Orange Chiffon Cake

It's the first day of Autumn today.  Hopefully, it will mean cooler temperatures.  The past month has been very hot and humid in Sydney, just like dear old KL. 

I tried out this beautiful chiffon cake recipe last week.  Been meaning to make chiffon cakes but could not find any cake tins for it.  The cake tin is quite unique, higher than  a normal cake tin and with a tube in the center.  In fact, it has even got a unique name - a tube pan.  I finally got my tube pan, courtesy of my sister Lilian who sent it over from KL.  And so, ta- da ! here is my orange chiffon cake.

Doesn't look too orange, does it ?  Chiffon cake is actually very good for health conscious foodies who love cakes but not the fat content.  There is no butter, only corn or vegetable oil. If you leave it in its original condition, then it's pretty healthy.  Rather like a sponge cake.  You can either leave it original or cover it liberally and sinfully with chocolate topping, like I did.

Ingredients

4 oz flour

5 egg whites

5 egg yolks

3 ½ oz sugar

2 oz cooking oil

1 ½ tsp baking powder

3 oz orange juice

1 ½ tsp grated orange rind

¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp cream of tartar

Orange essence

Method

1.         Beat egg whites with cream of tartar and half of the sugar till very stiff.

2.         Mix egg yolks with flour, baking powder, oil, orange juice, grated  

            orange rind and remaining sugar.  Mix till smooth.

3.         Pour egg yolk mixture gradually over egg whites, folding in just until

            blended.

4.         Pour into ungreased tube pan.  Bake at 170 degree C for 35 minutes.

5.         Once cooked, invert tube pan and leave to cool.

Topping

Melt chocolate over low heat.  You can slice the cake into 2 or 3 layers.  Spread a thin layer of chocolate on each layer.  Arrange the layers on top of each other. Spread more chocolate over chiffon cake and sprinkle with crushed roasted peanuts.

P.S.   Chiffon cake comes in many flavours.  In KL, the pandan chiffon cake    
is one of the more popular choice.  I did make pandan chiffon
cake  earlier but frankly, I forgot to take photos.  The cake was
finished before I remembered.  That will be posted next time.