Yoda

@Smithy, I edited the original ost with a short update at the bottom (https://forums.egullet.org/topic/46725-lemon-chiffon-cake/?do=findComment&comment=2430801 ) Is there anything in particular you would like to know? I sas planning on making another one maybe this weekend, but it looks like I'll be making in next week instead. I have a lot of the Hermes lemon cream left over, so that's my excuse for mekimg one again so shortly, hehe😆😆 I'm also going to try to make a cake collar like @OlyveOyl suggested this way I can still make a high enough cake without it overflowing (hopefully). And hopefully next time I do not overbeat the meringue 🙈🙈🙈

That's a brilliant idea! You mean like a cylinder out of parchment that's higher than the rim? But I'm afraid the cake will fall out when I invert it then? Did you have something else in mind? Do you think I can stick the parchment collar starting from halfway or at the upper quarter of the pan with butter? So the cake will still stick to the bottom ¾ of the pan. Or will the butter melt down the sides and prevent the cake to stick to the sides and climb? 🤔

So... I made the cake.. I ended up making half of the batter the recipe calls for and baked in a 6" round cake pan. I made a few mistakes. 1. I managed to overbeat the eggs whites. So I ended up adding extra 15 g of egg whites into the overbeaten egg whites and while it did help a bit, I'm not sure it solved the issue lol. 2. I think I've somehow underbaked it. I baked at 160 C (325 F) for about 45 min amd then checked for doneness. The skewer came out clean, but when I pressed on the top of the cake, I could hear foam breaking/popping underneath which gave me an impression it wasn't set/fully baked yet? So I baked for another 7 min afyer which I just took the cake out because it was very dark already. I could still hear the foam popping when pressing on the top of the cake though - does anyone know what happened here? The cake did fall down a bit at this point. The sides that are sticking out like a mushroom (see photos) are very firm/hard crust. It's now inverted and cooling. So I am not sure yet what I managed to produce 😅 I am making this for a birthday cake tomorrow (yes, I'm so late 🤐🤐) so I will probably be doing another one tomorrow. I would greatly appreciate ANY SUGGESTIONS! Thank you very much! I'm including some pictures. P.s.the batter came about 1 inch from the top (using 6x4" pan) when I poured it into the pan Edit: UPDATE: The cake turned out delicious! Despite the whites being overbeaten (whoopsy). I made a layered cake (3x 3cm thick) with Hermes Lemon cream, mascarpone+whipped cream filling with strawberries. I have made too much lemon cream, so I'll have to make another cake for the weekend 🤣🤣🤣

Hey guys, I would appreciate some pointers for baking times and temperatures for the Lemon Chiffon Cake if I bake it in a normal, 6" round cake pan? How long should I bake the cake for? I'm afraid of overbaking it, or opening the oven doors too soon to check on it, so it might collapese? Do I adjust the baking temperature at all? Thank you!

This might be a silly question to some, but why do we temper eggs when making creme brulee? Is it just because we need to combine the hot milk infused with vanilla? Or is the tempering step necessary? If I were to infuse the milk overnight for more flavour (stored in fridge overnight), could I just combine the yolks and sugar and cold milk the next day and bake? Or better yet so the sugar dissolves - could I just steep the vanilla + sugar in milk and store on fridge overnight, and then just add the yolks the next day and bake?

@pastrygirl, have you ever gotten into checking the temperature of the meringue or PAB? What IS the safe temperature you have to reach to get the eggs pasteurized in a matter of seconds (and not cooking them)? Is creme anglaise a pasteurized product (by reaching 82°C)? Is there a good book or some other resource on food safety regarding temperatures and water content, etc. (preferably with graphs) anyone would recommend?

Thank you, I also think buying organic/BIO is best for lemons zest and think I will get those. Even a small amount of pesticides doesn't sound appealing, even though it's maybe not enough to cause harm. Mmmm limoncello. I also wanted to make it this year but didn't quite get to making it

Thank you very much for your reply and suggestions @blue_dolphin! Luckily my pan is anodized aluminium - so I guess it's not non-stick? And also light in color Oh, I also have a baking belt/ cake belt? That you dampen with water and place it around the cake pan - but I'm not sure whether this is favourable for this cake? I also did not use it for baking genoise - I think this was the right call? Otherwise I think it wouldn't bake without collapsing? One more thing, do you guys use regular storebought lemons for the zest? If so, how do you wash them to get rid of the waxes and potential pesticides? Eh..just writing this down made me feel it's best to use washed BIO lemons... How do you wash the fruits before zesting? Warm water and.....baking soda? I'm pretty sure not with dishsoap?.. I'm sorry for the awkwardness of my questions. I usually just buy the zest, but think it'd be better to use fresh zest. Please help me out 🙏

Hi guys, as I am nit a professional baker, and nit even that experienced one, I only have one cake pan for now, and it's a 6x4" (15x10cm) round cake pan without removable bottom. Could I still make this cake (from TCB) in this pan, or will it not rise enough since there is no tube in the middle? I'd like to make it as a birthday cake, so I actually would prefer it to be without a hole in the middle But I have no idea how important it is/ if it makes a big difference if I just use a regular cake pan for this cake? Any help or suggestions so very much appreciated, thank you!

