Chef Din returns to Amiplus with very festive cake recipes for his students. In this class, he gave a demo on Turkish Indulgence, Pumpkin Cheese Cake and Orange Cikaro Cake. The class starts off with a quick demo on an easy way to make chocolate decorations using ordinary items you can find around your house. Sounds amazing? It's commonly used on cakes for sale. How to make them? The following pictures are self-explanatory.
Here, he uses a paper clip - the big kind- to hold the plastic in place to create the curve shape.
Another alternative is to use store-bought silicone moulds to create more detailed designs. Here he uses a simple striped design.
Making sure the surface is smooth..
Enough with decorations, we now shall move on to the cakes. First in line is the Pumpkin Cheese Cake, especially popular during Halloween times. As you may see from the pictures below, the baking tin is double layered where there is a layer of aluminium foil between two baking tins. This will come in handy during the baking process later.
The base of the cake is simply made from Marie biscuits and melted butter.
Press firmly down to create a study and firm base for your cake.
You can use any flat tool to help you with this process. As you can see, the chef had resort to using a dough scrapper.
The final base.
For the cheese cake, mix cheese, eggs, whipping cream and etc. into a big bowl using a mixer.
Pour it into your specially layered baking tin and make sure to get rid of the bubbles and smoothing out the surface. The batter is then baked via steam baking until cooked to perfection.
Next cake is the Turkish indulgence, perfect for any special occasion especially for those with a huge sweet tooth. Start by dipping marshmallows into rose water and layering them on top of melted chocolate in the baking tin.
The melted chocolate will soon harden and act as a base for the cake. Note that the tin is specially layered like the first cake.
For extra flavour, you can add pistachio nuts as to your liking.
The secret batter is made (i will not reveal the recipe here for fairness purposes of the paying participants) and poured into the baking tin, covering completely the marshmallows.
Add a layer of simple chocolate sponge on to the batter.
For the last layer, again, no recipes will be revealed so just enjoy the following pictures showing him preparing the last layer of the cake.
The surface is made smooth again..
Chocolate coins are melted with milk and spread on top of the cake. Cornflakes are added to the melted chocolate for added texture.
It is kept in the chiller to set. Note: This is a no-bake cake (minus the chocolate sponge)
For the orange cikaro cake, it is a relatively simple cake recipe involving melted orange-flavored chocolate and cake batter. It is then divided into cups to your liking.
DING...the pumpkin cake is baked to perfection and a layer of glaze is brushed on the top of the cake.
Decorate with chocolate pieces and fruit such as below.
The Turkish indulgence does not need any decorations for it's clearly textured surface would suffice. However, it is all as per to your imagination and creativity.
The Orange cikaro cake decorated with melted choclate, chocolate pieces, fruit and coloured rice.
That's all for today's class. We hope to see you in the next class!
