Melon Cake
Here’s the cake I made for my girlfriend’s birthday. While in Japan we really enjoyed Japanese melons, I couldn’t find any for sale here so I ended up using a honeydew melon. Which definitely was not as sweet. All in all it was a fun cake to bake.
Cake Base
Preheat your oven to 170°C. Also begin boiling water in a pot, we’ll double boil our first mixture.
- In a heat safe bowl mix:
- Eggs, 4
- Sugar, 100g
- Honey, 15g
- Vanilla Extract, 5g
- Double boil while mixing until mixture reaches 40°C. Put aside.
- In a separate bowl mix butter and milk while double boiling until the mixture reaches 60°C.
- Unsalted Butter, 35g
- Milk, 55g
- Whisk the egg mixture until fluffy.
- Add flour to egg mixture and combine.
- Flour, 120g
- Add a little bit of the egg mixture to the butter mixture. Combine well.
- Add the butter mixture to the egg mixture. Add a tiny bit of green food dye. Combine well.
- Green Food Dye
- Line and oil a round baking tin. Add mixture.
- Bake for about 35~40 minutes at 170°C.
- Let cool.
Undyed Cream
- In a bowl whisk until peaks form.
- Cream, 310g
- Sugar, 31g
- Store in the fridge until needed.
Melon
- Remove rind and seeds. Cut into 1cm slices.
- Honeydew Melon, 1/4
- If possible pat dry.
Putting most of it together
Preparation
- Slice the cake into 1cm sheets.
- Cake, baked earlier.
- Line a cake-sized bowl with cling wrap.
You want this to be quite a round bowl. This is where the cake gets its shape.
- Cut a sheet of the cake roughly to the circumference of the bottom of the bowl, place it in, add a layer of cream, add a layer of melon roughly cut to the circumference of the bowl. Repeat until you have filled the bowl, finishing with a layer of cake.
- Cake, sliced earlier.
- Undyed cream, prepared earlier.
- Melon, prepared earlier.
- Put in the freezer for 30 minutes.
- With the leftover melon cut a small T shape to emulate the stem of the melon. You can snack on the rest.
- Keep the leftover undyed cream.
Dyed Cream
- Whisk until peaks form.
- Cream, 310g
- Sugar, 31g
- Green Food Dye
Putting it all together
- Remove cake from bowl.
- Cake, prepared earlier.
- Cover cake with dyed cream. Smooth it out.
- Dyed cream, prepared earlier.
- Use the leftover undyed cream in a piping bag to emulate the look of a melon.
- Undyed cream, prepared earlier.
- Add the melon stem cutout to the top.
- Melon stem, prepared earlier.
- Keep in the fridge for a while to firm up.