Chiffon sponge cake

Hello, my dearest! I don’t understand about you, but I’ve never made chiffon sponge cake until now. Naturally, there were many similar biscuits, but never with a unique recipe and in the correct proportions.

I didn’t have any short-term plans to cook it, but the guest’s wishes, as they say, are the law. If you asked, you received it. Well, since you are all my guests here, make yourself comfortable and feel at home. And I will show you how to prepare the most authentic chiffon sponge dough with step-by-step photos.

Let's first figure out what this type of sponge cake is and how it differs from the traditional one .

Basics of chiffon sponge cake

Chiffon sponge cake is loved for its incredible lightness and airiness. In fact, this is the reason for its title, which refers to light air tissue (a medical system of cells and intercellular substance, united by a common origin, structure and functions) .

And this is achieved thanks to: a) adding vegetable oil; b) the presence of a huge amount of proteins, whipped into a very strong meringue.

It is precisely due to the huge amount of proteins and vegetable oil that the chiffon sponge cake comes out so airy, tender and moist that it does not need any impregnation .

In fact, these are the two main differences between chiffon and traditional sponge cake.

History of chiffon sponge cake

This type of sponge cake is the brainchild of the first South American insurance agent from Los Angeles, Harry Baker, who back in 1927 invented a recipe for an airy, light and porous sponge cake , thus making a small revolution in the South American confectionery world.

For exactly 20 years, no one could understand the secret of the success of this biscuit and find out the reliable recipe from Baker. For 20 long years, a man with the iconic surname Baker kept the recipe for his own creation secret, until in 1947 he sold it to the American company General Mills .

And just a year later, the unique recipe for chiffon sponge cake became known to the whole world when it was published in Better Homes and Gardens Magazine .

Then everyone learned that the secret to the success of this biscuit was the addition of vegetable oil . Until that moment, all cake biscuits were prepared either with butter or margarine.

According to General Mills , chiffon cake was the first new type of cake in the past 100 years.

The main rules of chiffon sponge cake

A unique recipe for chiffon sponge cake requires adherence to certain rules to obtain 100% results at home.

Traditional chiffon sponge cake is usually baked in a special springform pan with a small hole inside. But this, of course, does not mean that you cannot bake chiffon dough in an ordinary round or rectangular shape.
One of the main rules of a chiffon sponge cake is that immediately after baking, the mold is turned upside down and placed in this position on some kind of stand (if the mold has a hole, then it could be a bottle) or between two other molds or pans, For example.
In fact, the legs are attached to a special shape for this purpose.
This biscuit is baked at a low temperature so that the dough is baked moderately.
For the most measured meringue, the egg whites should be at room temperature .
For a very stable meringue in a unique recipe, we must add something called wine granite . In the absence of this, when whipping the whites, add a couple of drops of lemon juice.

Unique recipe

For a mold with a diameter of 24-26 cm

The sponge cake rises quite a lot when baking, so the height of your mold should be about 10 cm.

Required ingredients:

flour - 264 gr.
sugar - 300 gr.
baking powder - 3 tsp.
salt - 1 tsp.
vegetable oil - 125 gr.
egg yolks - 5 pcs.
cool water - 188 ml
vanilla extract - 2 tsp. ( order )
zest of 1 lemon - optional
egg whites, room temperature - 1 cup (7-8 pcs.)
*wine granite – ½ tsp. (better) or a few drops of lemon juice

*Wine granite (cream of tartar) perfectly levels the meringue. The meringue with it comes out perfect. Can be ordered on iHerb . The discount code is POR7412 .

Step-by-step production:

Preheat the oven to 160º.
In a bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt, and sift everything together into a deep bowl.
Make a well in the center and add in the following order: vegetable oil, yolks, water, vanilla, lemon zest and mix with a wooden spoon or spatula until a homogeneous dough is formed.
In a mixer bowl, beat the egg whites with the addition of cream of tartar or lemon juice until very stiff peaks form , but at the same time be careful not to overbeat the meringue.
Pour the dough evenly into the bowl with the meringue, distributing it in a thin layer over the surface of the meringue, and very carefully mix it in with a spatula using folding movements from bottom to top.
Immediately put the dough into the mold, without lubricating it or covering it with anything, and bake in a preheated oven at 160º for 55 minutes.
We check the readiness by pressing with a finger and if the surface of the sponge cake is springy and after pressing it returns to its previous shape, then remove the sponge cake. If the biscuit is not ready, raise the temperature to 180º and bake for another 10-15 minutes.
A very important point: immediately after the oven , turn the sponge cake upside down and place it on two molds or pans of similar height so that the sponge cake does not collapse.
Leave the mold in this position until it cools completely.
After cooling, we run a knife between the biscuit and the walls of the mold, and remove the biscuit from the mold with a sharp blow on the table.
If you plan to cut the sponge cake into cake layers, leave it overnight (that is, at night) in the refrigerator, wrapped in cling film.

