Basic Chiffon Cake

Great for making layered cakes.

To my dear cousin Feli,

Here's the basic chiffon cake recipe you asked for.

This cake is soft, moist, fine textured and fluffier than other chiffon recipes I've tried. It freezes well too. The trick is to whip the egg whites until glossy and almost stiff. It's ready when the bowl is overturned the whites will not fall off. Bake at the lower rack of your oven and if you find your cake cracking, try baking at a lower temperature.

Have fun trying!

P/S Now, where's that scrummy cornflakes cookie recipe you promised? LOL 


Ingredients:

• 4 egg yolks
• 80 ml water
• 70g caster sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt (reduce to 1/4 tsp if u like)
• 120g self raising flour
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1/2 cup (125 ml) corn oil
• 4 egg whites
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
• 70g caster sugar

Method:

• Preheat oven at 160C.

• Beat egg yolks, sugar and salt until sugar dissolves completely. Then, add water, vanilla, oil and self raising flour. Mix well.

• In a clean mixing bowl, whisk egg whites until frothy. Add in the cream of tartar and 1/3 of the 70g caster sugar. Whisk until sugar dissolves before gradually adding in the rest of the sugar. Continue whisking until egg whites form stiff peaks and shiny and would not fall off the bowl when overturned.

• Take a 1/4 of the beaten egg whites and fold in to the egg yolk mixture to lighten the batter. Gently fold in the rest of  the egg whites until well combined (until you see no streaks).

• Pour batter into an 8 inch round deep cake tin with removable base or springform tin (no need to grease or line). 

• Bake at lower rack of the oven for 40-50 minutes or until skewer comes out clean when plunged in the middle of the cake.

• Cool inverted on a wire rack. Remove cake from tin when cake is cooled completely.

Purple Sweet Potato Swiss Roll

It's the end of the month again, just a couple more days before we enter August and here I am scrambling to post my third and final entry for this month's Aspiring Bakers Event. For this month's event, everyone is challenged to try their hand  in swiss roll making. Most home bakers are intimidated by swiss rolls. I was too. Though baking the cake itself is easy, most dread when it comes to rolling for fear of the cake tearing. From my own experience and from other bloggers too, I found recipes that use egg white separation method (ie. chiffon cakes) make cakes that are springier and more flexible for rolling.

Here I made a Purple Sweet Potato Swiss Roll, adapted from a chiffon cake recipe. Just look at that lovely soft  purplish lavender hue ... it's all natural, no artificial coloring was added.  So pretty, so sweet and so girly, don't you think. The more I look at it the more besotted I am with the colour.  The swiss roll was yummy too. Soft, moist, and light.   

I am submitting this entry to Aspiring Bakers #9 - Swiss Rolling Good Times (July 2011) hosted by Obsessedly Involved with Food.


Purple Sweet Potato Chiffon Roll
(Recipe adapted from 'Little House' here)

Note: I have slightly altered  the recipe from the original to include an extra egg yolk, and baked the cake in a swiss roll pan instead of a chiffon cake tin.

Ingredients:

100g purple sweet potato

6 tbs milk

4 egg yolks

20g brown sugar

1/8 tsp salt

50ml canola oil

85g cake flour

4 egg whites

50g white sugar

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

Method:

- Preheat the oven to 350F (177C).

- Wash the sweet potato well and steam until very soft. Using a fork, mash the sweet potato with milk  or alternatively, blend in a food processor until smooth. 

- Whisk together the egg yolks, brown sugar, salt and oil until combined. Add the sweet potato mixture and beat until blended and smooth. Sift in the flour and beat until smooth. 

- In another bowl, beat the egg whites, sugar and cream of tartar until stiff and glossy peaks formed. Add 1/3 of the beaten  egg whites to the yolk mixture and gently mix to loosen a little, then gently fold in the rest of the beaten egg whites until well combined and smooth.

- Pour the batter into a lined (12 x12 inch) swiss roll pan. 

- Place the pan into the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes or until the cake is cooked through (test with slewer).
-  Lift cake from  pan and let cool on a wire rack.
- Once cooled, turn cake on a  clean baking paper and remove the lining. Invert it again. Carefully scrape/slice away the skin.  Spread filling of your choice.  Roll up, trim away the ends. Done!

Mandarin Orange Chiffon Cake

 So moist & soft!

The Chinese New Year celebration has come and gone over a month ago, and believe it or not, I still have a basketful of Mandarin oranges left sitting in my fridge! When I found out this month's Aspiring Bakers' Challenge hosted by Jess of Bakericious is themed Fruity March  (details here), I quickly took up the challenge. What better way of disposing those oranges than to bake a delicious citrusy cake with them. Talk about killing 2 birds with 1 stone. Heh.



Mandarin Orange Chiffon Cake
(Recipe from "My Kitchen Snippet" here.)

Ingredients :
(A)

1 3/4 cup Self Rising Flour

1/8 tsp of salt

(B)

6 egg yolks

1/2 cup of sugar

3/4 cup Mandarin orange juice

zest of 1 orange

1/4 cup of vegetable oil

(C)

3/4 cup of sugar

6 egg white
1 tsp of cream of tartar

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 325 degree F / 165 deg Centigrade. Sieve all the (A) ingredients in a mixing bowl until well combined.
2. Mix (B) ingredients  until well blended and then add in ingredient (A) and mix until smooth. Set aside.
3. Beat (C) ingredients using a mixer on high speed until stiff peak. It should not fall out when you turn the mixing bowl over. Fold 1/3 of the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture to loosen the mixture, then fold in the rest of the egg whites. Remember to fold in gently until well mixed.
4. Pour batter into ungreased 10" tube pan and bake for an hour. Use a bamboo skewer to test the cake for doneness.
5. Remove from oven and invert cake (in pan still) and leave to cool completely. When completely cooled, loosen the edge of the pan and remove cake from pan.