Photo: Roozitaa · CC BY-SA 3.0
Chiffon Cake
The American foam cake made with oil instead of butter. That one substitution decides everything: oil does not solidify at room temperature, so a chiffon stays soft straight out of the fridge where a butter cake goes firm. But oil cannot hold air the way creamed butter does, so the whipped whites carry all of it — and the tin must be left ungreased, because the batter has to climb the sides. Out of the oven it hangs upside down to cool.
Ingredients
- Yolk batter (20cm chiffon tin)
- egg yolks5
- sugar40 g
- neutral oil · sunflower, grapeseed — nothing with a flavour70 ml
- water or milk80 ml
- cake flour · sifted twice110 g
- baking powder1 tsp
- salt1 pinch
- vanilla extract1 tsp
- Meringue
- egg whites · cold5
- sugar70 g
- lemon juice or cream of tartar · stabilises the foam0.5 tsp
- Optional
- Earl Grey tea leaves · ground fine into the flour; this is the version in the photograph6 g
Steps
- ⏲ 15 min
Heat the oven to 170°C. Do not grease the tin — no butter, no paper. The batter has to climb the sides, and on a slippery wall it slides back down.
- ⏲ 5 min
Whisk the 5 yolks with 40g sugar until pale, then pour in the 70ml of oil in a thin stream, then the 80ml of water and the vanilla. Tipped in at once, the oil separates out.
- ⏲ 5 min
Sift in the flour, baking powder and salt and mix only until no lumps remain. Beyond that you build gluten and the cake gets heavy.
- ⏲ 10 min
Whip the meringue. Start the cold whites with the lemon juice, then add the 70g of sugar in three goes and beat to soft peaks that just droop. Beaten stiff, the foam tears when folded in and loses its air.
- ⏲ 5 min
Beat a third of the meringue into the yolk batter hard, sacrificing it to loosen the mixture, then fold in the rest in two goes, cutting through with a spatula. Stop the moment the white streaks disappear.
- ⏲ 3 min
Pour into the tin, run a chopstick once around to break the large bubbles, and drop the tin twice from about 10cm.
- ⏲ 40 min
35 to 40 minutes at 170°C. A split across the top is normal, and it is done when the split has coloured too. A skewer should come out dry.
- ⏲ 60 min
The moment it comes out, invert the whole tin over a bottle neck or its own feet and leave it upside down until completely cold, an hour or more. Stood the right way up, the structure is still soft enough to sink under its own weight.
- ⏲ 10 min
When cold, run a thin knife around the wall and the central tube and turn it out. A chiffon is supposed to be stuck to the tin; the knife is the correct way out.
Tips & Variations
Variations
- Earl Grey, matcha or coffee: finely ground tea or coffee sifted into the flour. The photograph is the Earl Grey version.
- Orange chiffon: replace the 80ml of water with orange juice and add the zest. The original recipe was orange.
- With cream: a chiffon is barely sweet on its own, so cream and fruit are the usual partners. Coated in whipped cream it becomes a birthday cake.
- Against angel food cake: angel food has no yolks and no fat at all, so it is lighter and drier. A chiffon is that cake with yolks and oil put back to make it moist.
- In a muffin tin: possible without a chiffon tin, using no paper cases. With no central tube the heat reaches the middle more slowly, so drop the oven to 160°C.
Tips
- Using oil is the definition of this cake. Butter is solid at room temperature, so it can be creamed to hold air the way pound cake does — but that fat sets again as the cake cools, and the cake firms with it. Oil holds no air and is liquid even when cold, which is why a chiffon is still soft straight from the fridge and a butter cake is not.
- The meringue does all the aerating. With no creaming available, the only lift is whipped whites and baking powder. That is Dobos torte's mechanism, with oil's moisture added on top of it.
- Why the tin is left ungreased. Soufflé brushes butter upward on the walls to give the batter a ladder to climb. A chiffon does the opposite and puts nothing on the wall, so the batter grips bare metal directly. Same problem, opposite solution — which is also why silicone and heavily non-stick tins do not work for this cake.
- Why it cools upside down. Straight out of the oven the structure is hot and still soft, and stood upright it sinks under its own weight. Inverted, that weight stretches it instead while it sets. An hour or more, until completely cold.
- Do not whip the meringue stiff. As cooking eggs notes, any trace of fat stops whites whipping at all, so the bowl must be clean — and here you stop one step earlier, at peaks that droop. A stiff meringue cannot stretch further and tears as you fold.
- A split top is not a fault. It is the centre rising late and pushing through a surface that has already set — a sign it rose well.
- If it falls out of the tin by itself, something went wrong. It means the batter never gripped the wall, usually because the tin was greased or the meringue was short.
The basics behind this dish
- Eggs: Coagulation Temperatures and What They DecideWhite sets at 62°C, yolk at 68°C. Those two numbers explain scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, steamed custard and crème anglaise all at once.
- Cooking Oils: Smoke Point and What Each One Is ForWhat a smoke point actually marks, how much headroom deep frying needs, and why sesame oil and extra-virgin olive oil are finishing oils rather than cooking oils.
- Why Sauces Split: Emulsions and Pan SaucesA cream sauce breaking and a carbonara scrambling are the same failure. Temperature and emulsifiers — plus how to bring a split sauce back.
More of the same kind
More from this country
Sign in to edit.
AI-drafted, editor-reviewed · edits: 0 ·Edit history
https://cookiki.com/en/r/chiffon-cake · cookiki · User contributions are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.