Chiffon cakes are delightfully light and delicate cakes made with vegetable oil, eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, and flavourings. Once you find a recipe that you like, they are very versatile!
Sometimes the problem when you want to bake a cake is that a recipe produces too much batter for a small cake pan. There are times when you need an 8″ or 10″ cake, but maybe that will result in too much leftover for your and your partner, for example. Halving the ingredients may work, but what happens to fractions of eggs or some strange volume of baking powder?
I recently purchased a 6″ tube pan, and it’s adorable! Seriously, it’s the perfect size for a small gathering. I therefore needed a chiffon cake recipe good for this size pan, and I found one.
Unlike larger chiffon cakes, this one uses 2 eggs which is more reasonable than 7, 8, 9 etc eggs for a larger single chiffon cake!
The recipe is highly customizable – just switch up the liquid or add ground up tea leaves or freeze-dried fruit to add flavour.
The first time I made this 6″ chiffon cake – as in the photos – I used mango juice for the liquid. Mango juice from a juice box doesn’t have a strong enough flavour, but it baked up well and produced a lovely, spongy and light cake. Next time, I’m going to try the recipe out with a different liquid – maybe Thai tea or hibiscus!
If you bake this cake, let me know at @takeontreats and #takeontreats! It’s sure to be a crowd-pleaser.
6″ Chiffon Cake
Yield: 1 6″ cake
Ingredients:
- 2 large eggs
- 60g (5 Tbsp) sugar
- 30ml (2 Tbsp) vegetable oil
- 40ml water/milk/juice
- 50g (¼ cup and 4 tsp) cake flour
- 3g (¾ tsp) baking powder
- Optional: vanilla extract
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 340F/170C.
- Separate egg yolks and egg whites into two bowls. Use a large glass or stainless steel bowl for the egg whites, if possible, to reduce the chances of contaminants getting into the meringue (which will prevent it from forming stiff peaks).
- Whisk egg yolks and approximately 1/3 of the sugar together. Add oil and liquid and whisk to combine.
- Whisk flour and baking powder into the egg yolk mixture in 3 increments.
- Whip egg whites until foamy. Add 1/3 of remaining sugar and whisk. Slowly add the remaining 1/3 of sugar and beat the mixture until stiff peaks form.
- Fold 1/3 of the egg white mixture into the egg yolk mixture. Fold the remaining egg whites into the batter in 2 increments.
- Pour the batter into the ungreased pan from 1 spot. Run a skewer/chopstick through the batter and drop the pan gently on a countertop to release air bubbles.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes until a toothpick inserted comes out clean and the top springs back when gently pressed. If the top browns too quickly, cover it loosely with tin foil in the last 5-10 minutes of baking.
- Cool the cake completely in the pan upside down.
- Run a thin knife/spatula around the edges, including the centre tube, to release the cake.
