However, this year, I have no such plans. I made a chocolate logcake earlier this week as requested by my son. I'll be submitting this to the Aspiring Bakers #2, which I am also the host!!

I used the cake base from Bakertan's recipe. The frosting was made using a combination of butter and cream cheese. Then frost the cake with chocolate ganache. Here is my chocolate logcake.

Recipe for Chocolate Logcake.

Ingredients:

Sponge Cake (10" x 10" square pan)
3 Eggs, room temperature
54g Caster sugar
57g Plain flour
12g Cocoa powder
42g Unsalted butter, melted

Method:
1. Sift plain flour and cocoa powder together.
2. In a mixing bowl, beat eggs and caster sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy. Then turn to low speed and beat for 2 mins to stablise the bubbles.
3. Fold in the sifted flour and cocoa powder in 3 batches. (I used the whisk to fold in low speed. Then use spatula to do the final folds).
4. Scoop some batter from the mixture and add into the melted butter. Mix well.
5. Pour back the melted butter mixture into the egg batter and mix well. Do not overmix.
6. Pour into the lined 10"x10" pan and bake in the preheated oven at 190C for 8 mins.
7. Leave it in the pan to cool completely before frosting.

Cream Cheese frosting
110g Cream cheese
70g Unsalted butter, soften at room temperature
40g Icing sugar

Method:
1. Add all into the mixer and beat well to incorporate. (It's done when it's creamy and spikes showing)

Chocolate Ganache
150g Semi-sweet chocolate, chopped into small pieces
100g Whipping cream

Method:
1. In a small saucepan, heat up the whipping cream. When it starts to bubble at the sides, turn it off and pour into the chocolates.
2. Stir and mix until it's smooth.

Assembly:
1. Spread the cream cheese frosting evenly on the sponge cake.
2. Roll it up.
3. Pour the chocolate ganache all over, even it out.
4. Use a fork to create the log effect. Then decorate with X'mas props accordingly.

Here's wishing everyone, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

White Christmas

We had an old friend's gathering yesterday at one of the friend's 3-storey terrace near Singapore Expo. Initially, I was still quite ambitious to want to bake tarts, eclairs and cake. But ended up, I wasn't about to accomplish it. So I settled for logcake since X'mas is just round the corner.

I would like to make a chocolate logcake. However, as I still had some white chocolate ganache and white chocolate with orange zest in the fridge, I decided to do white chocolate with chocolate cake sheet. I grated orange zest into the white chocolate, and used my caramelised orange slices as the fillings. However, I realised something when I was frosting the cake.

Mistake #1: Don't frost a chocolate cake with white chocolate. The 1st layer of white chocolate wasn't able to cover the "brown" background. So I had to do 2 layers minimum. It's like wearing a translucent skirt without petitecoat. :p

Mistake #2: If want to frost a chocolate cake with white chocolate, you must cover the cake with a layer of whipped cream first. Then you can frost it with a layer of white chocolate without it being "see-through".


As I was out to "impress", I just had to do it nicely. So I added a little of this, a little of that. And it turned out pretty PRO! ;) I am very happy with this "White Christmas Logcake". The white chocolate was sweet, but other than that, the sugar has been reduced for everything that was added! My friends were very very impressed by the logcake, thinking initially that I had bought it, until I told them it was made by me! They still thought I was kidding, until my spouse vouched for it. ;) My efforts were paid off-they were IMPRESSED!