Chiffon Cake

Tips and tricks for the most cloud like cake ☁️

For some time now I have been chiffon cake curious, I see other people making it, I myself have made it before but I didn’t really know much about it or what makes a good chiffon cake until got to work doing many many test batches this week. I found the thought of it a bit daunting, which is silly, after all, I’ve made countless whipped egg cakes but this particular sponge just scared me, the specific tin required, the fear of a collapsed sponge, the inversion after baking, it all just felt like a bit of a mystery.

Fluffy sponge of my dreams

I actually find sponges in general to be one of the most difficult things to nail when it comes to recipe development. I am pretty particular about texture of my sponges and I need a recipe that will work every time. This week I made over 10 batches of chiffon cake in the search for my ideal texture, some were good, some pretty bad, it was a frustrating process that took me much longer than I anticipated, and one that I was right to be afraid of. However, my many failures were worth it because the recipe I landed on might be the best sponge I’ve ever made. It’s super light, moist and melts in the mouth. I already know I’m going to use it a tonne. My jumping off point when developing this recipe was a combination of Kassie Mendieta’s olive oil chiffon recipe and a recipe that I had scrawled down in an old notebook, they both started with similar ratios and I just adjusted them slightly to suit my preferences.

What Is Chiffon Cake?

Chiffon cake is an ultra light sponge cake, it’s made by separating the eggs, combining the yolks with flour, oil, milk and sugar before making a meringue out of the egg whites and folding that in.

Traditionally chiffon cake is baked in a special tin that has a tube going through the middle, this is because the cake is so light that it needs some extra support, the tube through the middle gives the sponge something to hold onto as it rises in the oven, reducing the possibility of the cake collapsing and making sure it bakes really nicely and evenly. The fear is that in a normal tin, the sponge won’t be able to hold its own weight up in the middle and will collapse, however this isn’t necessarily the case.

I was under the impression that I had a chiffon cake tin somewhere within the depths of my attic, however it seems that I was mistaken as after rummaging around up there for at least an hour, no tin was forthcoming. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it meant that I was forced to use my regular cake tins which is more practical anyway!

There are a few things that makes chiffon cake different to other whipped egg cakes like genoise, not only the method but the addition of oil, a liquid and baking powder, each one of these adds something different.

• Oil: Because oil remains liquid at room temperature it means the sponge retains a lovely soft, moist texture, this is as opposed to butter which sets firm and can often make cakes feel slightly drier. Butter does have a nicer flavour but for me, when it comes to chiffon cakes it isn’t worth the sacrifice in texture, texture is my number one goal here and the addition of butter makes it not only drier but denser, I’m a butter lover through and through but in this instance it’s a no from me. You can, of course use oils with flavour if a neutral oil isn’t doing it for you Kassie Mendieta uses a good quality olive oil in her recipe to add flavour or you could experiment with infused oils or nut or seed oils, I’d be keen to try this recipe with sesame or hazelnut oil.

• Liquid: The addition of liquid is what gives the cakes such a beautiful plush texture. Different recipes call for different liquids, a lot of the recipes that I found called for milk whilst some use water. The fat in the milk gives the sponge a slightly shorter texture whilst the water adds pure moisture. I flip flopped between which I preferred whilst recipe testing and in the end just settled on a bit of both, why choose if you don’t have to?

• Baking powder: Usually sponges using whipped egg don’t require any additional baking powder, all of the air is added in the eggs. The addition of baking powder in chiffon cake is what makes it so light it’s almost cloud-like to eat, not all recipes call for it but I really like the extra fluffiness it adds.

  

The Mixing

Chiffon cake is traditionally made by mixing the egg yolks with most of the other ingredients until combined followed by making a meringue with egg whites and sugar before folding the two together. This is seems simple enough but there are a few tips and tricks that really make a difference to the final result.

• Yolks & sugar: when sugar and egg yolks are combined the sugar almost instantly reacts with the proteins in the yolk, changing the structure of them, the result is similar to cooking or curing the yolk, it becomes hard and lumpy, this is sometimes referred to as “burning”. For this reason, it’s really important to whisk the yolks and sugar together really well as soon as they’re combined to avoid ending up with a lumpy mess, as long as they’re whisked instantly you shouldn’t have any trouble with this but it’s still worth adding the other ingredients fairly quickly after this just to be safe, it doesn’t matter what order the oil, milk, water and vanilla go in, you can just chuck ‘em in.

