I’ve always wondered if it was absolutely necessary to use a tube pan when baking chiffon cakes. I could have used my silicone bundt pan but I had a theory that using a baking pan with a hole at the center was more of a tradition rather than a must. So I took my chances and baked my vanilla-mocha marble chiffon cake using a round silicone cake pan. Well, it turned out great.
The recipe is based on Stephanie Jaworski’s Orange Chiffon Cake which, in turn, was adapted from The Woman’s Association of St. Paul’s United Church’s (Spryfield, Nova Scotia) Book One Favorite Recipes. Of course, I used neither orange juice nor orange zest. I substituted plain water. And because I wanted to make a marble cake, I divided the batter into two and added coffee to one portion.
Note that this recipe will yield more cake batter than an 8-inch round cake pan can accommodate. What I did was to make cupcakes with the excess that the kids brought to school for recess. But that’s for the next entry.
Ingredients :
7 eggs (at room temperature)
2 1/4 c. of sifted cake flour
1 1/2 c. white sugar (you can increase this to 1 3/4 cups)
1 tbsp. baking powder
3 tbsps. of instant coffee
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. vegetable oil
3/4 c. water
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
Baking procedure :
Preheat the oven to 170 oC.
Separate the eggs yolks from the whites.
Reserve 3 tbsps. of sugar. Place the rest in a large mixing bowl together with the flour, salt and baking powder. Stir well. Make a well in the center and add the egg yolks, vegetable oil, water and vanilla extract. Beat until smooth (about a minute with an electric mixer at medium speed or about 100 strokes by hand). Divide the batter into two equal portions. Stir in 3 tbsps. of good quality instant coffee (I used Nescafe Gold) into one portion.
In another bowl, beat the egg whites until until soft peaks form. I recommend an electric mixer. This can be done by hand but it won’t be easy. Gradually add the reserved 3 tbsps. of sugar and beat until stiff peaks form. Using a rubber spatula, with a cut and fold motion, mix half of the egg white mixture into the coffee-flavored batter. Use the remaining half for the white batter. This is the trickiest part of making chiffon cakes. Folding the stiffly-beaten egg whites into the batter should be done properly so as not to burst the air bubbles that have formed. These air bubbles will give the baked cake its soft and airy texture so you really want to retain them.
Using two soup ladles, alternately scoop the white and coffee-flavored batter into an ungreased 8-inch round cake pan until the pan is 3/4 full. Take a small knife, plunge into the mixture inside the cake ban and swirl two or three times to create the marbling effect.
Bake in the preheated oven for about 50 minutes or until a knife inserted at the center comes out clean. Cool for about 30 minutes before inverting to a plate.
In the next entry, I’ll show you the cupcakes that I baked using the leftover cake batter.
Hai Connie,
My mother in law tought me to mix the batter into the egg white. This way, it’s easier to mix and the result is just the same. I also use the round pan, but during the cooling, I turn it upside down. She said, it make the cake softer.
Ahhh reverse. Lemme try that next time. Thanks, Susan.
hi connie. i was just wondering if i can use all purpose flour instead of cake flour? thanks. i like your site and i learn a lot. your recipes are oh so simple an very delicious. it’s good that you live in the philippines. at least i know, your ingredients can easily be found.
armi, 7/8 c. of all purpose flour + 2 tbsps. of cornstarch = 1 c. of cake flour.
I baked this yesterday and was unsuccessful, I used just flour instead of having the mix of cornstarch and flour to make a cake flour, the cake’s texture turned our to be like a pudding. Also I didnt get the marble effect. But despite it still did taste good.
