I made a deco-chiffon cake last week to test the recipe and texture of the cake. Love that the cake turned out so soft and fluffy and the design turned out nicely too. Made all the hard work worth it! The kids love the cake too, didn’t last 2 days in my pantry.

Here is the cake I made last week, a deco-chiffon cake with Donald Tsum Tsum design. I made it two tone, since the front part of a Donald Tsum Tsum plushie is white and the back part is blue.

I didn’t do a tutorial for that as I was testing the recipe and idea, so I made another cake yesterday and took some pictures too, hope that gives a better idea of how to make this cake. Sit back, this is a long long post!

Baking equipment:

• I used a 18cm chiffon pan for this recipe. Do not grease the chiffon cake pan.
• A small baking tray for the flat cake layer to make Pooh’s ears. To prepare the baking tray for the flat cake layer, oil the tray lightly and line with baking paper.

Egg Yolk Batter

• 5 egg yolks
• 40g sugar
• 70g vegetable oil
• 70g water
• 100g cake flour, sifted
• 2 tsp lemon essence
• Gel food colouring (yellow, red, black)

Meringue batter

• 7 egg whites
• 85g sugar

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees.
2. Working with the egg yolk batter first, beat the eggs and sugar til light and fluffy. Add oil and water and mix well. Add in sifted flour until well combined.
3. Scoop out one tablespoon of egg yolk batter into a small mixing bowl, and separate the remaining egg yolk batter into two larger mixing bowls. Add yellow and red gel food colouring respectively into the batters in the large mixing bowls, and black food colouring to the batter in the small mixing bowl.
4. Working with the ingredients for the meringue batter, beat the egg whites and sugar until stiff peaks form.
5. Add two tablespoons of meringue batter to the black egg-yolk batter. Separate the remaining meringue batter into the yellow and red egg yolk batter. For each mixing bowl, fold the meringue batter into the egg yolk batter until just combined.
6. Put the black batter into a piping bag. Remove the base of the chiffon cake pan, and pipe out Pooh’s features onto the base of the cake pan (see photo A above). Replace the base into the cake pan, and bake at 160 degrees for 3 minutes or until the features have set.
7. Remove about 8 tablespoons of yellow batter and  spread this in an even layer in the prepared baking tray. Pour in the remaining yellow cake batter into the chiffon cake pan (photo B) and smooth it out.
8. Next, pour in the red cake batter into the chiffon cake pan (photo C), taking care not to disturb the yellow layer below. Smooth out the batter and knock the cake base gently on the counter-top to get rid of air bubbles.
9. Chiffon cake pan: Bake at 160 degrees for 15 minutes, and turn down the heat to 145 degrees and bake for another 25 minutes, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Remove from the oven and invert the cake pan to cool (photo D). This prevents the cake from collapsing on itself while cooling.
10. Un-mould the cake from the cake pan only when the cake is cooled. Chiffon cakes are inverted before serving, and this would show the Pooh’s features on top of the cake when served.
11. Flat cake layer in the baking tray: Bake at 160 degrees for 10 minutes. Invert the cake together with the baking paper onto a sheet of baking parchment and let cool before peeling off the baking paper.
12. Using a large round cookie cutter, cut out two circles from the flat cake layer and place on top of the cake for Pooh’s ears.