My Baking Nemesis - Chocolate Swiss Roll

Swiss rolls - probably my greatest nemesis among all cakes. It took me quite a while to get the hang of making the Genoise sponge; a whole egg foam cake commonly called for as the cake base for swiss rolls. To make a genoise sponge, it is a requirement to beat the whole eggs until they are well aerated and expanded in volume, about 4 times the original volume. When the beaters are lifted up, a trail of fallen batter is visibly left behind at the surface, which stays for some time before levelling back with the rest of the beaten eggs. Most books or recipes describe this process as beating the whole eggs until 'thick and fluffy' or the 'ribbon stage'.

What daunted me initially was the folding of the flour into the beaten whole eggs. The beaten eggs often end up deflating into a sticky mixture. Over time, I overcame this by using a wire whisk, which helps to prevent the beaten eggs from over-deflating. I picked up another neat trick from a book; Baking and Pastry: Mastering the Art and Craft. When the eggs are beaten at high speed to the 'ribbon stage', the air bubbles held by the eggs are big. By beating the whole eggs further at low speed for say, 2 minutes; the bubbles are divided into smaller sized bubbles, thus stabilizing the beaten eggs and help prevent the eggs from deflating excessively.  

I realised that the genoise sponge behaves very different when baked in sheet pans and in round pans. Sheet pans have much larger surface area. Hence, the genoise sponge is done in a shorter time (8-12 minutes), resulting in a moist cake. The shorter baking time minimizes the amount of moisture lost due to evaporation. On the other hand, some genoise sponge when baked in round pans for use in layer cakes, turn out to be coarse and dry (based on my experience). The baking time is often much longer compared to using sheet pans (about 25-30 minutes). Then again, the recipe might be the culprit here. A possible remedy would be to increase the amount of melted butter or to use a simple/flavoured syrup to brush the genoise sponge if it is for use in layer cakes. Some sources (websites, books etc) seem to suggest that the genoise sponge tends to be dry in nature.

The other commonly called for cake base is the Separated Egg Foam/Sponge Cake. As the name suggests, the yolks and whites are separated. There are several variations on this. I shall list them as follows:

1. Egg yolks are beaten to the ribbon stage. Egg whites are beaten to 'stiff peaks', glossy but not dry. Next, beaten whites are folded into foamed yolks. Lastly, the dry ingredients (flour etc) are folded into the egg mixture.
2. Egg yolks are beaten to the ribbon stage. Next, the dry ingredients (flour etc) are folded into the beaten egg yolks. Lastly, egg whites are beaten to 'stiff peaks' and are folded into the egg yolk-flour mixture.
3. Egg whites are beaten to 'stiff peaks'. Next, egg yolks are stirred into the beaten whites. Lastly, the dry ingredients (flour etc) are folded into the egg mixture.
4. Egg yolks are mixed with the dry ingredients until smooth. Next, egg whites are beaten to 'stiff peaks'. Lastly, the beaten egg whites are folded into the egg yolk batter.

Out of the four mentioned variations, I have only tried 2 and 4. Perhaps, I might have missed out on some variations. In time to come, I would like to try out the rest of them.

When it comes to making swiss rolls, I am definitely not a pro. However, this attempt is very much better than my previous few, in terms of both taste and texture. I do need to improve on the rolling though. Next time, I will need to roll it more tightly.

Overall, I am very satisfied with my swiss rolls. Despite the cracks and less than perfect shape, the cake layer turned out soft, moist and *slightly chewy (due to the cocoa powder) while the chocolate meringue buttercream; a favourite frosting of mine, turned out to be velvety without being overloaded with sugar (compare it to fudge frostings using loads of icing sugar). Yummy~

*For a less chewy cake, refer to notes below.

Chocolate Swiss Rolls ( Cake base recipe adapted from Elegant Swiss Rolls by Kevin Chai, chocolate buttercream recipe adapted from Chocolate Ephiphany by Francois Payard)

Serving size: 8 to 10 slices

Taste and texture: Cake base is soft, moist and *slightly chewy. Chocolate buttercream is smooth and chocolatey.

Equipment and materials:

1) 12 x 12 inch pan or 10 x 14 inch pan

2) Stand electric beater/ handheld electric beater

3) Spatula
4) wire whisk/balloon whisk
5) Mixing bowls
6) Heatproof bowl
7) Wire rack
8) Flour sieve
9) Parchment/baking paper
10) Brush for oiling pan
11) Weighing scale

Cake Base:
250g whole eggs, room temperature (about 5 eggs)
90g caster sugar
95g flour
20g cocoa powder
70g butter, melted

Chocolate Buttercream:
60g egg whites, room temperature
70g granulated sugar
125g unsalted butter, softened but still cold
30g cocoa powder (add more if desired to up the chocolate factor)

Making Cake Base:
Pre-preparation: Line the swiss roll tin with baking/parchment paper. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C.

