Magic Custard Cake

After my 2nd attempt at making Pandan Layer Kaya Cake through Kitchen Tigress recipes lately I planned to lay low for a while to recuperate from the lengthy ordeal, I got caught in another of her recipes. 

Yes, I did it again! Another multi layer cake but with lesser prep work. During the time of preparing, the part I dreaded most was the lining of the cake pan as well as my careless blunder of not realizing the unavailability of the full fat milk supply when the recipe stated the importance of using milk with higher fat content to allow the different layers to set by naturally.  Under the circumstances, I had no choice but resorted to substituting the required full fat milk with the boiling of full cream milk powder, low fat UHT milk and water.  Given the adhoc change, I prepared for the worse outcome.

Luckily the cake turned out alright with visible custard layers, if only my cake layer could be thicker as shown in kitchen tigress posting. I shall revisit this recipe and try again....with some adjustment in sugar usage. Even though I have reduced the icing and castor sugar in proportion to the ingredients increase against the cake pan size, I still find the cake slightly 'overly' sweet. In fact, I have already increased the saltiness by using salted butter and not the unsalted ones as indicated in the original recipe. Still, I would like to cut the sugar further in my next attempt. 

Magic Custard Cake
(Recipe Adapted from Kitchen Tigress)


Ingredients
(22x22x6cm Square Cake Pan)

130g Icing Sugar
90g Egg Yolks
170g Salted Butter (melted and cooled)
24g Water
1-1/2 Tsp Vanilla Extract
170g Plain Flour
720g UHT Full Fat Milk (slightly warm)

210g Egg Whites 
30g Castor Sugar

Snow Sugar / Icing Sugar for dusting (optional)

Method

• Prepare a folded and uncut piece of 36 x 36cm parchment paper to fully line the bottom and sides of a 22 x 22 x 6cm square cake pan. 

• Preheat oven at 160C degrees. 

• In a mixing bowl, combine sifted icing sugar with egg yolks and whisk until mixture becomes light and fluffy.

• Add melted butter, water and vanilla extract into the egg yolk batter and whisk to evenly combined. Sift and fold in the flour to combine. 

• Add in the slightly warm full fat milk. (Note : Should you ran out of full fat milk, you may try combining 420g Warm Water with 4-5 Tbsp full cream milk  powder and 300g Low Fat UHT Milk and boil under medium heat for until the milk dissolves. Remove from heat and set aside to cool. Add to the egg yolk mixture when the milk has slightly cooled after 10mins. Keep whisking the egg yolk batter while adding the warm milk to ensure the egg yolk mixture doesn't get cooked).  

• In another separate clean bowl, whisk the egg whites until frothy, add in sugar in 2 batches. Continue whisking at high speed until it reaches stiff peak stage. The mixture should appear thick, heavy and slightly grainy.  When the whisk is turned upside down, the peak formed on the end of the beater points straight up without collapsing. 

• Using a hand whisk, swift but gently mix the beaten egg whites to the egg yolks batter, until combined. Scrap the sides of the bowl with a spatula to fully incorporate the mixture. 

• Transfer the batter into the prepared 22x22x6cm square baking pan. Jiggle the pan slightly to level the batter. 

• Bake the cake in a preheated oven at the 2nd lowest tray (to accommodate my oven which tend to be warmer) at 160C degrees for 55-60mins.

• Remove cake from oven. Unmould the cake by lifting the entire parchment paper out of the pan.

• Chill the cake before serving.

Once again, I want to thank Kitchen Tigress for this wonderful recipe.