Chocolate Sponge Cake with Butterscotch Popcorn, Walnuts and Honey Flakes

Hands up! Who loves Garrett's Pop Corn?

10000 hands out of 10001 will probably be raised. Me.. I was never a popcorn fan, with my teenage movie dates subjected to soggy (aka Lao Hong) popcorn, limited to either sweet or salty in flavors. So, when Mr. G. popcorn appeared in the Singapore scene, I was not interested. Total L.A.G.G.A.R.D that I was, it was probably 1 year or so later when I had my first bite at a friend's place. Man.... I fell in love. Those caramel-coated macadamia nuts, the how-does-it-stay-so-crispy popcorn are simply finger licking additive, as most people and the long queues can attest to.

That was the inspiration for this post. I love having textures in my cakes, especially a crispy layer to accompany a soft and moist cake. What better way than to have a bite of cake with a mouthful of crispy popcorn, nuts and cereal. I wanted the crisps to be the highlight of the cake, therefore piling them high up on the cake which tantalises the eyes in addition to sweetening the tongue. Indeed, I thought the look was pretty appetizing, with layers of chocolate whipped cream and a glaze seemingly oozing from the nutty mix.

However, my thoughts didn't literally translate into reality. I popped the buttered popcorn, mixed them with a generous portion of walnuts and cornflakes, coated them with a light layer of butterscotch sauce and sent them into the oven to bake for 20 minutes. To the top of my chocolate sponge cake they went, piled high like a crown.

The nuts and flakes baked to a golden crisp beautifully.. crunchy and aromatic. The popcorn was another story; still as listless as the usual microwaved popcorn, in other words, kinda Lao Hong. My first foray into the world of corn didn't pop.. but oh well this experiment tells me that walnuts and cornflakes go beautifully together. I'm already envisaging another cake, maybe a salted caramel cake, with caramel-coated walnuts and corn flakes.

Chocolate Sponge Cake (Source)

3 Eggs

75g sugar

45g cake flour

10g cocoa powder

pinch of salt

30ml warm whipping cream (microwave high at 20s)

Oven 180C, 2x6inch cake pan, lined on bottom. 

Steps:

1. Sift cake flour, cocoa powder and salt together

2. Whisk eggs in a mixer on high speed until it lightens in colour.

3. Add the sugar to the egg mixture and mix on high speed until it reaches the thick ribbon stage (Where the batter will flow from the beater in a thick lava layer)

4. Add the flour into the egg-sugar mix and fold in to just combine. 

5. Take 1/4 of this mixture and stir into the warm whipped cream. 

6. Pour the whipped cream mixture into the rest of the batter and fold to combine 

7. Pour into pan, tap on the counter to remove air bubbles and bake for 18 - 20 minutes, when the top is slightly browned and spring back to your touch. Cool completely. 

Chocolate Whipped Cream

300ml heavy cream
1/4 cup sifted icing sugar
100g melted and cooled dark chocolate

Steps:

1. Place the mixing bowl and beater into the freezer 15minutes before whipping the cream. (This helps to accelerate the whipping process and prevent curdling)

2. Whip heavy cream on high speed until it reaches a creamy state

3. Add the icing sugar and mix on high speed until it is stiff and in a whipped state

4. Add the cool chocolate and gently beat in on low speed until it's incorporated (Alternatively, fold the chocolate in but be careful not to let the cream curdle)

5. Keep in fridge until ready to frost the cake

Chocolate Glaze 
Ingredients:
50g dark chocolate, chopped into pieces (I used 70% cocoa)
100ml heavy cream

Steps:
Simply melt the dark chocolate and cream together in a bowl set over simmering water. Do not let any water or vapor get into this mixture. Cool slightly to a temperature just warm to the touch and use immediately.  

Walnuts-Popcorn-Cornflake Mix

Ingredients:

1 cup of popped popcorn

A fist of walnuts

1/2 cup of honey cornflakes (I used Nestle Honey Flakes)

1/4 cup of butterscotch sauce

Steps:

1. Pop the popcorn and let it cool slightly

2. Mix the popcorn, walnuts and cornflakes together and coat them with butterscotch sauce

3. Bake at 175C for 20 minutes but stir occasionally to prevent burning

Note: My popcorn didn't turn crispy so I would suggest to omit the popcorn or trial and error other ways of making them crunch.