We should have cake flour in our stock soon.
hi ate connie. ask ko lang kung anong brand ng vanilla ginagamit mo? kasi i have both ferna (transparent colored flavoring) and the mccormick type (which is dark colored). or is the one typically sold in the market better?
mccormick, armi. i tried a few ferna products in the past and didn’t like them. i was especially disappointed with the ferna gelatin.
i baked this cake this afternoon. it tastes good but i did not get the marbled effect unlike yours. and also, i did not have any left over for the cupcakes. so it took me almost 2 hours to bake the cake. it was quite thick. it still tasted good. il try to bake this again, and using less batter and better marbles. *hopefully*
thanks for the recipe.
armi, getting the marbled appearance does take a little practice. i didn’t get it right either the first few times i baked a marble cake.
hi connie,
i baked this this morning.It taste good, i like it much, marble appearance was not bad but the negative result was it sank during cooling. i don’t know what went wrong in the process. It looked perfect inside the oven but when i took it out for cooling it flop down. I want to bake it again..Pls. help what to do to avoid it..thank you.
zeny
hi connie,
additional po..when you say beat eggwhites until stiff, is there any maximum time of beating? is there any strategies to beat eggwhites to make it into a perfect stiff? thank you po.
zeny
zeny, it’s not how long you beat them but whether you have acquired the correct texture. That can be as short as 8 minutes with an electric mixer or 20 minutes by hand.
Wow, this site is really wonderful esp. for me that I like to cook and bake very much. Thanks.
I need recipe for pianono with egg custrad filling. should i do sponge or chiffon cake? thanks
mam connie
mam im only a student..would you prefer po ba na magtake kami ng risk doing this??better than the ordinary chiffon cakes??as in first time po namin gagawa ng chiffon cakes..or just let this time passed muna for your recipe??
salamat po…
If it’s your first time, stick to the basics. Safest.
Hello Ms Connie,
I really love browsing your site. By the way i got your site from one of my officemate here. Anyway i have tried doing this Vanilla-mocha marble chiffon cake last weekend. I just notice that your have not used cream of tartar. Since you mention that you have based your recipe on joyofbaking.com so i search on it and saw that it included cream of tartar so i added cream of tartar. My question is does adding or omitting cream of tartar affect the recipe?
My cake turned out well, not too sweet. I’m glad i got the marble effect.
Thanks!
Cream of tartar helps in beating the egg whites. For better texture. But adds no real flavor to the cake.
Hi Connie,
I tried beating the egg whites at low speed, it start to foam, then added sugar and followed by cream of tartar. As soon as I add the cream of tartar, the foam simply becomes liquid again. Do I continue to beat the mixture till it peaks to foam again? Will it foam up again? How long should I beat it?
Please tell me if the adding of sugar and cream of tartar makes the difference.
thank mam,
You have to beat at HIGH speed. Add sugar at soft peaks stage, not earlier.
Can’t comment about cream of tartar as I don’t use it.
thank you for your comments. In my last bake, the cake was dense, kind of a heavy. Moist, but not fluffy and light. Do you experience that before? I assume the water(I used orange juice) about 2 3/4 cup. Could that be the cause of the heavy cake result?
It’s the egg whites. They have to be properly beaten.
When I was 12 years old and I baked my first chiffon cake, I didn’t know anything about the stages in beating egg whites. The cake did turn heavy and chewy and my cousins called it a rubber cake.
hi connie. i just came across your website and saw the vanilla mocha chiffon cake recipe. i’d like to try it out for cupcakes. my question is, will the cupcakes shrink as it cools? your cupcake photos looks so perfect! i once made a chiffon cake recipe on a regular cake pan, not a tube pan. but as it cooled i noticed the sides shrinking. is this going to happen if i bake your recipe for cupcakes? i would appreciate your advise on this. thank you.
Shrinking usually happens when the cake/cupcake is underbaked or when taken out of the oven immediately — the drastic drop in temperature “shocks” the cake/cupcake.
i’m just wondering how to bake mini cupcakes? it’ll serve as a gift to a special someone..i also want to have icing on it..please respond..can you please just mail me? thank you :>
I don’t respond by email. Please search the archives.
“Shrinking usually happens when the cake/cupcake is underbaked or when taken out of the oven immediately “? the drastic drop in temperature “shocks” the cake/cupcake”
I just baked pandan chiffon cupcakes this afternoon and they all shrunk. I was wondering why so I searched for an answer in the web and I came across your site. Thanks so much! I’ll be a regular visitor here.
I baked pandan chiffon cupcakes and a cake one time, baked the cake in the turbo broiler and the cupcakes in a gas oven. The cupcakes shrunk. The cake was still liquid inside.
I’ll try again soon.