Chiffon sponge cake

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

A recipe for chiffon sponge cake in the oven - tender, fluffy, soft and not at all dry. You can cut it into 3 or even 4 shortcakes without any problems, and then create a delicious homemade cake. Fragrant and shaggy, like a cluster, chiffon sponge cake is a housewife’s dream, which simply comes true if you follow the recipe correctly.

What is the difference between chiffon and traditional sponge cake? If only 3 ingredients are used to make a regular snow-white sponge cake (eggs, sugar and flour), then the chiffon cake also contains fatty additives. Namely, butter and milk. Thanks to them, the finished sponge cake pleasantly surprises with its juiciness and does not need soaking (when preparing the cake).

Ingredients:

Making a dish step by step:

To make a chiffon sponge cake, we will need the following ingredients: chicken eggs (large - 55-60 grams each), premium wheat flour, sweet sand and vanilla sugar, refined sunflower oil, milk of any fat content (I took 2.5%), baking powder dough and a little salt. All products should be at room temperature.

While I was preparing the ingredients for the sponge cake, I thought it would be useful to show how to work with a springform baking pan. For the quantity of ingredients used, a detachable round mold with a diameter of 18-22 centimeters is suitable. In my case, the diameter is exactly 20 cm. For the chiffon sponge cake recipe, you don’t need to grease the mold with anything: just line the bottom with parchment paper. Take a small piece of paper and place it on the bottom of the mold. Place a ring on top and close it.

Turn the form over and carefully make folds out of the paper with your hands. This way, there is no need to trim anything, and this creates an additional guarantee against burning the bottom of the biscuit.

We have prepared the baking form. Now turn on the oven to heat up. The chiffon sponge cake asks for a spicy treat, so we set it to 160 degrees. I have a Hephaestus gas stove, bottom heating, no convection.

The next step is to prepare the dry mixture for the biscuit dough. Pour 130 grams of sifted premium wheat flour into a suitable container (2-3 liters) in size, add 80 grams of sugar (20 grams will come in handy later), 1.5 teaspoons of baking powder and a pinch of small salt. Read how to create homemade baking powder for future use here.

Mix everything thoroughly with a spoon, fork or whisk so that the dry ingredients are moderately distributed in consistency.

Wash and carefully dry the chicken eggs (3 pieces). Then carefully separate the whites from the yolks and place them in different dishes. Personally, it’s most convenient for me to do this with my hands: I break the eggs, pour them into my palm and pass the whites through my fingers. The unstained yolk remains in the palm of my hand - I transfer it to a separate bowl.

Place the egg yolks in a bowl, add 80 ml of room temperature milk and 50 ml of vegetable (in my case, sunflower) unflavoured oil.

Beat everything with a mixer or a hand whisk until the watery mass becomes homogeneous. With the help of a mixer it will be quick - almost 30 seconds.

Pour the watery base into the dry flour consistency.

Mix everything until smooth and homogeneous. You can create this with a mixer, but everything comes out simply and quickly even with an ordinary fork. The preparation for the upcoming chiffon sponge cake is ready, it’s time to move on to the egg whites.

Always use clean, grease-free and dry containers to beat egg whites. The whisks should also be prepared in a similar way. Beat the egg whites with a mixer until lightly foamy, then evenly add 20 grams of sugar (remember, it was left in step 5) and 1 teaspoon of vanilla sugar.

Beat at high speed until a fairly dense and white mass is formed. If you turn the bowl over, the whites will not budge. One of the guarantees of the highest and fluffiest sponge cake is perfectly whipped egg whites!

Transfer the whipped whites to the yolk-flour mixture.

Using a spatula, gently but quickly using scooping (folding) movements in a circle, fold the whites into the base. Our task is to saturate the dough with the magical air bubbles that are in the whipped egg whites, while at the same time trying to maintain its size.

Vanilla chiffon sponge cake

Yolks – 2 pcs.
Proteins – 4 pcs.
Flour – 130 g
Sugar – 105 g
Vanilla sugar – 10 g
Vegetable oil without aroma – 55 g
Warmed milk – 85 g
Baking powder – 1.5 tsp.

I decided that it was time to vary the line of biscuits on the blog :))) To be honest, most often I bake the classic - a sponge cake, the making process of which I outlined in the recipe for a cake with an ombre effect. It is light, relatively cheap, easy to make and versatile: with the help of impregnation you can give it one or another taste. But, obviously, in the richest confectionery world there are dozens of other biscuits - also beautiful and worthy of our attention! For example, vanilla chiffon sponge cake , which I will talk about at the moment.