Assembly of Cake

1. Sandwich a layer of chocolate whipped cream between the 2 layers of sponge.

2. Frost the outside of cake with the chocolate whipped cream and leave in the fridge for an hour to set. 

3. Before pouring the chocolate glaze, freeze the cake for 15minutes to prevent the chocolate glaze from melting the cream. When ready to pour, remove the cake from the freezer and pour the slightly warm chocolate glaze over the top, nudging the sauce around the edge of the cake to let it flow over. 

4. Pile the nut-mix on top of the cake and chill the cake for another 30minutes to let the glaze set. 

Serve slightly chilled. 

Fudgy Egg Yolk Brownie

 Do you make alot of frosting? I do that on quite a few occasions and my to-go recipe is always the Swiss-Meringue Buttercream from Sweetapolita. I use egg whites on a almost weekly basis and end up with plenty of egg yolks in the fridge. Therefore, I'm always scratching my head and googling for egg yolk recipes. There are a number of them online and Food and Family has a good list of egg yolk recipes, ranging from 1 to many many yolks needed. Went through this list many times, many are for sauces, creams, curds, ice creams etc, foods that are not often used in our mainly-Asian cooking households. Tried a couple of the cake recipes, sponge and pound cakes but found them a little dry for my liking.

Today is my brother's birthday. He doesn't want a cake.. that's the usual boy attitude, isn't it? So, I suggested ice cream instead. He wants strawberry but his kids, my nephews, like chocolate. My nieces love brownies. I have 5 egg yolks in the fridge. Brain Wave - googled for "Egg Yolk Brownies". Woo hoo! Found 1 very quickly, that asked for 10 egg yolks. Double yay! Now I know what to make next time when I've plenty of yolks. I've just have to go buy strawberry ice cream later to go with the yummy brownies!

Brownies are typically easy 1 bowl recipes. Easy to make, quick to bake, this recipe is no exception. I halved the recipe, stir everything up and used a loaf pan. My dad and brother also loves Kit Kat so I added a layer of these milk fingers in the middle of the thick batter. Baked them for 30 minutes and they are done in the middle but the top is not too crispy yet. Don't dare to bake it any longer as original recipe calls for 40 minutes in a 8 by 8 inch pan, and the last thing you want is an over-baked and dry brownie. I shall lower the temperature next time so I can bake it longer to achieve a more crisp top.

The bake turned out really wonderfully fudgy, with a almost-black almost-molten center. The top lack the crisp but the flavor of the brownie is great, not very sweet and screams of chocolate. The Kit Kat inside was a tad soggy, and kind of distracts attention from the brownie; will skip that next time.The kids love it though, yay!

Adapted Recipe (Source)
170g dark chocolate, chopped into small pieces
55ml heavy cream + 35ml  heavy cream
140g brown sugar
5 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
95g cake flour

Oven temp 180g

Steps:
1. Melt dark chocolate and heavy cream together in a medium or large heat-resistant bowl over simmering water, not boiling. (Do not let water get into the chocolate mixture)
2. Stir the sugar in and let it cool to room temperature.
3. Stir in the yolks and vanilla essence, then the last 35ml heavy cream.
4. Fold in the cake flour. (It is a very thick batter)
5. Scoop half the batter into a lined loaf pan (or 8inch square pan if you double above recipe), line a layer of kit kat fingers and spread the remaining batter on top.
6. Bake for 30 minutes, turning the pan half way through the bake. It's done when the test stick comes out with a few moist crumbs.

Orange Chocolate Sponge Cake

I've done approximately 3 sponge cakes before and none has so far been very successful, with each in varying stages of dryness and frequently taste very heavily of eggs. I've then bookmarked many sponge cake recipes in search of a soft and moist sponge cake which also rises well. I dare say I seemed to have found it at Daily Delicious! 

