Orange Digger Pandan Chiffon Cake

This is a happy digger made out of chiffon cake for a really cute boy who loves digger! This is my second digger cake; the last time I made a chiffon digger was for my nephew who's also crazy about diggers. After a few generations of vehicles, my digger now has a smile after my chiffon bus as I think it makes the vehicle look happier hee ^_^. The digger is placed atop a pandan chiffon cake so that the backdrop is brighter and sweeter (than chocolate in my previous digger cake). I further added in some cocoa soil and m&m's rocks so that the digger looks happily busy at work!

The digger is cut out from orange chiffon cake baked in a big square tray. My previous post Orange chocolate chiffon digger has pictures and details on its construction. The pandan chiffon cake is baked in an 8-inch square chiffon tin (borrowed from my dear friend Evon.. thank you!). The same pandan chiffon cake recipe is used in Peppa Pig chiffon cake, but scaled up to 7 egg yolks for the big tin. For your convenience, the scaled up recipe is below :).

Pandan Chiffon Cake (for 20 cm square chiffon tin)
7 egg yolks
47g sugar
91g vegetable oil
56 ml coconut milk
26 ml pandan juice
5 ml vanilla extract
13 ml pandan paste
140g cake flour
A pinch of salt

Meringue:
9 egg whites
105g sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Method:
1. Prepare fresh pandan juice by blending fresh pandan leaves (10 leaves cut into small pieces, omitting the tips) with 50 ml water. Strain with a sieve and press out all the liquid with a spoon.

2. Preheat oven at 160°C.
3. Beat egg yolks with sugar with whisk till pale yellow before stirring in oil, milk and pandan juice. Add pandan paste, vanilla extract and a dip of green food coloring if desired (optional). Mix well.
4. Add in sieved flour and salt and whisk till no trace of flour found.
5. Meringue: Beat the egg whites with ¼ tsp cream of tartar till stiff peak, mixing in caster sugar in 2 additions.
6. Fold in the meringue gently into the batter 1/3 at a time.
7. Pour the batter into the chiffon tin from a height.
8. Gently tap the tin on table 3x to remove air bubbles
9. Bake the cake for 15 min at 160°C then 35 min at 150°C.
10. Invert immediately once out of the oven to cool
11. Unmould by hand after the cake is cool. For square chiffon tin, a spatula is needed for the corners to get sharp edges.

Freshly unmoulded cake!

I filled the hole with some m&m rocks and flowers, and decorated with more around the digger :).

Here's a final look at the cake!  

Thank God my friend shared that the kids loved it and asked for second helpings :).

Happy belated birthday Isaac!

With lots of love,

Susanne

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Orange Chocolate Chiffon Digger Cake

This is a birthday cake for my dear nephew who's turning 3 today! He is a little cutie who loves digger and loves chocolate! So I made a digger out of orange chiffon cake and placed it on a chocolate chiffon cake filled with chocolate rocks in the centre hole! :) I sifted cocoa powder on top of the chocolate chiffon for some "authentic" dirt. Now imagine the digger digging out rocks over the rubble :p *vroom* I hope he likes it!

Here's how I crafted the cake out of chiffon :)

Ingredients

Orange chiffon cake (7-inch "thick" orange chiffon and 6-inch "thin" cake for black patterns)

3 egg yolks
20g sugar
38g vegetable oil
42ml orange juice
60g cake flour
Orange emulco

Black wilton colour/charcoal powder

4 egg whites
45g sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1. Preheat oven to 160°C. Prepare a tray of water at the bottom of the oven (I used the lowest rack to bake the cake).
2. Beat egg yolks with sugar with whisk till pale yellow before stirring in oil and orange juice.

3. Next add in sieved flour and whisk till no trace of flour found.
*4. Scoop over 4.5 tsp into another bowl and add a tiny dip of black colour/charcoal powder. *You may omit this step if you do not want to do black patterns.
5. To the rest of the batter, add 2 drops of orange emulco.
6. Meringue: Beat the egg whites with ¼ tsp cream of tartar till stiff peak, mixing in caster sugar in 2 additions.
*7. Scoop over 9 tbsp meringue for black. Fold in the meringue gently, taking care not to deflate the egg whites.  *You may omit this step if you do not want to do black patterns.
8. Fold in the rest of the meringue gently into the orange batter in 2 additions.
9. Gently tap tray on table to remove air bubbles (top left picture on top row, right before entering the oven).
10. Bake the tray for 15 min at 160°C then 20 min at 150°C (centre picture on top row, right out of the oven).
11. Cool upright for 10 min, then unmould and invert to cool further on a clean baking sheet (right picture on top row, after unmoulding and cooling).

After this was time for some "art and craft"! :) I cut orange chiffon cake into 1 big block and 1 small block for the digger (left picture in middle row). Then I cut out a "triangle" for the front of the digger (right picture in middle row). Does it look more like a digger now? :) Do use a sharp clean cake knife for these steps, cleaning them after every cut. Next I used circular cutters to cut "wheels" from the black cake and carved out some other parts using the knife (left picture in bottow row). Now that looks almost like a digger now! :) Now to bake the chocolate chiffon cake below the digger.


Chocolate chiffon cake (17 cm chiffon tin).
3 egg yolks
20g sugar
38g vegetable oil
20 ml milk
22 ml water
60g cake flour
15g cocoa
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

4 egg whites
45g sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1. Preheat oven to 160°C. Prepare a tray of water at the bottom of the oven (I used the lowest rack to bake the cake).
2. Beat egg yolks with sugar with whisk till pale yellow before stirring in oil, milk, water and vanilla extract.

3. Next add in sieved flour and cocoa powder and whisk till no trace of flour/powder found.
4. Meringue: Beat the egg whites with ¼ tsp cream of tartar till stiff peak, mixing in caster sugar in 2 additions.
5. Fold in the meringue gently into the batter 1/3 at a time.
6. Gently tap the tin on table 3x to remove air bubbles. I further ran a chopstick because the chocolate batter is thicker.
7. Bake the cake for 15 min at 160°C then 30 min at 150°C.
8. Invert immediately once out of the oven to cool (centre picture in bottom row shows the chocolate cake right before unmoulding).
9. Unmould after the cake is cool.

The right picture in the bottom row shows the chocolate chiffon right after unmoulding. I further sifted cocoa powder on top of the chiffon for some chocolate "dirt" from the digging :) I added chocolate rocks I found from Cold Storage to fill the chiffon hole, representing a hole the digger has dug and melted some chocolate to affix the digger cake onto the big cake. Now the digger is ready to go!! *vroom* :)

I had fun with the leftover orange cake. The texture was good! Very soft and melty. I love this kind of texture and how it feels when it goes into the mouth! :)

Happy birthday to Yisheng! You are dearly loved by God and us!

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs up organised by Bake For Happy Kids, and My Little Favourite DIY, hosted by Tze of Awayofmind Bakery House at this post. 

With love,

Susanne

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