Thai Milk Tea Souffle Roll

On my trip to Bangkok couple of months back, I lugged back some crazy amount of food and necessity products. Specialty teas, dried flowers, black rice, silk-milled flours, spices, cotton pads(!), medicated oils… I can’t believe myself sometimes. And I have the tendency to buy in bulk, which I did for the silk-milled flours and Thai tea leaves. But seriously, who wouldn’t when a kilo of cake flour cost about S$1.50?

I was eager to find out the quality of the flour so I used it to make this soufflé roll. The base recipe for the cake was loosely adapted from this book which I got the chinese edition. I flavored the cake with Thai milk tea and put together a simple vanilla cinnamon poached apples to fill the center together with a thick layer of Chantilly cream. I like to use this cream to make Chantilly cream. It is a blend of cream and mascarpone and is able to produce a very stable cream suitable for filling and piping. With our crazy hot weather, regular whipping cream sometimes just can’t do the job anymore.

By touch feel, the flour did not feel as silky soft as Softasilk cake flour, my trusted go-to brand I rely on for baking delicate cakes. True to the feel, the soufflé roll turned out just satisfactory in texture but it was still light enough and in fact, very delectable.

Plain soufflé roll can look quite boring so it is definitely worth the time and little effort to add some edible decorations. For this one, I simply drizzle some melted white chocolate in irregular streams and pipe a rope of Chantilly cream at the top center, sprinkle bits of edible dried flowers and there you will have a roll cake that will look very inviting.

Thai Milk Tea Soufflé Roll

Cake:

Pan size: 1 x 11 x 11 inches square baking pan, line base and all sides with parchment paper.

• 100ml fresh whole milk + 3 tsp Thai tea grounds
• 3 egg yolks + 35g caster sugar
• 40ml neutral taste oil
• 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 80g cake flour, sifted
• 4 egg whites + 35g sugar + 1 tsp tapioca flour

Bring milk to a simmer and add in Thai tea grounds. Infuse for 10mins. Strain and measure 60ml of Thai milk tea. Set aside to cool. Whisk the egg yolks with 35g sugar until the yolks turn slightly pale. Add in the oil, cooled Thai milk tea and vanilla extract. Mix well. Gently fold in the flour. Place egg whites in a mixer bowl and beat with the whisk attachment until foamy. Add in the sugar and tapioca flour, continue to beat until it reach soft meringue stage. Fold 1/3 of the meringue into the egg yolk batter until well mixed. Gently fold in the rest of the meringue until just combined. Spread batter onto prepared pan and level the surface to ensure evenness of the cake. Bake at 170C for 14mins. Remove from oven, let cool for 5 mins. Then loosely roll the cake while it is still hot. Leave to cool completely in rolled up form. Once cooled, unroll the cake and remove the parchment. With a knife, gently peel off the skin of the cake.

Vanilla Cinnamon Poached Apples:

2 medium apples . 2 cups water . 1/3 cup sugar . 1 vanilla pod . 1 cinnamon stick .

Slice vanilla pod into half and scrap out the seeds. Peel apples. Bring the water to boil. Add in apples, sugar, vanilla pod and seeds, cinnamon stick and cook over low heat for 15 to 20 mins until apples are medium soft. Remove apples and leave it on the chopping board to cool. Continue to boil the liquid to half the amount. You will use some of this syrup on this cake, the remaining can be used to sweeten tea or your morning porridge oats. When your poached apples has cooled, chop into bite sized pieces, discard the core.

Chantilly Cream:

1 cup Elle & Vire Sublime or other regular whipping cream . 2 tbsp caster sugar . 1 tsp vanilla bean paste

Mix all ingredients into a mixing bowl and whisk until firm peaks.

Assembling the cake:

Place the cake skin-peeled side facing up. Brush with syrup from the poached apples. Spread chantilly cream over the cake leaving an allowance of about 1 inch around all 4 sides. Place the chopped poached apples on the cream in 2 rolls at 2 inches apart. Roll the cake and wrap firmly with cling wrap. Refrigerate for 2 hours to allow the cake to take form.

Finishing touch:

Remove the cake and slice off the sides of the roll neatly. Decorate according to your creativity and preference. The cake is best serve cold.