This sponge cake recipe uses a little heavy cream in addition to the usual suspects of eggs, flour and sugar. It's a rather easy - to - make cake which takes only about 15 minutes to mix and maximum 30 minutes to bake. The toughest step is lining the pan! I really dislike the cumbersome actions of cutting little rounds and long strips and pasting them into the pans with a little bit of whichever batter or dough of the day. However, I guess that still beats scrubbing, scrubbing and scrubbing of unlined pans with the leftover crumbs. 

The only change I did was to add the zest of an orange as I think they may help supersede the strong egg-taste of sponge cakes. The resulting bake was a lovely, soft and moist sponge cake with a hint of orange, not egg! Yay, its bouncy and light, I could not stop pinching the cut-away strips as I prepare the cake for the mousse layer. Delightful, and I believe I would be baking this alot for all the durian / yam / mango layered cakes of the future while I start on today's composition of a chocolate orange cake!

Sponge Cake Recipe (Source):

4 Eggs

90g sugar

80g cake flour

pinch of salt

40ml warm whipping cream (microwave high at 20s)

Zest of 1 orange

Oven 180C, 8inch cake pan, lined on bottom. 

Steps:

1. Sift cake flour and salt together

2. Whisk eggs in a mixer on high speed until it lightens in colour.

3. Add the sugar to the egg mixture and mix on high speed until it reaches the thick ribbon stage (Where the batter will flow from the beater in a thick lava layer)

4. Add the flour into the egg-sugar mix and fold in to just combine. 

5. Take 1/4 of this mixture and stir into the warm whipped cream. 

6. Pour the whipped cream mixture and orange zest into the rest of the batter and fold to combine 

7. Pour into pan, tap on the counter to remove air bubbles and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, when the top is slightly browned and spring back to your touch. Cool completely. 

Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream 

5 large egg whites

250g granulated sugar

340g unsalted butter, softened and cut into cubes

2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste or essence

pinch of salt

200g melted and cool dark chocolate

Steps:
1. Place egg whites and sugar in a clean and dry metal mixer bowl, and simmer over a pot of water (not boiling), whisking constantly but gently until the sugar has completely dissolved and the egg whites are hot.

2. Using the whisk attachment of mixer, immediately start whipping until the meringue is thick and glossy. The mixture should be at room temperature by now (It may take around 10 minutes)

3. Switch over to paddle attachment and on low speed, start to add butter cubes gradually, and mix until it has reached a silky smooth texture. Add vanilla, salt and melted chocolate. Continue to beat on low speed until well combined.

Chocolate Mousse Coating (Source)

170g chocolate

85g unsalted butter

4 egg yolks

3 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup heavy cream

Steps:

1. Melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl set over simmering water. (Do not let any water get into this mixture). Remove chocolate from heat. 

2. Combine egg yolks and sugar in another bowl and set over simmering water. Whisk for around 5 minutes until it turns pale. Remove from heat. 

3. Stir the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture. Add vanilla and mix well. It should be a smooth mixture. If it turns grainy, whisk in a small amount of cream and stir until smooth. Cool to room temperature. 

4. Whip the heavy cream to soft peaks. Mix 1/4 of the cream into the chocolate-egg mixture. Fold in the rest of the whipped cream. 

Assembly of cake:

1. Cut away a slim perimeter of the cake and slice the cake horizontally in half. 

2. Place 1 layer of the cake back into an 8-inch pan and spread the chocolate buttercream in a thick layer.

3. Cover with the 2nd layer of the cake. 

4. Pour the chocolate mousse over the cake until it completely covers the top. 

Chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours to set before serving. 

Unfortunately, I didn't have enough mousse to cover the cake as I cut away too much of the cake perimeter! With insufficient mousse, I tried to use it as a glaze instead, covering up all the edge however, they are too thin a layer and the jagged edges of the cut cake peeked through, resulting in a really bad looking side of the cake. oh well..lesson learned, and my friends love the cake! 

