Hawaiian Guava Chiffon Cake

[canucklehead]

This is a repeat post that I left in the Hawaii forum - but it seems a little quite their, so I thought I'd ask some of the serious bakers.

I lived near San Jose CA for a few years and had - what I was told - a facisimile of the famous Hawaiian Dee Lite Guava Cake from a baker called Aki's.

Now - I loved this cake - light and fruity, subtle and not too sweet - precisely the kind of cake that appeals to those living in warmer climes (and Asians for the most part). It was a chiffon cake iced with whipped cream and topped with a Guava fruit topping.

Now - I have be scouring the net for a recipe - and well, you'd think it was the cure for cancer. Is there anyone who has a reasonable recipe that could capture some that cake's delicousness?

Most most reasonable recipe that I have seen looks like a basic chiffon cake that replaces the water with Guava Concentrate - I will try baking it today - but I wanted to see what else was out there...

[mukki]

I don't think I can help much, but I did get interested in this cake a few years ago and searched extensively for recipes. I didn't actually try any of them, but the best sounding one I found was from the Star Bulletin on-line. It comes with a guava frosting and topping.

Guava Chiffon

[canucklehead]

I don't think I can help much, but I did get interested in this cake a few years ago and searched extensively for recipes. I didn't actually try any of them, but the best sounding one I found was from the Star Bulletin on-line. It comes with a guava frosting and topping.

Guava Chiffon

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This is the one that I found also and will be trying out this week - I will let you know how it turned out.

[canucklehead]

So I tried my hand at making the cake based upon the Star-Bulletin recipe.

No pictures - because I am a very beginner baker. The frosting and topping tasted very good. But I needed to doctor the topping (which contained no sugar and was kind of flavorless) and the frosting turned out very wet (but I think that this may be more of an issue of how I handled the whipped cream).

The real issue was the cake - it was much denser that I expected it to be. I was surprised - given the recipe called for 4 tsp's of baking powder (perhaps the cake structure collapsed due to baking powder over drive). I was looking for the super light cakes that Asian bakeries seem to specialize. I am assuming that they use chiffon cakes as their base.

The next step for me is to now try the Cook's Illustrated chiffon cake recipe and and replace the water with the Guava concentrate. I will bake it up in layer cake pans or a large spring form pan (I hope that this can be done - as I want to make a round cake out of this).

I will let you know how it turns out.

[oli]

Near me is a King's Hawaiian bakery and restaurant. Their cakes are all basically a sponge cake base and they just change the frostings, fruits and colours. You might try a plain sponge cake and see if that isn't what you're looking for.

[prasantrin]

I think the recipe you may be looking for is more similar to a Filipino chiffon cake. The texture is, in my opinion, different from most Western chiffon cakes. Very light, and almost sponge-cake like. I con't have a recipe for one here (my recipe is in Canada), but I have one for a Japanese-style chiffon cake, which is even lighter than Filipino chiffons (or maybe about the same). I'm just off to work, but if you're interested I'll post the recipe (warning--it's for a small chiffon cake--Japanese baking recipes are usually for very small servings).

[canucklehead]

I think the recipe you may be looking for is more similar to a Filipino chiffon cake.  The texture is, in my opinion, different from most Western chiffon cakes.  Very light, and almost sponge-cake like.  I con't have a recipe for one here (my recipe is in Canada), but I have one for a Japanese-style chiffon cake, which is even lighter than Filipino chiffons (or maybe about the same).  I'm just off to work, but if you're interested I'll post the recipe (warning--it's for a small chiffon cake--Japanese baking recipes are usually for very small servings).

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Yes Please!

I think that much of the Asian cakes that are available here are based upon the Japanese Chiffon Cake. I suspect that since the guava cake is from Hawaii - there may be a close correlation.

Even if the recipe is for a small cake - it may give me some guidance as to what kind of method I should be looking for.

Many thanks.

[glossyp]

Aloha,

I posted this link over in the Hawaii forum but I'm not sure if you saw it. Here is a link to a local recipe site, cake area. There are four different recipes for Guava cake but the one that looks most likely to return a light sponge is the Guava Chiffon cake. One thing I found interesting is that all of them call for cinnamon. Keep baking and reporting back!

AlohaWorld.com

[prasantrin]

Here's the recipe for a 17cm chiffon cake (the cardboard baking tube pan was about 4-5 inches high)--this is for an Early Grey Chiffon Cake:

3 egg yolks

30g sugar

30cc salad oil

35cc water

5g Earl Grey tea (finely ground)

75g flour

For the meringue

130g egg white

35g sugar

Note: These recipes all call for medium-sized Japanese eggs. These are, on average, 52g eggs. Someone told me that a 52g egg in Canada is a large egg--I don't know what US egg sizes are.

As for the directions...They're in Japanese and my Japanese is...well...less than perfect (much much less). The basics are:

Beat egg yolks and 30g sugar until very thick. Add the oil, and beat till a mayonnaise-like consistency. Fold in the tea leaves and water (use a whisk), then sift in the flour and fold (again with the whisk) until blended. The batter will be thick--like melted chocolate. So that if you lift the whisk about 12" straight up from the batter, you'll get a very nice stream of batter (you should be able to see some whisk tine marks at the top of the stream).

Beat egg whites until fluffy, then add sugar and beat until stiff peaks--very stiff and thick. Fold in about 1/3 of mixture into batter to lighten. Then add remaining meringue in two more additions. Before each addition, hand beat the meringue again to make it a little stiffer. Bake in a gas oven at 170C 25min, or electric oven at 180C 25min.

Note about temp/times--these are for small Japanese-style convection ovens. You may have to play around a bit with them if using a large US oven.