DIFFICULTY: EASY-TO-MODERATE
By far, one of my favorite cakes is the chiffon. Chiffon is different than most cakes for two main reasons: it’s made with vegetable oil instead of butter/shortening and it froths the egg whites separately from the yolks. This results in a super fluffy and absolutely delicious cake..
The original chiffon was invented by an insurance agent in 1927 who went on to sell the recipe to General Mills. They ultimately released the recipe to the general public so “Betty Crocker could give the secret to the women of the America.”. How times have changed! Now the secret is available to the men “of the America” too…like me :).
There are many ways to assemble this cake. Custard between the layers and ganache or buttercream on the outside are popular. For me, this cake is all about “staying light”, so I like combinations without butter or additional yolks. My personal favorite is a stabilized Chantilly cream in the layers covered with a Swiss meringue on the outside. Obviously, the choices are endless and yours to invent! One disclaimer: I avoid overly sweet desserts and always err on the side of less sugar. That’s hard to do with a meringue. So keep in mind that while this cake is low in saturated fats, it is a bit sweeter than other cakes I make regularly.
Chiffon Cake
Ingredients
Chiffon cake – Makes 1 x 9" round pan or 2 x 6" round pans.
In the KitchenAid mixer bowl
- 114 g Egg whites 4.0 oz – approx 3 eggs (keep the yolks for later)
- 50 g Sugar 1.75 oz
- ⅛ tsp Cream of tartar
In a medium bowl – wet ingredients
- 64 g Water 2.25 oz
- 56 g Canola oil 2.0 oz
- 56 g Egg Yolk 2.0 oz, approx. from 3 eggs
- 2 tsp Lemon juice 12g / 0.4 oz
- ½ tsp Vanilla
In a small bowl – dry ingredients
- 113 g Cake flour 4.0 oz
- 1 + ⅙ tsp Baking powder Slightly more than 1 tsp
- 93 g Sugar 3.30 oz
Instructions
- Whip the egg whites, sugar and cream of tartar in your KitchenAid bowl on high speed until you achieve medium peaks.
- Gradually add the dry ingredients of the small bowl into the wet ingredients of the larger bowl. Mix everything by hand as you sift in the dry ingredients to prevent clumps. Don't mix too much – only enough to incorporate all the dry ingredients well.
- Add the egg whites into the mixture above in three stages. Use your silicone spatula to incorporate everything together thoroughly until there are no more white streaks.
- Pour the batter into the round pans. Do NOT grease the pans. Do place parchment papers on the bottom. Approximately 265g per pan of batter (for 2 x 6") or all of the batter into one 9" pan.
- Bake at 330°F convection for 35-45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean from the middle (approximately 185°F in the center)
- Invert the pans onto a cooling rack. Remove cakes from pans when cool.
Swiss Meringue
Ingredients
- 140 g Sugar
- 110 g Egg Whites From 3 eggs
Instructions
Pasteurize the whites
- Using an accurate thermometer, slowly heat the eggs and sugar mixture in a KitchenAid bowl on a bain-marie until it reaches 165°F. Do not exceed 165°F or eggs will scramble. It's important to keep gently whipping the mixture together the entire time it is heating.
Whip the whites
- When the mixture reaches 165°F, immediately take it off and place the bowl on the KitchenAid mixer. Use the whip attachment on the highest speed. After a few minutes, stop the mixture and scrape down the bowl. Continue on high speed until the bowl feels cool to the touch (almost room temperature). This could take a total of 5 or more minutes of whipping on high speed. When done, the mixture will be white, thick and sticky.
Chantilly Cream (stabilized)
Ingredients
- 200 g Heavy Whipping cream
- 20 g Sugar
- ½ tsp Gelatin Unflavored
Instructions
- From the original 200g of heavy whipping cream, reserve about 15g and place in small glass (I use a shot glass). Mix in the gelatin powder until mostly dissolved. Heat the gelatin/cream mixture in the microwave for about 15 seconds. Continue mixing until the gelatin is fully dissolved. Let cool for a few minutes.