Cotton Yoghurt Cupcake - my version of a Hokkaido Cake

 

My favourite sweets during my 6 months in KL last year were the delectable cakes from RT Pastries. They offer a variety of delicious cakes, rolls and pastries. My 2 favourite items from them are their Hokkaido cakes and Swiss rolls. Their Hokkaido cakes have received rave reviews in the blogosphere and are indeed deserving of their praises. They are soft and bouncy, light with a touch of sweet whipped cream, melts in your mouth with every bite. Check out these 2 pictures I took of the Hokkaido cakes from RT pastry; tear-away soft! Their Swiss rolls are superb as well, soft but substantial, innovative in their varied flavors and filled with a light delicious cream. If you ever happen to be in KL, it's a must to grab a box or 2 of Hokkaido cakes, the vanilla ones are the nicest, and try their wholemeal or chocolate Swiss rolls. Fingerlicking smacking good!

 

Back in Singapore now and have not been back to KL in the last 14 months; I'm missing their cakes. There are many recipes for Hokkaido cakes online and most use a chiffon recipe, which I've tried but they are somehow not as spongy. Recently chanced upon a cotton cake recipe that looks really good. Tried it once, it turned out damp and heavy; tried it twice, it was soft, bouncy and really good but the cake collapse; 3x lucky, my 3rd try turned out pretty ok by my own standards. It was light and soft, abit denser than the usual chiffon but I prefer it this way as it lends a yummy melt in the mouth soft texture.

 

My Version

 

Recipe (Source) :

 

Ingredient List

 

Egg Yolk Mixture

65g sifted cake flour

1/4 tsp salt

5 egg yolks

1 full egg

80ml plain yogurt (I used Greek yogurt)

45ml mild tasting oil (I used Sunflower oil)

1 tsp lemon juice

 

Egg White Mixture

5 egg whites

65g fine grained sugar

 

Oven Temperature 150C, place a pan of water at bottom of oven floor. I used 6 metal tart cups and placed 4 at the corners and 2 in the middle.

Prepare 16 cups on a tray, no need for greasing.

 

 

Steps

1. For yolk mixture, sift flour into a big bowl and add salt. Make a well in the middle.

2. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix together until slightly thick. I used a hand held electric whisk and beat for around 2 minutes.

3. Set it aside and in a clean mixing bowl, beat egg whites until frothy and add the sugar slowly. Beat until stiff peaks.

4. Wash your hand up to the forearm clean and dry

5. Fold half the egg white mixture into the yolk mixture with your hand

6. Add the yolk mixture into the remaining egg white and fold until well-incorporated but not deflated. It should still be a airy and light batter.

7. Spoon into cups until 2/3 full, smooth the top and steam bake for 25 minutes.

 

 

 

Tips:

1. If baking into whole cakes, use a 9in square deep pan. I used a 8inch round pan in my 2nd try and the cake rose way too high, and collapsed while it was still in the oven.

2. Place bakes at mid-low level in the oven, I find that this prevents the bakes from browning too fast.

3. I used Greek yogurt which is creamy and thick, which I find that it makes the bakes soft and bouncy, as opposed to the few occasions I used normal plain yogurt (Emmi's or Magnolia) which makes the cakes too wet and they do not rise very well.

4. It's the first time I tried folding by hand and I find that this is indeed more effective. It's faster and the egg white mixes easily into the batter, which is the key to folding egg whites so as not to deflate them with too much handling. I like it this way!

 

 

This was the picture of my 2nd bake which collapsed but the crumb was indeed soft as cotton! I layered them with a spread of our precious raspberry honey from a farm in Italy. Hub and me finished half the 8in cake in minutes!  

Durian Layered Cake - Happy Birthday to my Pa Pa!

Ever since I tried making cakes with minimal butter and low sugar, my parents have started trying my bakes. It's been years of baking and finally they are accepting my cakes. Hah! I hope to think that it's due to my improvement in baking; though it's probably just expansion of my repertoire into chiffon, sponge and fresh cream. My first birthday cakes for the family was a banana chiffon cake for my dad, then a hummingbird cake for my bro and a taro sponge cake for my mum. All were surprisingly finished by the family!

