Tasty Query

Great for making layered cakes.

To my dear cousin Feli,

Here's the basic chiffon cake recipe you asked for.

This cake is soft, moist, fine textured and fluffier than other chiffon recipes I've tried. It freezes well too. The trick is to whip the egg whites until glossy and almost stiff. It's ready when the bowl is overturned the whites will not fall off. Bake at the lower rack of your oven and if you find your cake cracking, try baking at a lower temperature.

Have fun trying!

P/S Now, where's that scrummy cornflakes cookie recipe you promised? LOL 


Ingredients:

• 4 egg yolks


• 80 ml water


• 70g caster sugar


• 1/2 tsp salt (reduce to 1/4 tsp if u like)


• 120g self raising flour


• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence


• 1/2 cup (125 ml) corn oil


• 4 egg whites


• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar


• 70g caster sugar

Method:

• Preheat oven at 160C.

• Beat egg yolks, sugar and salt until sugar dissolves completely. Then, add water, vanilla, oil and self raising flour. Mix well.

• In a clean mixing bowl, whisk egg whites until frothy. Add in the cream of tartar and 1/3 of the 70g caster sugar. Whisk until sugar dissolves before gradually adding in the rest of the sugar. Continue whisking until egg whites form stiff peaks and shiny and would not fall off the bowl when overturned.

• Take a 1/4 of the beaten egg whites and fold in to the egg yolk mixture to lighten the batter. Gently fold in the rest of  the egg whites until well combined (until you see no streaks).

• Pour batter into an 8 inch round deep cake tin with removable base or springform tin (no need to grease or line). 

• Bake at lower rack of the oven for 40-50 minutes or until skewer comes out clean when plunged in the middle of the cake.

• Cool inverted on a wire rack. Remove cake from tin when cake is cooled completely.

It's the end of the month again, just a couple more days before we enter August and here I am scrambling to post my third and final entry for this month's Aspiring Bakers Event. For this month's event, everyone is challenged to try their hand  in swiss roll making. Most home bakers are intimidated by swiss rolls. I was too. Though baking the cake itself is easy, most dread when it comes to rolling for fear of the cake tearing. From my own experience and from other bloggers too, I found recipes that use egg white separation method (ie. chiffon cakes) make cakes that are springier and more flexible for rolling.

Here I made a Purple Sweet Potato Swiss Roll, adapted from a chiffon cake recipe. Just look at that lovely soft  purplish lavender hue ... it's all natural, no artificial coloring was added.  So pretty, so sweet and so girly, don't you think. The more I look at it the more besotted I am with the colour.  The swiss roll was yummy too. Soft, moist, and light.   




I am submitting this entry to Aspiring Bakers #9 - Swiss Rolling Good Times (July 2011) hosted by Obsessedly Involved with Food.


Purple Sweet Potato Chiffon Roll
(Recipe adapted from 'Little House' here)

Note: I have slightly altered  the recipe from the original to include an extra egg yolk, and baked the cake in a swiss roll pan instead of a chiffon cake tin.

Ingredients:
- Place the pan into the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes or until the cake is cooked through (test with slewer).
-  Lift cake from  pan and let cool on a wire rack.
- Once cooled, turn cake on a  clean baking paper and remove the lining. Invert it again. Carefully scrape/slice away the skin.  Spread filling of your choice.  Roll up, trim away the ends. Done!