chiffon cake

[Pam R]

I do use aluminum foil. I bake in a commercial convection oven, but I tent the foil over the cakes, making sure that they really are tented and not touching the cake. I bake over 100 chiffon cakes in a one week period every year - and it's the best way I have found to keep them from getting too dark, but not falling because they haven't baked enough.

[filipe]

Chiffon's are probably my favourite type of "sponge-like" cakes

Just a small contribution to this thread :

[_john]

I was baking at 180°c. I tried again without the foil at 170° and it was a little less brown but something really strange happened this time. It seems like there was some air or water under the parchment that turned into steam and made a kind of dome or bubble on the bottom of the cake. So the whole thing was concave on the bottom and domed on the top.

Yes I have a bottom and top element. What about a tray of water creating steam? would that prevent browning. I will try the foil.

this is the recipe I'm using:

batter

egg yolk　　　4

milk　　　65ml

oil　55ml

flour　　70ｇ

meringue

egg whites　4

sugar　60ｇ

[helenjp]

John, have you tried using a disposable paper ring mold, rather than baking in a regular cake pan? The bubble makes me think you were baking in a regular round pan??

Does seem to be an unusual recipe...almost like a cross between a hot milk sponge (milk, little flour) and a chiffon cake (oil, more flour). With so little flour, I think you probably got a souffle effect, maybe why it peaked and burned easily.

Proportions for the batter look to be around:

Per egg yolk - 10-20g sugar, 20-35g flour, 15-20ml each oil and water

Meringue - extra white per 2 or 3 yolks, at least 10-15g sugar per white

Some sample recipes:

Ingredients for small 17cm chiffon cake

(170degC, 35 mins)

BATTER

egg yolk 3

oil 40ml

water - 40ml

flour 60g (+ 1/2 tsp baking pdr if not using 4th egg white)

sugar 20g

MERINGUE

egg white 4 (or 3, plus 1/2 tsp baking pdr in batter)

sugar 40g

salt pinch

I have an older Japanese recipe that uses no liquid other than the yolks and oil, but I think the additional liquid makes the cake much more tender.

Proportions from 21st century Japanese magazine, for 20cm chiffon cake pan

You can use less sugar than stated - down to about 30g for batter and 70g for meringue.

BATTER

egg yolk 4

oil 75ml

Zest of 1/2 orange, juice of 1 orange with water to make a total of 130ml (or 2 tab tea leaves, simmered with milk and water, strained and total made up to 130ml)

flour 140g

sugar 60g

MERINGUE

egg white 7 large (240ml total)

sugar 100g

salt pinch

[_john]

Thanks Helen, I will do a test run as soon as possible with this recipe. Japanese chiffon is a little bit different from others eh? No butter and no cream make it affordable too.