Combine dry ingredients: Mix the flour and cocoa powder together in a large bowl to ensure they are evenly distributed.

Beating whole eggs: In a mixing bowl, beat whole eggs with 90g caster sugar on medium speed untill eggs are well aerated and have expanded about 4-6 times in volume. The beaten eggs should be thick and fluffy. When the beater is lifted, the falling batter leaves a ribbon like trail that does not level with the rest of the batter immediately (ribbon like trail will remain for about 20 seconds before levelling with main bulk of mixture). This is know as the 'ribbon stage'. Continnue to beat the foamed eggs on low speed for abother 2-3 minutes. This is to stabilize the egg mixture.

Folding dry ingredients into beaten eggs: Sift half the dry ingredients into beaten eggs. Fold using a balloon whisk, gently and gradually, untill the dry ingredients are incorporated. Repeat the same for the remaining half of the dry ingredients. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl with a flexible spatula every now and then to incorporate flour that is stuck to the sides and that which have sunk to the bottom. We want the beaten eggs to deflate as little as possible in the folding process.

Adding the butter: Scoop a small portion of the flour-egg batter and mix it with the melted butter in a medium bowl until smooth. This makes it easier to fold the butter into the main flour-egg batter. Add this butter mixture to the main bulk of the flour-egg batter. Fold gently to obtain a evenly mixed foamy batter.

Baking the cake: Pour cake batter into lined tin and bake at 200 degrees C for 8 to 12 minutes. The cake is done when a toothpick inserted at the middle comes out clean. The top skin of the cake should be springy when pressed and moist and sticky to the feel. Once done, remove cake tin from oven and place on a wire rack. Cover the surface with a sheet of aluminuim foil or baking paper to maintain the moistness.

Preparing the Chocolate Buttercream:
Dissolve sugar in egg whites: Place 60 egg whites and 70g granulated sugar in a heatproof bowl. Sit the heatproof bowl on a saucepan filled with water. The base of the bowl should not be in contact with the water. Bring the water in the saucepan to a slight simmer. Use a balloon whisk and stir the egg whites and sugar constantly until the sugar has fully dissolved (no gritty feel when rubbed with your fingers) and the mixture is warm to the touch (test by inserting a finger).

Beating egg whites: Remove the heatproof bowl and beat the warm egg white mixture on medium high speed to obtain stiff peaks using an electric beater. At stiff peaks, the beaten egg whites will not budge when bowl is overturned. When the beaters are lifted from the beaten egg whites, the surface of the egg whites should form stiff upright peaks (not drooping peaks). The beaten egg whites should be cool to the touch (room temperature), not warm like when it was removed from the saucepan.

Adding butter and cocoa: Beat in 125g butter into the beaten egg whites in 3 batches, ensuring each batch is incoporated before adding the next. The mixture will become watery at one point in time. Continue beating and the mixture will turn into a sturdy, creamy and fluffy buttercream. Lastly, sift in 30g cocoa powder and continue beating to obtain a smooth chocolate buttercream.

Assembly:
Turning the cake out: Turn the baked sheet cake onto a piece of baking/parchment paper. Slowly peel off the attached baking/parchment paper from the cake.  

Rolling the cake: Apply buttercream over the surface of the sheet cake. With the shorter side/breadth facing you (if using 10 x 14 inch pan), roll the cake up tightly to form a swiss roll.

Notes:

1) When the cake is done, I placed it in the refrigerator immediately to firm it up as the entire cake is very soft (plus the amount of filling is alot). To serve, slice the entire roll into small servings and allow it to soften at room temperature for 5-10 minutes before serving.

2) Due to the moistness of the chocolate cake base, the top skin will peel off when come into contact with any surface, eg your hands, baking paper etc.

3) The amount of buttercream filling is quite thick. If you prefer less filling, use half or two-thirds of it and save the rest in the refrigerator. The remainder can be used to decorate cakes, frost cupcakes etc.

4) To frost a 9 inch triple layer cake, triple the quanity of chocolate buttercream.

5) *To get a less chewy cake, stir the cocoa powder into the melted butter instead and blend well. Fold it into the beaten whole eggs untill well mixed.

6) The finished swiss roll may experience cracks. This does not affect the taste and texture at all.