My dad's birthday rolled around this year amidst a durian frenzy. Stalls were hawking durians at $1, $2, $5, $10 everywhere. As we were growing up, my dad has always been bringing home treats of durians every season. He knows that we all love durians, and he will buy many durians each time despite his days of slogging in the sun day in day out, working hard for every dollar that help raised us 3 kids. We relish each bite of durian every time, waiting eagerly after dinner, where my dad will whip out the long sharp knife to pry each durian apart for us.

Without hesitation, I decided to try making a durian cake for my dad. Off to the durian stores I went 1 night before his bday, and bought 9 durians, which yielded 450gm of pulp and some leftovers for hub and me to enjoy. Do you know that drinking water straight from the durian shell and washing your hands from water flowing through the shells remove the smell totally? Even as the durian seller packed the seeds for me, I asked to bring 1 shell home for washing. It works every time!

Durian Filling:

To prepare the durian filling for the cake, it's very simple. It's just a matter of whipping cream into a thickened state and mixing the pulp in. I used 450gm of pulp, 150gm of whipped cream.

The ratio of cream can be adjusted to preference. My ratio of cream to durian is pretty low as compared to many recipes found online but I like it this way as every bite yields a decadent mouthful of durian pulp. Chill in fridge until ready to use.

Layered Sponge Cake:

I'm constantly in search of a soft sponge cake or chiffon cake for layered cake recipes. There are so many that looks great in food blogs, but my baking skills probably has not reached nirvana when its come to sponge cakes. Yet to be able to bake 1 that is soft as cotton, this bake has however seen much improvement. It's soft and not as eggy as usual sponge cakes, slightly sweet (some will probably prefer it sweeter) but still a tad heavy for a cream cake. It's a pretty tasty cake, would probably go well as a vanilla sponge cake with just a simple jam or fruit puree, more like a European style cake. It could also be due to my stirring the flour a little too much which cause the gluten to develop and ended slightly hefty as the original recipe looks really good and airy. Check the original one out! I will probably try this again and do as little stirring as possible.

Ingredients:

Mixture 1

210g Top Flour

30g Corn Flour

2 Teaspoon Baking Powder

6 egg yolks

90g sugar

130ml full cream milk (I used Meiji)

90ml sunflower oil (or any other mild vegetable oil)

Mixture 2

6 large egg whites

75g sugar

Oven 160C, Top-Bottom heat

2 8-in round baking pans (No need for greasing or lining)

1. Sift both flours and baking powder into a big bowl

2. Add the yolks, sugar, milk and oil and mix until incorporated but do not over-mix

3. In a clean grease-free mixing bowl, whip egg white until slightly frothy, add sugar and whip at high speed until stiff peaks. Test it by flipping the bowl upside-down and the whipped egg white should not fall out.

4. Fold Mixture 1 into whipped egg white over 3 times. It should still be a light and airy batter.  

 

5. Pour into the 2 pans in equal amount, bake for 40minutes.

6. Once baked, remove from oven and tilt over immediately, to let it hang and cool. Do it 1 pan at a time, keeping the 2nd pan in the oven when tilting the first one. (I removed both at the same time, the 2nd one collapsed slightly as I took some time to position the first one)

Whipped Cream Frosting:

Keep mixing bowl and beater in the fridge to cool them.

Whip 300ml of whipped cream with 1/4 cup sifted icing sugar (more if you like it sweet) and 1 teaspoon vanilla essence. Keep in fridge until ready to use.

Assembly:

1. Using a slim knife, cut carefully around the pan and below the pan to remove the cake.

2. Ensure that they are fully cooled. Cut them into 2 layers each. You can also use satay sticks to stick at the same height around the cake. Place a long serrated knife on 2 sticks at 1 time for balance and accurate height, then slice around the cake and through it.

3. Fill each layer with a thick layer of durian pulp cream. I find that the cream layer is too thin. Probably I will only use 3 layers of cake next time or increased the durian cream amount.