I made 2. Forst one was the test one, amd the second one i used my mother was very happy and everyoneloved it, so success

Lol, no wonder my cake came out dense I scaled the recipe to fit 6" pan. I cca halved the recipe and baked all at once in the 6" pan. I had to bake for a bit over than an hour. This is the result It's a shame they didn't describe how the texture of the cake should be. The cake came out very dense, but rich in flavour. I like it. I had to add a bit more milk than in recipe to get a "droopy wet consistency" like instructed. I skipped the chocolate chips (although I see some chocolate spots in the cake - not sure what that is?? If anyone knows? The chocolate was completely melted when i poured it into the batter (76% couverture chocolate)

Another day, another attempt.. This time I decided to go woth the Genoise au Chocolat from The Cake Bible. (I opted for new recipe because of failure at previous attempt + I didn't like the overwhelming taste and smell of honey...I wanted a chocolate genoise :)) I scaled all ingredients to fit a 6x3" pan (and used 6x4") instead of 9x2" as instructions required (because I don't have that size pan). I lined the pan with parchment on bottom and sides. I also lowered the temperature to 325F (165C) with convection and baked around 32 min. Now I'm thinking I should have gone for at least 35 or 40 min. But the smell indicated to me that it was done, and when I inserted the toothpict it came out clean, so I decided to not return it to the oven. I think the center collapsed ever so slightly after a few seconds and after I gave it a gentle drop. I flipped it over onto a rack and I was a bit clumsy and so had to really pull at the parchment paper to get it off the cake. This is how it looked upside down - you can see a slight indentation... I guess I wont know how it turned out until I cut it. I turned it back to the right side up after cca 8 min, and you can see the cake did collapse a bit..I just hope it's not terribly underbaked in the center🤞 Section pictures: The bottom again was a bit more dense, the middle was soooo fluffy, so was the tip, but the top WAS a bit sunken in. While this didn't turn out as I idealy would have wanted, I think I'm happy with the result. I've noticed the sides look a bit dark but they didn't develop a crust, so I'm not sure, is that only caramelized sugar? What can I do to get a more beautiful top/ not sunken in (the toothpick was dry when I took out the cake) I did use a realy wide bowl when folding in the flour - I think it might have been a bit too large and the cream deflated a bit more than I'd have liked - is this possible? It wasnt teribly deflated though, so I was really, really hoping it wouldn't collapse this time. I'm not even sure how much it rose while baking, if at all?? (Hard to remember since I used such a deep pan) Will post additional pictures of the sections. What do you think of this attempt? Edit: I mesured the height because it looks a bit taller in the pictures. It's at 5 cm (cca 2"?)

I tried my first attempt at a chocolate mousse. The chocolate seized after I added a little portion of the pate a bombe to it - not sure where I've gone wrong :/ I was following this recipe, which to me looked very promising. I halved the portion, so I used: 3 egg yolks (24 g) 100 g dark couverture chocolate (which was so sadly wasted...) 30 g heavy cream for pate a bombe (which was also my first time making it) 30 g granulated sugar 225 g heavy cream (for whipping) I started by putting the chocolate in a bowl over boiled water (off heat) and stirred it a bit every now and then. The I put the 30g cream and 30 g sugar mixture on the stove and let it boil for a bit. I slowly poured (very thin stream) this mixture into the egg yolks while whisking with a balloon whisk. The eggs didn't curdle, so I proceded to warm up the mixture over the stove, while constantly monitoring the temperature of it with a probe thermometer. The temperature was around 65 - 67C (cca. 150 F). I did this for about 2 min. I'm not sure the mixture got any thicker though - was this a mistake? And I was only whisking gently with a hand whisk. With a handmixer at max speed, I beat the mixture until the pot no longer felt hot anymore. When I felt it with my hand it felt like body temperature. Here is where I made an obvious mistake - but still unsure to which instant it played a role in the seizing of the chocolate. The video says the PAB should not be too cold (mine felt a bit cooler than body temp) so I left it above the water which previously was melting the chocolate (cca. 15 min later), so I didn't think the bottom would get that hot :/... Meanwhile I whipped the heavy cream to soft peaks. I felt the chocolate, it was about the temp of body temp. Then I stirred the PAB that was sitting over the hot water - the bottom didn't feel too hot, but I did notice some chunks at the bottom of the pan, and it seemed like there was still some egg yolk that was really runny at the bottom... I was pretty sure there was no runny yolk after I had mixed it. Do you think the yolks might have curdled a bit and made the yolk runny? Or maybe I haven't mixed it well enough at all in the first place? I thought I might as well try anyway, so I took a spatula and poured a bit of the PAB into the melted chocolate. As I started mixing, it started seizing more and more ... I knew there was no coming back and I was left with a chunk of very sad seized chocolate.... I threw away everything but the whupped cream which is waiting for my second attempt in the fridge. Where did I go wrong? I would be grateful for some more details on what the temperatures should be (measurable with a thermometer) of the PAB, chocolate and whipped cream. Also, is it correct to add the PAB to the chocolate, or would doing it the other way around be better?

I just noticed your post after my genoise topic was merged with this existing genoise troubleshooting topic. By the looks of your pictures, it seems like I have a similar issue to yours (+ my bottom layer was more dense than upper layers). Mine also sunk in the middle (this is my post). As I was reading your posts I think I understand the problem in your case was only you needed to fold in cocoa powder separately (mixed with water) and it turned out good? I'm a bit confused by the temperature - you lowered it despite having a sunken middle? I thought if a cake falls in the middle l, the temperature is probably too low? In the end you baked at 325F for 50 min - is this without convection? I baked mine at same temperature but with the fan setting on

Update: I bought one 15x10 cm pan and one 20x10 cm pan. I hope I will be able to bake the whole cake in one 20x10 cm instead of two 20x7 cm pans (maybe I'll make a bit less batter). Any ideas how to adjust temperature or time if baking if there's more batter?