Happy Birthday Cake for My father-in-law

Last week we celebrated my father-in-law's birthday on 30th sept 2009 (It's his Lunar's Birthday) and since he liked to eat yam so I put a challenge to myself to make a yam layered cake for his birthday.

I had previously bought the cake recipe book by AMy Beh and saw this nice Yam layered cake recipe. There was a few steps involved - most importantly need to go buy a nice yam which was a challenge for me as I have never bought any yam before and so am not sure which type to go for, what is nice and will give a better taste to the cake. So the first i did was ask my father in law what type of yam is nice and went out to shop for the yam. And I found out yam really is expensive ha ha almost B$4 per kg.

And on top of that I also thought about how to decorate the cake as am good in decorating with icing as got no experience on it. So I just followed the cake decoration from the book with fresh fruits as the main decoration which is also good in presentation and I had putted almond flakes on the side instead of white chocolate as they dun really like cakes that is sweet.

I had tried the chiffon cake recipe given in the book but it turn out dry and hard. Am not sure what had went wrong - is it my technique ? which I am yet to discover. So I had to use Kevin Chai's sponge cake recipe as I'm sure that it will turn out better- due to shortage of time.

The result - well the cake decoration was nice, Sponge cake - i think was not so spongy - have to improve again and lastly yam fudge - i think it's a bit too dry - unless the yam fudge i try outside which is a smooth, creamy one - am not sure is it I put too much of the agar-agar powder.

But one good thing is my in laws like it as it's not sweet.. at least got motivation for me to try again.. ha ha..