4. Seal in the cake with a crumb coat of whipped cream only. Leave it to set in fridge for at least 30min.

5. Last step is to frost it as desired.

My frosting skills is really amateurish. I could never get a clean and smooth sheen on the final layer despite watching many youtube tutorials. I guess it's about practice practice and practice! One lesson I learn from this session is that mixing colours into the whipped cream after it's been whipped is really risky. My first batch curdled badly as I tried to get my gel colours to spread evenly into the frosting by stirring it vigorously. The cream just suddenly separated. Realising my awful mistake and fact that I've already whipped all my cream, I changed from blue gel to blue liquid colour and carefully and slowly stir in the colours. The darker blue still curdled a little, as can be seen above, whereas I didn't dare to stir anything more into the light blue thus it was a little more light green than blue. So note to self is that I should drop the colours into the cream while it's whipping and just whip different coloured batches one at a time.

So.. after working at it from 9am to 3pm (with waiting time in between), I'm finally done with a 4-layered durian cream cake for my dad!

Happy Birthday PA PA!

The final verdict was that the cake was not bad, but the sponge is a little heavy. Since I baked it and I'm the baby sister of the house, guess no one would say much otherwise. Ha Ha! Mum did say that this is nicer than the orh nee cake for her. I would probably have to further improve the softness of the cake and add more durian cream next time.





TZ w Whipping Cream : Spinach & Cheese Roll

Tangzhong recipe:
25g bread flour
125ml water
Mix all ingredients in a metal pot and stir until there are no lumps. Cook over med heat until mixture becomes very thick, and lines start to appear when mixture is stirred. (Alternatively, test the temperature, you will get Tangzhong at 65C). Remove from heat and cool to room temperature before using.

Bread recipe:
1 large egg
75ml milk + 50ml whipping cream
All of above Tangzhong (should have 120g)
300g bread flour + 50g whole wheat flour
50g sugar
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoon instant yeast
3 tbsp unflavored greek yoghurt

Spinach Filling:

6 slices chedder cheese

As much spinach as you prefer, boiled, cooled and squeezed dry

Dough knead (in a breadmaker):

1. Combine all wet ingredients in breadmaker's loaf pan

2. Place flour, sugar and salt into the wet mixture and stir the dry ingredients lightly. Add the yeast, ensure that it does not come into contact with the salt.
3. Choose dough program
4. Machine will start to knead the mixture. When gluten starts to form, around 5 minutes onwards, add the yoghurt.

5. At the end of program, turn dough onto a floured surface. Flatten gently and divide into 2 portions. Form into balls and let it relax for 15 minutes.

6. Roll each ball into a thin rectangle. Lay the cheese horizontally across the dough and top with spinach all over the dough.

7. Roll the long side up and seal tightly, placing the roll on the sealed side down.

8. Cut into slices and place opened side up on a lined baking tray, dusted with flour.

10. Let rise for 30 minutes, until doubled in size.

11. Bake for 17 minutes at 160C, until top is golden brown.

 

Yummy fluffy bread. It was tear-away soft and paired very well with the spinach and cheese filling.

 

 

Also made plain round buns that acted as burger buns. Tall and pointy, it bounces right back to shape after each bite. Will be trying out other flavors to make more types of burger buns!

 



Taro (Yam) Layered Cake

It's Mothers' day! I know my post is outdated; my aim was to get this post done before the month of May ends. Was thinking hard on what type of cake to bake for my mum... we are a typical Asian family where cream, butter, milk do not appear frequently on the dining table. Much as my parents' repertoire of dining options has expanded, possibly under duress, from 3 kids who have grown up and have a slightly wider scope of dining experiences; the selection of cakes had still been limited to fruit cakes.

With the subsequent appearance of 4 little nieces and nephews, woohoo! my parents kind of learned to accept chocolate-based cakes. Yet, it's difficult to satisfy 8 adults and 4 kids.. my brother and father never let me forget that green tea red bean cake I bought years agoooo! A recent pandan kaya cake from Bangawan Solo had the kids rejecting the pandan layers all together. Durian cakes are well-accepted though.. well, maybe I will try that one day but i always thought that durian should be enjoyed in it's purest, original, creamy form. *drool*

Anyhow, after much googling, I decided on a Yam Layered Cake. I remembered the taste of it from a random cake shop in a Taiwan MTR and it's been lingering on my mind for a long time. This is definitely NOT a preferred all-family cake; I'm sure it's not something everyone in my family will like but well, it's the mum's day and she loves taro! Taro cake it is going to be!

