I was looking at a website recently, and came across this gorgeous Chiffon cake that someone had made. They had iced it with fresh cream, and decorated with oranges. It was a very beautiful creation, and looked soooo refreshing! Then my interest was piqued as to what exactly a chiffon cake is. And whatever questions we have are always answered by the saviour ‘google’ !!! So basically, as per Wikipedia, a Chiffon cake is an extremely light and fluffy cake made with egg whites, egg yolks, flour, vegetable oil and baking powder. Since this cake uses oil instead of butter, its very hard to beat air into oil. So it is absolutely important to beat the egg whites to a stiff consistency to achieve a foamy and fluffy texture. Then the egg whites are folded into the batter.
The high oil and egg content creates a very moist cake, and as oil is liquid even at cooler temperatures, chiffon cakes do not tend to harden or dry out as traditional butter cakes might. This makes them better-suited than many cakes to filling or frosting with ingredients that need to be refrigerated or frozen. Chiffon cakes also tend to be lower in saturated fat than butter cakes and I guess we can say they are healthier than butter cakes. Because there is no butter, therefore chiffon cakes need to have some sort of flavour added like chocolate, fruits, raisins etc.
Also, it is very important to bake the the batter in an ungreased tube pan (pan with a tube in the centre which creates a ring cake) which allows the batter to cling to the sides of the pan as it bakes. The tube in the center of the pan lets the hot air circulate so the heat can reach the center of the cake. The cake needs to be turned upside down immediately upon removing it from the oven as this keeps the cake from shrinking and losing its volume.
Makes a 10 inch cake. Use a 10 inch tube pan.
Ingredients:
Cake flour – 2 1/4 cups (see notes)
Caster Sugar – 1 1/2 cups
Baking Powder – 1 tablespoon
Salt – 1/4 teaspoon
Finely grated orange zest – 2- 2 1/2 tablespoons (see notes)
Eggs – 7 egg whites and 6 egg yolks (See notes)
Vegetable oil – 1/2 cup (See notes)
Freshly squeezed orange juice – 3/4 cup (see notes)
Vanilla essence – 1 teaspoon
Method:
Keep the eggs in fridge for some time before using and then separate the eggs when they are still cold. Put the whites in one bowl (7 whites) and yolks in another bowl (6 yolks). Then cover both bowls and leave them to reach room temperature.
Preheat oven at 170 degree celsius.
In a large bowl, mix together the cake flour, caster sugar (reserve 1/4 cup to put in egg whites), baking powder, salt and orange zest. Mix till well combined. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture. Pour in the egg yolks, vegetable oil, orange juice and vanilla essence. Mix well till smooth and well combined.
In a food processor, or with a hand blender, whisk the egg whites. Whisk till egg whites are foamy and soft peaks form. Then slowly add the 1/4 cup reserved caster sugar. Keep whisking the egg whites till stiff peak forms. This might take a while, it took around 8 minutes for me.
Using a rubber spatula, gradually fold in the beaten egg whites (in three additions) into the flour mixture. Make sure you are folding the beaten eggs in, not mixing them in. This will ensure they are not deflated.
Pour the now ready batter in an ungreased tube pan. Bake at 170 degrees C for about 45 minutes. One thing to note is that my oven bakes faster than many ovens, so you might want to give it another 10 minutes to begin with. The cake will be done when its springy to touch and a toothpick inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Meanwhile, get a plastic bottle with a thin neck which can fit inside the tube of the pan. Fill it up with water so that its heavy. When the cake is baked fully, immediately (using oven gloves, we don’t want burnt hands!) turn the cake upside down and put it on top of the plastic bottle. I had to use kitchen boxes, plates etc to bring some support on the sides of the overturned cake so that it didn’t fall off the bottle.
Let the cake cool down completely (about 1 – 1 1/2 hours), then take it off the bottle. Using a knife or metal spatula, slowly edge the cake out of the sides of the pan and from around the inside tube. It will have stuck to the sides of the pan as it was an ungreased pan, and will take some maneuvering to take out. Be patient, you don’t want to break the cake at this point. After some manipulation and some coaxing, the cake will come out, and happy days (hours is more like it, considering the cake is soooo tasty!!!) will begin!
You can whip up some fresh cream and ice the cake, or you can just dust it with some icing sugar, and decorate with orange rind, pieces etc. Lush! Awesome flavours and a melt in your mouth cake is ready!
Notes:
- Cake Flour – To make 2 1/4 cups cake flour : Sift together 1 1/2 cups + 3 tablespoons of plain flour with 5 tablespoons cornflour. Sift them at least 5-6 times.
- Orange Zest – Use a very small grater to grate the orange rind. Make sure that the oranges are thoroughly washed before grating.
- Eggs – Bringing the eggs to room temperature before beating them will help them to reach full volume.
- Vegetable oil – You can use any any flavorless oil like vegetable, canola, safflower, corn or even a sunflower oil.
- Orange Juice – Run the juice through a mesh so that there are no seeds, pulp etc. We want a smooth juice.
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