Instagram link: http://instagram.com/bakertanbakes

Bear Project 1.2 - Teddy Bear (Touchup of Eyes and Nose)

After yesterday's Bear project, I decided I would touch up the eyes and nose this morning. It turned out slightly better, but could do with some improvement. The best part about using meringue buttercream is that it is very sturdy and stable at room temperature, unlike whipping cream based frostings and mousse fillings which will soften easily in the warm humid weather over here. Ok, now that my Teddy Bear is done, I shall move on to making a panda bear next for my bear project.

For those who are interested to get the mini bear mould, it can be obtained from Phoon Huat. Some of the outlets have it. I got mine at the city outlet. There is this giant size bear which I was glad I did not purchase. Storage could prove to be a problem since the Giant bear is quite tall.

Bear Project 1.1 - Teddy Bear

This week has been a tiring week for me. I had to brave the glaring sun and the occasional drizzle, thanks to the fickle weather. After six days of YOG labour at the Tampines Bike Park, I am now overly tanned and my skin colour is charcoal black. Nevertheless, I was glad to be there to contribute and witness this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity where Singapore is the host for the Inaugural Youth Olympics Games.

After reaching home each day, I feel that all my energy have been zapped. It was hard to even think about baking. Yesterday was a good opportunity to put my hands to work in the kitchen. I had the sudden impulse to bring out a special baking toy that I have bought a few weeks back - a 3D mini teddy bear mould. The mould did not come cheap. It costs nearly 30 bucks, not to mention that I had to get a coupler set, four Wilton piping tips and a Wilton black icing colour in order to use this new toy of mine.

The teddy bear mould set comes with four clips, two mould halves and a stand. The two mould halves are secured with the four clips and the mould halves are inserted onto the stand upside-down. The batter is then poured into the mould through the opening on top.

The instructions call for one cup of batter, which I referred to my madeira cake recipe, halved the portion and omitted the lemon flavouring.

For the frosting, I did not use the one that is provided - a icing sugar buttercream which I did not fancy. The result is a high sugar content frosting with a gritty mouthfeel. Instead, I referred to the buttercream frosting from Dorie Greenspan's Perfect Party Cake.

I tried doing the Perfect Party Cake a total of 3 times but it none of it was near perfect. The white cake simply did not rise and the end result was a dense sponge. Eager to find out what went wrong, I googled and realized that many others had problems with the cake rising as well. After some analysis ( typcial of me ), I suspect that the baking powder was the culprit. That was the only time when I used a single acting baking powder. Ever since then, I dare not use any single acting baking powder again. Despite the poorly turned out sponge, the frosting was a keeper. It was one of the best frosting I had tasted to date - Swiss Meringue Lemon Buttercream. That was my first encounter with a meringue buttercream.

There are many kinds of buttercream. Some buttercream simply ask for softened butter to be beaten with icing sugar. Others call for the use of egg yolks. As the name suggests, meringue buttercream involves using a meringue as a base. A meringue is a mixture of whipped egg whites and sugar. The end result is firm, glossy and pillowy.

In all,  there are four types of meringue buttercream: Swiss, Italian, French and German. Swiss buttercream involves beating the egg whites and sugar over a double boiler until the egg whites are warm. The egg whites are then whipped untill stiff and cool to the touch. Butter is then added to the Swiss meringue and beaten untill fluffy. German buttecream combines pastry cream (creme patisserie) which is a custard in nature, and butter. For the French buttercream, hot sugar syrup is poured onto the whole eggs (sometimes with extra yolks) while they are whipped. Lastly, the Italian buttercream is similar to the French buttercream, with the exception that egg whites are used in place of whole eggs. Buttercream is commonly flavoured with citrus fruits, chocolate, vanilla or liqeuers.

 

To pipe the details on the bear, I separated my buttercream into 3 main portions. I kept one small portion plain, added cocoa powder to brown the second portion and tinted a small portion black with the Wilton icing colour. Since the recipe yielded quite an amount of buttercream, the remaining were kept for further use.

Piping the stars on the bear's body certainly took me some practice. Some stars ended up tiny while others ended up larger. The overall effect was a spikey brown teddy bear. The front part was packed with stars while the back had some sparse spots, which I noticed only after taking pictures of the finished bear. I am not quite satisfied with the facial features. It made the bear look more like a monkey. The eyes and nose were of a greyish hue rather than black as I did not add enough colouring.

Overall, it was'nt as time consuming was very time consuming considering that the bear is only 11cm tall and 10cm at its widest part, taking me about 3 hours to do the piping alone, not to mention having to spend more time clearing the mess. It sure was fun practicing the piping which is considered a first for me. Give me some time and I should be able to do a more decent decorated bear to present to my friends for their birthdays. I definitely look forward to making good use of my new toy and coming up with bears with different look. No regrets getting this new toy at all ~