Eat Well, Live Happy: Chiffon Cake

It's been quite a while since I've posted a new recipe. This is actually my first post in 2013 (yikes!). So I knew it had to be a good one. This year for Easter my mom sent out an email sign-up for everyone to pick what they were making for Easter dinner. Of course, I signed up for dessert. I usually make cheesecake for Easter dessert but wanted to try something different this year. My sister Paula gave me the idea of a Chiffon cake and serving it with berries. I've never made a Chiffon cake so I decided to give it a try. She emailed me a recipe from America's Test Kitchen, and then realized it was missing a flavor that she remembered being in the recipe that she made. She gave me a photocopy of the recipe that she made and that's the one below that I used, but I'm not sure where she found this recipe. It looked like it came from a cookbook. I searched online to try to see if I could figure out where it came from so I could properly credit it, but had no luck. It was very easy to make. I decided not to put the glaze on the cake to eliminate the butter and extra sugar and make it a little healthier, and the cake was still delicious without it. My sister Caterina was making a bunny cake and a chocolate dessert for the adults so this was just be a little something lighter with strawberries for the adults to enjoy.

A few helpful hints: Separate the eggs while they're cold and then let them reach room temperature. Use a footed removable bottom tube pan if you have one. An important thing to remember when making Chiffon cake is not to grease the pan. The batter needs to cling to the pan to rise while baking. You need to invert the pan to let the cake cool for a few hours afterwards, and you don't want the cake to fall out! This blog has a few helpful hints as well. Also, I didn't have cake flour but I made my own. If you don't have any, but you have corn starch, here is an easy way to make it yourself.

Everyone seemed to like the cake, and I thought it was delicious too. I've never made angel food cake or sponge cake, but I love my aunt's pound cake recipe, and now this Chiffon Cake recipe will be another that I will make often.

Chiffon Cake

In the original recipes for chiffon cake published by General Mills, the directions for beating the egg whites read, “WHIP until whites form very stiff peaks. They should be much stiffer than for angel food or meringue. DO NOT OVERBEAT.” These instructions, with their anxiety-inducing capitalized words, are well taken. If the whites are not very stiff, the cake will not rise properly, and the bottom will be heavy, dense, wet, and custard-like. Better to overbeat than to underbeat. After all, if you overbeat the egg whites and they end up dry and “blocky,” you can smudge and smear the recalcitrant clumps with the flat side of the spatula to break them up.

CAKE:

1½ cups sugar

1 1/3 cups plain cake flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

7 large eggs, 2 whole, 5 separated, at room temperature

¾ cup cold water

½ cup vegetable oil

1 Tablespoon vanilla extract

½ teaspoon almond extract

½ teaspoon cream of tartar

GLAZE:

4 Tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter, melted

4-5 Tablespoons orange juice, lemon juice, milk, or coffee (for date-spice or mocha-nut variations)

2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar

FOR THE CAKE: Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 325°. Whisk the sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl. Whisk in the 2 whole eggs, 5 egg yolks (reserve the whites), water, oil, and extracts until the batter is just smooth.

Pour the reserved egg whites into the bowl of a standing mixer; beat at a lower speed until foamy, about 1 minute. Add the cream of tartar, gradually increase the speed to medium-high, and beat the whites until very thick and stiff, just short of dry (as little as 7 minutes in a standing mixer and as long as 10 minutes with a handheld mixer). With a large rubber spatula, fold the whites into the batter, smearing in any blobs of white that resist blending with the flat side of the

Spatula.

Pour the batter into an ungreased large tube pan (9-inch diameter, 16-cup capacity). Rap the pan against the countertop 5 times to rupture any large air pockets. If using a pan with a removable bottom, grasp both sides with your hands while firmly pressing down on the tube with your thumbs to keep the batter from seeping from the pan during the rapping process. Wipe off any batter that may have dripped or splashed onto the inside walls of the pan with a paper towel.

Bake the cake until a toothpick or thin skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, 55-65 minutes. Immediately turn the cake upside down to cool. If the pan does not have prongs around the rim for elevating the cake, invert the pan onto the neck of a bottle or funnel. Let the cake cool completely, 2 to 3 hours.

To unmold, turn the pan upright. Run a thin knife around the pan’s circumference between the cake and the pan wall, always pressing against the pan. Use a skewer to loosen the cake from the tube. For a one-piece pan, bang it on the counter several times, then invert it over a serving plate. For a two-piece pan, grasp the tube and lift the cake out of the pan. If glazing the cake, use a fork or paring knife to gently scrape all the crust off the cake. Loosen the cake from the pan bottom with a spatula or knife, then invert the cake onto a serving plate. (The cake can be wrapped in plastic and stored at room temperature for up to 2 days or refrigerated for up to 4 days.)

FOR THE GLAZE: Beat the butter, 4 tablespoons of the liquid, and the confectioners’ sugar in a medium bowl until smooth. Let the glaze stand 1 minute, then try spreading a little on the cake. If the cake starts to tear, thin the glaze with up to 1 tablespoon more liquid. A little at a time, spread the glaze over the cake top, letting any excess dribble down the sides. Let the cake stand until the glaze dries, about 30 minutes. If you like, spread the dribbles (before they have a chance to harden) to make a thin, smooth coat. Serve.

Serves 12.