Chiffon Shortcake with fruits and cream...

We had this for my mother's birthday last month, yeah am very very behind time. Will just make a quick post of it, it was a Chiffon Shortcake, the same recipe which I posted sometime back. This cake is always quite a hit. Its fab with cream and chocolate/fruit. I sliced the cake into three and loaded it with fruits and cream. Yeah I know that looks like a hell lot of cream, but I swear it really wasn't that much, I think while spreading it I pushed it out to the sides. And for the fruits I used whatever I could get my hands on, it had pomegranates, grapes (black and green), kiwis and strawberries. I wanted it to have tonnes of fruits, it gave me a kind of nice feeling :) I added the pomegranates because I love the colour, but they tasted good too. I dunno why I have never seen pomegranates on cakes or even fruit tarts.

Later on I drizzled some blackcurrant syrup on the cake..mmm... :P

See! I told you it didn't have that much cream. And yeah I know all three pictures look so different from one another.. And I swear I took all of them on the same setting.. My skills... argh!

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Pineapple and cake and cream!

No, I haven't gone nuts over chiffon cakes.. Just that this cute li'l chap

had been lying around the kitchen and I had this funny desire to devour him with some cake and cream, and then I had two reasons, the first one being my kid sis, Aaliya, winning the inter school debate 'Materialism is degrading social values,' and her picture along with her partner's and the judges' appeared in a popular newspapers' student edition and she was rather sad that she looked fat but happy that her watch looked cool. Yes, she spoke for the motion! Well the second reason was that at that time I had only one more exam to go, and that was a really good reason. Oh, there was a third one as well, just came to my mind, and this one was the driving force, that my mother said it wouldn't be good for the poor pineapple if it was made to stand there another day, and as I just said, I had a craving, so I had to act.

As you can see the cream is all runny. I used my 25% cream again, but it appears I was only first time lucky, because I have used it thrice now, and for the past two times, no matter what, it just won't get stiff when I beat it. It does gain alot of volume but that's it. But it turns out I wasn't that unlucky, because I discovered that this runny thing goes very well cakes anyway, you can make the cake soak up some, so that it gets nice and moist, and isn't dry, and you can also then cover it with it, that is its not that runny, which is what I did. The was the same as my first time lucky one, just that this time no ganache, the layers had cream and pineapple between them, I used up the whole for this three layered one.

And another thing, I really don't why, but the cake had a definite sour taste to it. It wasn't pronounced enough to make the cake taste bad, but definitely there. I don't know if it was the cream, or the pineapple juice (which I got from boiling the remains with some water) I made the cake soak, you see I wanted a through and through pineapple cake! But the strange thing about the sour taste was that it got weaker with time. So that the last slice I and Aaliya shared on the third day of making the cake didn't have that sour taste at all!

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that same day...

The same day, because I knew I always have some leftover cream (and this time ganache as well) I baked a sheet cake merging the regular sponge recipe (30:30:1) and the chiffon shortcake recipe.

The ingredients-

30*6 gm flour
30*6 gm sugar
1*6 eggs

These are the regular sponge ingredients, apart from this I also added ( going the chiffon way),

Half a tablespoon baking powder
Half a teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold water
1/4 cup vegetable oil
Zest of half a lemon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Incase you don't have leftovers, for the filling you'll need-

Chocolate Ganache (Bring to the boil half a cup of cream in a saucepan, remove from heat and add around a quarter pound chopped semisweet chocolate to it, swirl the pan so the cream covers the chocolate, let it rest for five minutes, then whisk till smooth. Let cool, it will firm up as it does that.

And around half a cup of whipped cream, whipped with confectioner's sugar added according to your taste (around four tablespoons should be fine)

Then I proceeded as for the chiffon shortcake (check out the post before this one), with the exception that I used all the yolks as well, so that my yolks to whites ratio was 1:1. Also I noticed that using more water yields a softer cake. I cut the cake into two layers, sandwiched the layers with the ganache and then covered them with whipped cream, and it was good!

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 325F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Sift together the flour, the baking powder, salt and 150gm sugar.

3. Separate the eggs. Beat the egg yolks, vanilla essence, lemon zest, oil and water until smooth. Stir in the flour to form a smooth mass.

4. Beat the egg whites, slowly adding the remaining sugar, until stiff peaks are formed.

5. Fold in a quarter of the egg whites into the flour mixture. Fold in the rest.

6. Bake for 35-40 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.

7. Let cool.

Assembling the cake:

Slice the cake into two layers. Sandwitch the layers with ganache. Cover with whipped cream.

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Chiffon Shortcake with Chocolate Ganache and Whipped Cream

A family friend, who is like family only, recently moved to a better job, so had been wanting to make a Congratulations Cake, which I did finally a few days back. Got a bit enthusiastic and tried something new with

hmm... good results.

I decided to bake a chiffon shortcake and ice it with whipped cream and to add some flavour I layered it with chocolate ganache. Oh well you could argue that chocolate makes everything good!

I adapted the recipe for Strawberry Chiffon Shortcake from the Joy of Cooking (also of course I used no strawberries).

Cake layers:
11/8 cups sifted cake flour
1/2 and 1/4 cups superfine or regular sugar, divided
Half a tablespoon baking powder
Half a teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold water
1/4 cup vegetable oil
Zest of half a lemon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 large egg yolks at room temperature
5 large egg whites at room temperature

Filling:
1 cup heavy cream
Half a pound semisweet chocolate, chopped.

And a cup of whipping cream for covering the cake ( though I used 25% cream, and was really happy when it stiffened up! It was very light and make the cake taste better, not at all buttery, greasy or heavy. Though am not sure if it will work everytime).

1.Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Have a 9-inch round cake pan ready, lined with parchment paper.

2. Sift the flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder and salt twice together into a large bowl.

3. In a another bowl, beat the yolks, water, oil, zest and vanilla on high speed until smooth. Stir into the flour mixture until smooth. In another large bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks are formed. Add the remaining ¼ cup sugar, and beat on high speed until the peaks are stiff but not dry.

4. Use a rubber spatula to fold a quarter of the egg whites into the flour mixture, then gently fold in the remaining egg whites, only until the egg whites are no longer visible. Overdoing it will deflate them.

5. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake it until the top springs back when lightly pressed and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 40 to 50 minutes.

6. Let the cake cool before taking it out of the pan and peeling off the parchment paper.

7. Make the ganache: Bring the cream to a boil in a saucepan, remove from heat and add the chocolate and swirl to cover all the chocolate. Let it rest for 5 minutes. Whisk with a hand whisk until smooth. Let cool. Whisk again.

8. Add some sugar to the whipping cream and whip it with an electric mixer till stiff.

folding in the whites...

cooling and slicing the cake...

icing...

Assembling the cake:

Split the cake into three layers or even two would be fine I don't know how I managed three! I made a ring of whipped cream before pouring in the ganache so that it wouldn't leak later. Spread the ganache and top with the other or another layer, depending upon how many you have. Cover the top and the sides with whipped cream, decorate with chocolate curls if desired, or pipe the leftover ganache.

Early on I was planning a white on white cake, but then I felt it looked too plain so I piped on some ganache and added a few chocolate curls (a firm piece of chocolate and a vegetable peeler).

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