• Dry: I actually find that you don’t really need to sift the dry ingredients in this recipe, you do however need to be careful when it comes to timing, as soon as you add the dry ingredients to the wet the flour will start to absorb liquid and the longer it sits the firmer the batter will become. The firmer the batter, the more difficult it will be to incorporate the meringue without losing air. Therefore, it’s a good idea to weigh the dry ingredients out separately, start the meringue off and when the meringue is 90% of the way to being whipped, you can mix the dry ingredients into the egg yolk mixture, this way it it doesn’t sit around for too long.

• Egg whites/meringue: This is made like a classic french meringue, the egg whites are whipped until foamy before the sugar is showered in. The key thing here is to mix on a medium speed rather than really high, it will take longer but the bubbles that are forming will be smaller making a much more stable meringue which is less likely to collapse. This takes a while but it’s worth it! It’s really important not to over-mix the meringue, it should be at soft peaks, a very stiff meringue is more difficult to mix into the yolk mixture and you’ll end up with big lumps of egg whites in the chiffon cake or worse yet over-mixed meringue that gets a bizarre lumpy texture and loses air as soon as you look at it. The ideal meringue should be glossy with soft peaks that *just* hold their shape.

• The final mix: Folding the two mixes together is the final (and perhaps the most daunting) stage, at this point it’s really important that we don’t knock too much air out of the mix. I find the best way of doing this is to add about 1/3 of the meringue to the yolk mixture, this helps to loosen up the base making the final 2/3 easier to fold in without losing any air, just be gentle whilst still working fairly quickly.

  

  The perfect meringue texture - folding - the final mix mid-fold

Tins

Although this would definitely work in a chiffon cake tin it isn’t necessary, you do however still need to be selective when it comes to tins. Because the sponge needs to grip the side of the tin as it rises, non stick tins will not work, I used my trusty PME aluminium tins. You also need to make sure that you’re not using a loose bottom tin that will just fall out as the cakes need to cool upside down. I know baking a cake in a completely un-greased and un-lined tin seems scary but don’t be afraid of getting it out of the tin once cool, you just need to scrape around the sides and give it a good smack and the sponge will just fall out.

It’s also important to note that the tins mustn’t be overfilled, the sponge is so light that it can’t handle the weight of a lot of sponge on top of it so if there’s too much mix in the tin it’s likely to collapse, the recipe in this post makes enough for one 8” tin or two 6” tins, you can also make chiffon cake in a sheet pan, because it’s a much thinner layer of sponge it won’t need to be inverted after baking.

When To Use Chiffon Cake

Chiffon cake is so light, fluffy and delicious that I want to use it for every cake I ever make, sadly this isn’t possible. Because it’s so fluffy it can’t handle much weight on top of it, the layers just end up getting squashed and become dense meaning it’s not suitable for building tall cakes, I wouldn’t use more than 3 layers of chiffon sponge, any more and the bottom layer will get crushed. This is also worth considering when choosing a filling, in general whipped cream based fillings work best as they’re light enough not to crush the sponge, whilst fillings like ganache are a bit too heavy. Lighter fillings also work better in terms of taste and texture when eating, you don’t want a lovely light sponge paired with a heavy, firm buttercream.

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Chiffon Cake

Ingredients - Makes one 8” tin or two 6” tins

45g caster sugar 1

40g egg yolks (2-3 yolks)

40g neutral oil

25g water

25g whole milk

10g vanilla extract

85g plain flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

100g egg white (about 3 large whites)

60g caster sugar 2

1. Pre heat the oven to 170°C/338°F, get your tins out but don’t do anything to them, they need to be un-greased for this recipe to work!

2. Combine the sugar 1 and the egg yolks, and whisk together immediately.

3. Add the oil and whisk followed by the milk, water and vanilla, whisk to combine.

4. Weigh the flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.

5. Next, start on the meringue, whisk the egg whites until foaming, I use a stand mixer on a medium speed.

6. Gradually shower in sugar 2 whilst the whites continue to whisk.

7. When all of the sugar is incorporated to the meringue it’s time to add the dry ingredients to the yolk mix, add it in and whisk until there are no pockets of flour.

8. Whisk the meringue until it forms soft glossy peaks, when it’s ready add 1/3 to the yolk mixture and fold in, add the remaining 2/3 and gently fold until there are no streaks of egg white.

9. Pour into the tin, tap the tin lightly on the worktop to remove any large air bubbles and bake at 170°C/338°F for 20-25 minutes.

10. As soon as the sponge comes out of the oven turn it upside down on a wire rack and leave it like that until completely cool.

11. Once cool, to remove it from the tin, run a knife around the edge of the pan before turning it upside down and giving it a bang, the sponge should just drop out.

12. Use as required!

If you fancy trying out a chiffon cake based recipe I’ll be sharing my recipe for a Swedish prinsesstårta in tomorrow’s newsletter for paid subscribers, she’s an absolute beauty and so much fun to make!