- Add the remaining 185g of whipping cream, add the sugar and place in KitchenAid mixer with whip attachment. Whip until whipping cream just starts to form. Wipe down the sides to make sure the sugar is fully incorporating and continue mixing until you are about 90% of the way done.
- Now add the mostly cool gelatin mixture to the KitchenAid bowl while the mixer is on full speed. Continue mixing until the whipping cream is at the right consistency.
Detailed Instructions:
First make your chiffon cake
I recommend you start by getting your dry, egg white and wet ingredients together first. This way you have everything ready to go. This is also a good time to preheat your oven to 330F.
Begin by whipping the egg whites, sugar and cream of tartar together until you achieve medium peaks.
Now, slowly add your dry ingredients into the wet ones while mixing. You are trying to avoid lumps. At the same time, you are also trying to avoid over-mixing.
Now add in your egg whites into this mixture in 3 increments. Be careful not to over-mix, but mix enough so there are no more white streaks.
Now fill your UN-GREASED round pans with equal amounts of batter. For this recipe, fill each 6″ pan with about 265g of batter. You can also use all the batter to fill a 9″ round pan instead. Lining the bottoms with parchment paper is helpful.
Place the pans in the oven and bake from 35-45 minutes at 330F or until a toothpick in the center comes out clean (approximately 185F in the center).
Invert the pans onto a rack and remove from the pans when cool.
When fully cool, slice each 6″ cake into two halves (a total of four slices).
Make the filling
For this cake, I use a stabilized Chantilly cream (basically fancy words for whipped cream with gelatin). This keeps the cream stiff and less likely to get compressed between the cake layers.
Now spread a generous layer of Chantilly cream on your first layer of cake. Make sure to spread the cream evenly.
I love having various textures in my cakes so sprinkle some mini-chocolate chips on each Chantilly layer. This is, of course, optional.
Continue this two more times until all four cake halves are stacked together.
Make the Swiss meringue
You could make your Swiss meringue ahead of time and finish your cake, or leave the cake in the refrigerator while you make it now.
In a KitchenAid bowl, mix your sugar and egg whites together. Make sure to use an accurate fast-read thermometer and begin heating the mixture in a bain-marie. It’s important to mix constantly as it is heating and to not let the mixture get over 165F.
When your mixture reaches 165F, take it off the heat and immediately place it on your KitchenAid mixer. With the whip attachment, set it on the highest speed.
After a few minutes, take it off the mixer and use a silicone spatula to wipe down the walls. Place it back on the mixer and continue on high speed until the bowl is cool to the touch. This could take 5 or more minutes with the machine running on high. When things are done, the mixture will feel stiff and look snow white. Go ahead and taste it…reminds me of melted marshmallow.
Final assembly
Almost done! Now we add the Swiss meringue to the cake and we’re done.
There’s no perfect way to do this because meringue is pretty sticky stuff. I make everything more-or-less smooth before I do my final finish.
You could finish it any way you want, but I sprinkle some decorations on top to indicate what’s inside. Then I distress the sides a bit to make the imperfections less obvious. Meringue is not the easiest to work with if you are trying to make things pretty, but it’s also not that bad.
NOTE: You will probably end up with a lot more meringue than you need. Unfortunately, if you make a smaller batch, it may be hard to get it to work in your KitchenAid mixer. I recommend making meringue cookies out of the extra (maybe I’ll write up a recipe for that if someone wants one?).
There are variations of this cake you can try for fun. Below is another version I have made where you end up with a roll. The chiffon cake is baked flat on a sheet and then rolled up like a carpet with the cream in the middle. The meringue goes on top of that as shown. This might work well for Christmas (which is just around the corner).
Okay, but back to our original round cake. I hope you try this out, it’s a real crowd-pleaser and fun to make. If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you below.
