Santa Claus Cake

This blogger, Happy Home Baking, has inspired many to bake and I'm one of them.  I must say she has a wonderful blog and all her bakes and cooks look fabulous!  Upon seeing her Santa Claus cake (the idea came from Japanese Meiji website with a self explanatory video demo on how to decorate the cake), I told myself I just have to make it one day.

Since Dad's birthday falls on 31 December and he's usually away for holiday this period, we usually have an early celebration for him.  This year, we celebrated his birthday at Bro J's house again.  My kids love such gatherings, and so do I.  The barbecue was great though I didn't get to eat much as DD3 was extremely clingy that day (she missed her afternoon nap).

The only strawberries available from my nearest supermarket were from Korea and they ain't delicious red.  I had to pick out the darker coloured ones for this cake.

Frosting the cake was horrendous as I must have under-whipped the dairy cream and it was melting on me.  It was no easy feat shaving the chocolates too.  I tried HHB's method ie to use a plastic spoon (for dispensing medicine) but that didn't work.  I used my cookie scoop and peeler too but none worked.   I didn't want to waste too much time on that so I just scrapped and get bits and pieces here and there, just enough to use as Santa's beard.

I did the decoration the night before and when I took it out to show my kids the next day, I realised the M&M chocolate melted on me too.  The eyes smudged!  Since I have some leftover whipping cream in the fridge, I tried to salvage the eye by removing the frosting and piped a new "eye".  Put new "pupils" onto them and it looked almost perfect.  But when we got to the venue, the chocolate smeared again!

Using a chiffon cake base, I sandwiched the layers with some cream and diced strawberries.  I was "stingy" now and didn't add too much strawberries as my previous cakes were all loaded with fillings and the cake collapsed upon slicing.  Nevertheless, the cake was well received.  The only complaint from Dad was the strawberries came in odd numbers.  He wanted even numbers, not odd numbers....  So I just picked up 1 strawberry and popped it into my mouth and rearranged the balance 10 :P

Santa Claus Cake
Ingredients
(A)
4 egg yolks
Pinch of salt
30g castor sugar

(B)
60ml corn oil
125ml milk/water

(C)
150g cake flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
*sifted together

(D)

4 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
30g sugar

Method

1. Mix ingredients (A) well with a hand whisk.
2. Add (B) into yolk mixture, stir well.
3. Stir (C) into yolk mixture and mix well.
4. Whip egg whites in a clean mixing bowl until big bubbles are formed. Add in the cream of tartar and whip until white in colour. Add in sugar over 3 times and whip until egg whites is stiff.
5. Fold in 1/3 of the whites into the yolk mixture using a rubber spatula till incorporated.
6. Pour the mixture to the remaining egg whites and fold in gently till incorporated.
7. Pour the batter into a 8" round pan. Bang the pan on the table to get rid of bubbles.
8. Oil a piece of aluminium foil and cover the pan loosely.
9. Bake in preheated oven of 170C for 15 minutes.
10. Turn down the temperature to 160C and bake for 20 - 30mins.
11. Remove the foil and reduce the temperature to 150 deg.C and bake for a further 5 to 10mins to brown the surface.
12. Remove from the oven and invert the pan. Remove the cake from pan when it's completely cooled. The surface will feel abit wet but it will be dry after exposing to the air.
13. Cut cooled cake into 3 layers and decorate accordingly.