Gateau Africain 4 Mum's Birthday

Yesterday was my mum's birthday
I decided to bake one of her favorite cake, which I love too, Gateau Africain
It's a 3 layered soft chocolate sponge cake with creamy vanilla custard with a hint of rhum in between, really yummy!
My mum used to bake this cake for the family, now is my turn to bake for her :)

 

So here it is, with a simple decoration (you know I only can do simple deco right? LOL)
We had just a simple gathering last night, sang happy birthday, candle blowing and cake cutting :)

 

In case anybody wondering what is the meaning of the word OMA shown in the picture below...Oma is what many Indonesians call our grandmother, it's more to those influenced by Dutch background. My kids call my mum Oma, too so they requested to put the word on the cake :)

 

 

The cake was quite a huge one, so after the cake cooled, I halved and made it into a rectangle cake 10x20cm frosted by dark chocolate ganache and decorated the sides with Loacker dark chocolate wafers, tried to beautify the cake a little more with some little fondant decorations on top and wrapped the cake around with red ribbon :)

 

 

Somehow after I kept the decorated cake in the fridge for a few hours, the wafers were a little curled wew....

 

 

 

And the picture below were taken the next morning...

 

 

What you need:

(recipe is from my mum except the chocolate ganache is from Melly's site)

 

For the cake:

 

15 egg yolks

8 egg whites

160g fine sugar

175g cake flour

50g cocoa powder

100g butter, melted

1. Preheat oven to 180degC
2. Grease 22cm square pan and line with parchment paper and grease on top of the paper, set aside
3. Beat on high speed eggs and sugar til it expands to doubled in size (mine tripled quite fast!)
4. Add in sifted flour and cocoa on low speed
5. Take 1/3 of the batter and mix with melted butter, pour back to the remaining batter and fold in gently til well mixed
6. Pour batter into the pan and bake for approximately 30minutes or when the skewer comes out clean
7. Remove from oven, wait for 5minutes before turning the cake to cooling rack
8. Let cool completely

For the custard:

 

500ml fresh milk

100g fine sugar

50g plain flour

10g corn flour

2 egg yolks

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp butter

enough rhum

1. Boil milk and sugar til sugar dissolved, until milk starts to bubble - stir continuously, off heat
2. When it turns lukewarm, add in flour mixture and vanilla, mix well
3. Add in egg yolks one by one slowly, and start to cook again medium low heat, keep stirring til thickened
4. Add in butter and rhum, mix well and off heat
5. Store in a container and let cool in the fridge

For the chocolate ganache:

 

250g dark chocolate, cut small

250ml whipping cream

40g unsalted butter

1. Heat whipping cream in a pot over low heat til smooth and warm
2. Add in chocolate and butter, mix well til all dissolved completely, off heat
3. Keep stirring til smooth and thickened, let cool
4. Store in a container and keep in the fridge

To assemble:

1. After the cake is cool, keep in the fridge for a few hours (I kept it overnight) wrapped in clingwrap
2. Take out from the fridge and cut into 3 parts
3. Put one part on the cake base, spread with custard on top, top with the second part, spread another layer of custard on top, and then top with the third part
4. Spread chocolate ganache all over the cake, make sure it's smooth at the top, the sides doesn't have to be so neat, cos it'll be covered with wafers
5. Arrange wafers around the sides of the cake, and tie around with pretty ribbon
6. Decorate the top of the cake as per you like
7. I just made some shapes using my leftover fondant with cookie cutters

This is another all time favorite in my family and apparently very well known among Indonesians. If you google the name of this cake, those links appear are mostly from Indonesian bakers and/or bloggers

But I did see the recipe in All Recipes site too :)

 

So glad that mum enjoyed this cake as much as I do

Happy birthday to you mum, we all always love you *hugs and kisses*

 

I'm submitting this layered cake to Aspiring Bakers #18 Layers Of Love (April 2012) hosted by Sweet Samsations