First ever whipped cream frosted cake! With droopy stars! Lesson: Whipped cream softens rapidly in sg’s unforgiving heat, so move fast. I could see the stars falling as I photographed them. This cream contains carrageenan, which gives the whipped cream a smoother texture. However, carrageenan-laced cream doesn’t taste as good as pure cream so that’s what I’d use if I’m going for the best flavor.
The middle of this cake sank halfway through baking while the top got more and more brown.
This cake is sweet, and rather sticky. The center column of the cake was more tender and had smaller air pockets than the sides! It’s almost as if there were 2 different cake batters (Isn’t that an idea).
Genoise is a basic cake, it is a little dry and sturdy enough to be soaked with flavored syrups. Genoise recipes generally share these basic steps – Eggs and sugar whisked over a bain-marie until lukewarm and the sugar dissolved, then whipped to a pale fluffy foam. Flour is folded in, followed by melted butter, and baked at about 175C until it pulls away from the sides of the tin.
This is really tasty! The cake, flavored with matcha, is rolled up with red bean cream. There are versions that use adzuki straight up, or cut with a little yoghurt, but the red bean fresh cream combination is so delightful cold from the fridge, and the drier genoise pairs well with the extra moisture of this filling. It’s light on the tongue and packed with flavor, plus a little texture from the red bean bits. Too easy to wolf down 3 and still want more, I say. Dangerous…
When the incorporation of butter and flour is such a bitch in this weather, the recipe had better worth it. The fat had always been cut in with fingers (too darn hot) and two forks (painfully slow). Any flaky dough was approached with a mild sense of tedium and a lot of freezer time.
Lemon Chocolate Salt 