Pineapple Jam Layered Cake with Thousand-Leaf Pattern
The inspiration for this filled cake came from a cake I saw at Daoxiangcun while buying sachima — a simple sponge with a decorative pattern can look quite distinctive, so I tried it at home.
Today's thousand-leaf pattern chiffon cake uses a hot-water batter (烫面) to make it extra soft, and the egg whites are whipped only to soft-medium peaks. Following the same steps, you can also roll it into a cake roll — one recipe, several uses.
I had some leftover pineapple jam from making pineapple cakes a few days ago, so I put it to good use as the filling. The soft cake wraps around the sweet, fragrant fruit — moist, luscious, and instantly lovable.
Ingredients
eggs
5
cake flour
80g
corn oil
40g
milk
50g
fine granulated sugar (for egg whites)
50g
cocoa powder
2g
homemade pineapple jam
as needed
Instructions
1
Step 1
Prepare the main cake ingredients: cake flour, eggs, fine granulated sugar, milk, corn oil, and cocoa powder. Each egg weighs about 56g with the shell. Since we are making a hot-water chiffon cake today, the oil is placed in a small pot. The corn oil can be replaced with soybean oil, sunflower oil, or other oils without a strong odor.
2
Step 2
Weigh the flour into a large bowl. I use "Ding Bei Liang Pin" cake flour, which has a fine texture. Heat the corn oil over low heat; when you see fine ripples appearing on the oil, remove from heat and pour it over the flour. The hot oil scalds the flour and causes gelatinization, which makes the cake especially soft.
3
Step 3
Use a whisk to thoroughly and evenly combine the corn oil and flour.
4
Step 4
Then pour the milk into the batter and mix evenly with a whisk.
5
Step 5
Separate the egg yolks from the whites. Place the egg whites in a clean, oil- and water-free bowl, and add the yolks directly into the flour batter.
6
Step 6
Beat the yolks one at a time and mix them into the batter until the batter is smooth, fine, and free of lumps; set aside. It is now cool and dry autumn weather, so the surface of the yolks tends to form a skin—cover with a lid to prevent moisture evaporation.
7
Step 7
Beat the egg whites with an electric mixer at medium speed, adding the fine granulated sugar in 3 additions, until the meringue is fine and glossy. Lift the beaters: the meringue can reach a large hook, small hook, or stiff peak—each stage gives the cake a different texture. Once the meringue is ready, preheat the oven to 180°C.
8
Step 8
Add 1/3 of the meringue into the yolk batter and mix evenly with a whisk.
9
Step 9
Pour the mixed batter back into the meringue bowl and fold gently with a spatula until smooth and glossy.
10
Step 10
(Fabaoke) Line an anodized baking pan with parchment paper, pour the cake batter into the pan, and smooth the surface with a scraper.
11
Step 11
There is some batter left clinging to the bowl; sift the cocoa powder into it and mix quickly and gently with a spatula until uniform.
12
Step 12
Transfer the cocoa cake batter into a piping bag.
13
Step 13
Pipe lines of cocoa batter onto the surface of the cake batter, keeping the thickness and spacing as even as possible. You can draw diagonal lines or evenly spaced lines.
14
Step 14
Use the tip of a chopstick to draw one line from top to bottom, then another from bottom to top, forming the thousand-leaf pattern.
15
Step 15
This is the finished raw thousand-leaf pattern cake.
16
Step 16
Place it in the preheated oven on the middle rack, using top and bottom heat at 170/180°C for 25 minutes. Adjust according to the actual conditions of your oven.
17
Step 17
After removing from the oven, gently tap the baking pan a few times, run a scraper around the edges, flip it upside down onto a cooling rack, peel off the parchment paper from the bottom, then flip it back over with the right side facing up, and let it cool until warm.
18
Step 18
Flip it over and spread the homemade pineapple jam evenly on the back. After this step, you can roll it into a cake roll or cut it into pieces.
19
Step 19
Cut in half and stack the two pieces with the patterns facing outward, trim off the edges, and cut the cake into evenly sized pieces.
20
Step 20
Thousand-leaf pattern pineapple jam layered cake—soft, fluffy, and sweet!
