Ombre would describe this cake. (adjective). The definitionof ombre is the French word for color that is shaded or graduated in tone. An example of ombre is the color of a dress that is light gray at the top, medium gray in the middle and dark gray at the bottom. Source Wikipedia
Well , here I had gradations of pink. Unfortunately the humidity played spoilsport here. I have been dying to pipe roses and tulips from the Russian nozzles in whipped cream for months now. So totally wanted to avoid buttercream all over again. But despite whipping the living daylights out of non dairy cream , all I got were limp petals and no stamens. So rosettes it had to be.
And without fail my fingers reach for the red food colouring. I swear ,I was thinking purple this time. But I guess it had to be red. So I used gel colors, but along with tinting the cream, that also made it loose. So the Russian nozzles will be done with buttercream again. Atleast till the 94%humidity passes.
The cake is one of my favorites, a low calorie chiffon cake. But I went and unbalanced the calorie equation with all that cream.I've done a whole lot of chiffon cakes before, but never an ombre. Since it involves adding colour,you need to be careful as you may deflate the air out off the whipped egg whites.So a light and firm hand is what is needed. The same as parenting.
This is three egg chiffon cake. Will suffice for about 6 portions.The mango curd can be bottled and refrigerated. So I have three desserts coming up with the same bottle of mango curd. So I'm adding the recipe of the mango curd and will also be giving this its own post.
But before you begin make your cake flour. In a jar place three cups of all purpose flour. Remove 6 tbsp of the flour and replace with 6 tbsp cornflour. Cornflour is pure starch. I use Brown and Polson. Thats the cornflour you need. Mix the flours well. Thats your CAKE FLOUR. Less protien as compared with regular flour for a better sponge.
For the
Ombre Chiffon Cake and Mango Curd Cream
you need
3 eggs separated3/4 cup caster sugar 2/3 cups cake flour1/2 tsp cream of tartare1/2 tsp baking powder1/8 cup or 2 tbsp neutral vegetable oil I used canola3 tbsp waterGel food color of your choice
The first thing you do is turn on your oven to 190C. Cut out circles of paper for the base of your cake tins. NO GREASE at all. Thats what I love about this. Just paper. The tin must be absolutely grease free because the cake batter needs the cake tin to cling to.
Start witg the egg yolks in a large bowl. Add the water and oil and 1/2 cup of sugar in. Whisk together to mix up , not areate. Add in the baking powder and caje flour and mix up.
Now working fast ,whisk the egg whites till frothy. 30 seconds. Pop in the remaining sugar and the cream of tartare.If you dont have cream of tartare ,use half teaspoon lemon juice.
Whisk only till soft peaks form. 2-3 minutes. You dont want to dry out the whites.Pour one third of the eggwhites into the yolks and beat well. Thats just yo loosen up the yolk mix. You can add 1 drop gel color now.Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites . Then repeat with the last bit.
Pour one third of the batter into one cake tin. Add one more drop color to remaining batter. Cut and fold. Pour half into second tin.Then to the remaining add one more drop color. Cut fold gently like this ..at a slower speed
Those are the three cake tins. I used 6 inch tins as they'll fit in together. This cake batter cannot wait its turn.
They will take anywhere between 25-35 minutes. Around 26-27 minutes ,insert a wooden toothpick or satay stick and check if its done. It will not move away from the edges like other cakes. Itll be puffed up and dry.Once the pick comes.clear, bring out and invert onto a wire rack. If you dont, it'll shrink and sink. Once the tin is cool enough to handle, run a knife around and overturned the tin to remove the cake layer. Peel off the paper.Make the mango curd.For the mango curd set aside one cup pf strained mango puree. Whisk in 3-4 tsp or enough sugar to taste. Add juice of 3 lemons. Now whisk in 4 egg yolks and cook this till the curd thickens like a custard. Take off the heat and whisk in 100 gms of butter that has been cut into cubes. Since I use Amul butter, I dont need Salt. You can add a pinch.Cool and bottle.For the filling I used equal quantities of mango curd and whipped cream mixed and piped between layers.Generous.A detailed blog post follows.
Once the three cakes are filled and aracked ita time to ombre it up.So non dairy cream, whipped till stiff peaks. Tinted with gel food coloring.
For rosettes these are the pipi.g nozzles. The open star gives the best rosettes.Fill your piping bag with the tinted cream and hold your bag at a 90° angle. I follow wilton without blinking an eyelid. Since I am autodidact.... no teacher but practice, I find this helps.
Image Pinterest
I will post a detailed set of instructions specific to Indian summers and monsoons. We also cannot use shortening in buttercream , as that has a clammy mouthfeel. So a few tips will follow.I started with the top, and tinted the cream as I used it up.
Confessions... this was made for a pretty young lady and was to have been frosted with whipped cream roses from Russian nozzles... but they never held. So the rosettes happened. And then I was told that she was so unwell that she was in ICU overnight.
I can promise you that.
I won't make you wait long.
Cross my heart.
Go try the chiffon cake in the mean while... its worth the miniscule number of calories.
You will need some practice before you do ombre. Check these out here and here.
So what are you baking today???