There is surprising a large number of recipes online and each looks great! I decided on using a sponge cake recipe from the Australian Sponge Cake Queen and the yam layer from Aunty Yochana.

It's not too difficult but time-consuming, it took me about half a day to do this since it involves steaming, mashing then cooking the yam, of which I'm really not too good at. The time spent was worth it though as my parents love the cake or so i think, judging by their request for a second serving each and they happily kept the rest of the cake for breakfast the next day. Disclaimer : Half the family kept their distance and the kids only pecked at the sweet mango slices, happily. Oh well, as long as my parents like it. Yay!

Recipe:

Sponge Cake
Flour mixture : Put 2 heaped tsp of plain flour + 1/2 teaspoon baking soda + 1 teaspoon cream of tartar into a 1-cup measuring cap and fill up the remainder of the space with cornflour.
4 eggs, room temp
120g fine-grained sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence

1. Preheat oven to 190C. Prepare 2 8-inch cake pans, no need to line the pan, just grease the sides. (I may line the bottom next time though)
2. Sift flour mixture 3 times.
3. Beat eggs and sugar on high speed for 7 minutes, add vanilla essence and combine.
4. Turn mixer to low speed and gently add flour mixture, beating for 1 minute until smooth.
5. Pour batter into the 2 cake pan, tap gently to remove air bubbles and bake for 20 minutes.
6. Remove from oven and leave to cool fully.

Note:
The sponge cake baked beautifully, however they are on the dry side.. I'm not sure why or maybe it needs a coating of sugar syrup?
I didn't have cream of tartar so I omitted it. No difference to the rising.

Yam Paste Layer:
500g yam, after being steamed and mashed (I cut into small cubes, steamed for 20 minutes until soft and mash them while hot)
80g sugar
300ml fresh milk (I used Meiji skimmed milk)
50 gram unsalted butter
50 gram coconut powder

1. Melt the butter and sugar in milk over low heat.
2. Stir in coconut powder and well-mixed.
3. Add the mashed yam and simmer over med heat until it forms a paste.
4. Leave to cool thoroughly.

Note:
My paste was very watery and I was worried it would not be able to form a layer so I cooked it over low heat for very long, almost an hour before it dries somewhat to form a paste. I would probably reduce the milk or increase the yam in the next attempt.

Stabilised Whipped Cream:
300ml heavy cream (I used Bulla Thickened Cream)
1/4 cup sifted icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp plain gelatin, cooked in a small pan over low heat with 4 tsp water to form a gel, keep the pan slightly submerged in hot water to prevent it from hardening.

1. Beat the cream  and sugar on high speed until it turns slightly creamy.
2. Add the gelatin gel, vanilla essence and continue beating at high speed until stiff.

Note:
Whip the cream only just before assembling the whole cake.
Before whipping, keep mixing bowl and beater in freeze to make them really cold. Cream must be whipped in cold condition in as short a time frame as possible to prevent curdling.
I added gelatin as whipped cream tends to melt really fast. Since our weather has been particularly hot recently, I wanted a stable whipped cream to ensure my mango slices would not slide. Indeed it worked perfectly and did not affect the taste at all.

Assembly:

1. Cut the cake into the number of layers needed. I cut one of the layers into 2 and kept 1 intact so I've 3 layers. This is to be able to fit 2 layers of yam paste into the cake.
2. Place the bottom layer on the cake tray that you will already be using to hold the cake.
3. Layer 1 layer of yam paste and place the 2nd sponge cake atop. This layer of yam paste need not be too thick as the top 2 layers will add weight and squeeze the yam out.
5. Layer the 2nd, thick coat of yam paste and place the 3rd sponge cake on top.
6. Spread the whipped cream on the top layer, followed by the sides. Try to smooth the frosting on the side, something I'm still a real novice at.
7. Arrange the mango slices into a rose shape on top. (I used 3 ripe, medium-sized mangos and sliced them vertically downwards, in thin slices)