May 20, 2006

Pink vanilla chiffon cake

As a typical kid born and raised in Malaysia, chiffon cake has always been a comforting snack while I reminiscence about my childhood days in Ipoh. The 'roti'(bread)-man would make his rounds every evening around the neighbourhood with his motorcycle and trusty bell. My sister and I would run outside when we heard the chime to get ourselves a tea-time snack! He sold fresh bread and many yummy kiddy treats like chocolate and giant sugar coated donuts! It might be that the donuts seem giant back then because my hands were very little. *shrug* Anyway back to the story, he often sold chiffon cake slices in 2 flavours, citrus (which were orange in colour) and pandan (which was green).
When I saw Lily Ng's recipe for pandan chiffon cake, I couldn't wait to try it! I o
ften find chiffon cakes sold in Asian stores around Sydney fairly artificial in flavour. I guess its the preservatives which they include to make it last longer. I tried Lily's recipe with a few alterations and changes to the proportions to suit my house of 3. I didn't have a chiffon cake tin either, so I used a can in the middle of my round spring form cake tin. Instead of flavouring it with pandan, I used vanilla essence and coloured my cake a pretty tint of pink! *sigh* I'm such a girl hehe
Remember to handle this cake really gently and never pierce the cake while its in the oven. Be patient. The idea is to trap the air in the cake to have a soft and fluffy texture; not to poke a hole so the air can escape! If you cant take it! and you MUST check if the cake is done, lightly touch the top of the cake. It will be spring-gy when the center is set!

Thanks lily for your great recipe. I have enjoyed baking it and we (my housemates and I) have enjoyed eating it together while sharing childhood memories. Despite my heavy uni workload and 'unwanted-happenings', it was a delightful morning!

7 comments:

Unknown said...

suyin

great job.

try with orange juice concentrate, it is delicious

=KaReN= said...

i tried baking chiffon cake long time ago and everytime i bake everytime failed... it wont rise properly... once i took out from the oven to let it cool it will go flat... dunno wats wrong... hope one day i will success...

=KaReN= said...

i tried baking my chiffon cake just now... i follow the exact instructions... once bake let it cool and then i tried to cut it and it went flat... the inside is quite wet... wondering why...

Su-Yin -Décorateur said...

hey karen...sorry to hear about your problems with the chiffon cake..
I can't possibly tell you whats wrong with it as I havnt had much experience with chiffon cakes before. Did you use a bundt tin? the ones with a large hole in the middle? That usually helps give it a little more height. It could also be the beating of the eggwhites. It might not be stiff enough.
Hope that helps..

=KaReN= said...

i beat the egg whites for about 5 mins ++... is it long enough?? yeah im using those sponge cake mould which have a hole in the middle tat kind...

Unknown said...

Hi , liked ur blog very much, this chiffon cake looks very tempting and name is so pretty :) ....

Anonymous said...

Hi Su-Yin, I live in Sydney too, can you please tell me where you got your chiffon cake pan? Thanks