Its main highlight, for sure, is that it does not necessarily need to be soaked: the sponge cake is slightly wet on its own, and the cake will not be dry even without additional impregnation. It's comfortable at times. But, if you like very moist cakes, I still recommend soaking it. The sponge cake turns out soggy due to the vegetable oil in the composition, as well as milk (it can sometimes be replaced with water or even buttermilk). Vegetable oil makes the dough heavier, so for such a sponge cake you take twice as many proteins as yolks, and baking powder is certainly added. Thanks to all this, the dough rises perfectly. Vanilla chiffon sponge cake is baked at a lower temperature than the traditional one - 160 degrees. Then it comes out smooth, without a slide or cracks in the middle. Lovely to look at! And further! It is better to cool such a biscuit, due to its airiness and tenderness, upside down, placing the mold on three glasses or a couple of glass jars. Below, in step-by-step photos, I will show you exactly how. This is necessary so that the biscuit does not fall off or shrink. When baking, do not grease the pan with anything, just line the bottom with parchment: the dough clings to the walls of the pan or ring and rises moderately.

That's all the important little things! The rest is as we go!

Separate the whites from the yolks. As usual, we do not allow the yolks to get into the whites, we also carefully wipe the bowl for the whites: if water or fat gets in, they will not beat well. For a mold 18 cm in diameter, I take 2 yolks and 4 whites.

In a separate dry bowl, sift 130 g of flour, add 80 g of sugar, 10 g of vanilla sugar (I use Dr Oetker with crushed vanilla pods) and a pinch of salt.

Sprinkle 1.5 tsp there. baking powder (not soda!).

Mix everything with a whisk.

Place the yolks in another huge bowl, pour in 55 g of flavorless vegetable oil and 85 g of slightly heated milk (can be replaced with water).

Beat with a mixer until foamy.

Add dry ingredients and mix with a spatula.

What we get is a homogeneous, thick, but flowing mixture.

In a separate bowl, beat the whites until foamy.

CHIFON BISCUIT

I grew up eating regular biscuits. Beat eggs with sugar, add flour, bake. These biscuits are tall, fluffy and dry, they definitely need to be soaked.

I missed the moment when confectionery science suddenly stepped forward. This came out quite recently, within the last 5-6 years. Completely different biscuits emerged. They are soft at first and do not need to be soaked. Almost all of them are baked straight away into thin shortcakes, because they are so tender that they cannot be cut. Almond biscuits, Japanese biscuits, cigarette biscuits, custard biscuits, dacquoise... And the good old thick biscuit that is cut into shortcakes has been transformed into a chiffon biscuit.

When I first saw the recipe, I was completely dumbfounded. Vegetable oil? Cool water. But an honorable employee recommended this biscuit to me, and I decided to take a risk.

GREAT BISCUIT! Soft, affectionate, moist without any impregnation, you can even feel some kind of nuttiness in it. He is willing to eat even just like that. without any cream, it’s not bad. I highly recommend forgetting all the retro biscuit recipes and creating only this one now.

8 g baking powder

120 ml cool water

1 packet vanilla sugar

5 egg yolks

1/2 cup vegetable oil (rapeseed)

5 egg whites

Beat the whites with 100 g of sugar until the mixture is tailed, at medium speed. Add sugar in three steps: 1st - when foam appears on the whites. 2nd - when all the trees become foam and 3rd - when the foam turns white.

What is a tail mixture? Scientifically, this is called “soft peaks,” but it seems to me that the “tail” is more intelligible. This is when you have a puppy-like tail hanging from the corolla, and you can wave it. When you wave your tail, it doesn't fall off. If the tail falls off, then beat further.

This is the most widely used mixture of meringue, in other words, whites whipped with sugar. This meringue mixes well with other ingredients and gives a good rise to the dough.

Beat the yolks with sugar and vanilla sugar into a fluffy foam. Add vegetable oil, add water little by little. Mix the dry ingredients, add to the watery ones and mix with a mixer at low speed until smooth.

Turn off the mixer and carefully, in two or three additions, add the egg whites manually with a spatula.

Place in two 20cm molds, cover with foil and bake for approximately 30 minutes at 170C and another 5-10 minutes without foil. The biscuit is ready when it springs back when pressed. You can bake one biscuit and cut it. It will take about an hour to bake.

Before cutting, the biscuit must be cooled properly; it is better to stand overnight (that is, in the dark) . Then it won't be so tiny and flexible.

Like all sponge cakes, chiffon sponge cake freezes well. Wrap it in cling film or a bag, and it will keep frozen for three months. To defrost, you need to keep it at room temperature for 3-4 hours, and it will be like something baked. I mean, how well-seasoned after baking :-)) In other words, elastic and not crumbly.