First Attempt:
I am following hslingkitchen‘s recipe for chocolate chiffon.
Above is egg white+caster sugar on the left… i added extra 10g of oil by accident, original recipe only requires 30g of oil
3 egg white beaten till stiff peak; chocolate + flour etc mixture on the right. Having 2 Ikea mixing bowls come in handy for such recipe
looks fluffy
inverted on a white vinegar bottle after finished baking
urgh, turns out dense, rough and not nice.
Second Attempt:
After the unsuccessful first attempt, time to follow the recipe exactly and make this a success. This time recipe taken from dailydelicious, The photo in the blog sure show a moist chiffon. This time i have more time at hand baking on a Saturday morning instead of weekday night. Remember mum said chiffon recipe with comparatively more egg white than egg yolk will yields better and softer chiffon, so i think i will stick to this recipe from daily delicious instead of the previous one.
I reduced the sugar to 145g instead of 170g specified in the recipe
6 small egg white instead of 5 large egg white
4 small egg yolk instead of 3 large egg yolk
same method as previous: one bowl for egg white, the other for chocolate + flour etc mixture
mix in one third of the egg white into chocolate mixture to lighten the batter before folding in rest of egg white.
folding in gently, but ensuring all egg white are mixed in, else the finished products will have unsightly small pockets of egg white.
all mixed
this time baking in a springform pan as mentioned in this recipe
finished product, looks nice
mistakes start here, i unmold the cake straight away after taking out from oven. Chiffon should always left to cool inverted before removing it from mold, else it will collapse and becomes dense cake instead of light chiffon
continued to remove the bottom lined baking paper
looks nice at the point, the cake is still very warm at this point
Alas the second attempt is a failure as well, this is what happens when the weight of the cake especially middle part collapse and becomes very dense, and no longer light, the side of the cake is slightly better.
Third Attempt:
The third attempt should be my last try, using same recipe as in the second attempt(from dailydelicious). This time i bought large eggs, and followed exactly the recipe’s(3 egg yolk and 5 egg white). I baked it at 175 for 35 minutes(with the later baking stage lowered to around 160C), all the time keeping an eye on the cake as i am not following the temperature/timing in the recipe, but my mum’s(170-175C for 35 minutes). After the first 2 tries, pretty convince the extra 10g of oil on first try is not the reason it turned out to be a dense cake. Success!
Below are my two must notes for a successful chiffon making.
1) (most important) Chiffon cake must be inverted immediately after taking it out from oven and must be cooled inverted(2 hours to be safe) before removing it from the mold. This is to ensure it will not collapse and become a dense cake, case in point happened on 1st and 2nd attempt.
2) Also very important, do not open the oven too long that the cake collapse even when still being baked in the oven, case in point my first and second try, both cake “shrunk”/collapsed even in the oven after i did the toothpick test. For the 3rd attempt, i didn’t do the toothpick test at all.
I find the temperature is pretty forgiving, it can range from 150 Celcius to 175 celcius. I find maintaining 175 Celcius for 35 minutes baking can burn the top of chiffon, so 175 Celcius for initial 15mins perhaps and 160 Celcius for the remaining 20 minutes could be doable, will put it to test. While some recipe specifies 150 Celcius, i couldn’t be bothered for now to have this low temperature and having to wait for it to finished baking for a longer time 😛
