Almond Chiffon Cake

For our family gathering last Sunday I whipped up a almond chiffon cake. As you might remember from my previous pandan cake I had a little trouble unmolding the cake without ruining it's appeal. So I was a bit worried about the outcome. I knew it would taste great, I just wasn't sure it would look it. However it was a 90% success. The sides came out perfectly, but I had a little fumble with the top. Fortunately I was able to cover it up just fine, so no one ever noticed :)

To make the cake I just adapted my pandan cake recipe to make it almondy.
Ingredients:

5 egg yolks (I used medium eggs)
50 gr caster sugar
90 gr milk
60 gr vegetable oil
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
pinch of salt
100 gr cake flour (90 gr flour+10 gr cornflour)
30 gr dried almond pulp (or another 30 gr flour)

5 egg whites (I used medium eggs)
65 gr caster sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
I used a 22 cm chiffon pan.

Instructions:
Preheat your oven at 170 C.

Sieve the cake flour with the almond pulp and set aside.

Place egg yolks in a mixing bowl and whisk the yolks a little. Add in sugar and whisk till the mixture turns pale and thick. While mixing gradually add the milk. Next slowly add the vegetable oil and continue mixing. Now add vanilla extract, almond extract and salt and continue mixing. Sieve over the flour and mix till it is fully incorporated. Be careful not to over-mix. Set aside.

In a clean, dry mixing bowl, beat egg whites with cream of tartar on low speed until mixture becomes frothy and foamy. Then add half of the sugar and turn to high speed, continue adding the rest of the sugar and beat until the egg whites reaches the soft peak stage. Do NOT beat until stiff, it is much easier to fold in the egg whites in soft-peak-stage.
Now gently fold in the egg whites into the egg yolk batter, try to do so in three additions, until you have a fluffy and well blended batter. FOLD, do not mix!

Sprinkle some almond flakes in your chiffon pan and pour your batter on top. Do NOT grease the pan. Tap the pan lightly to get rid of any trapped bubbles, then place pan in oven for about 35 minutes or until a inserted toothpick comes out clean. I increase the temperature a bit in the last 5 minutes to crust the sides a little extra. I find it helps when unmolding.

Immediately after removing the cake from the oven, turn it upside down/invert it/overturn it and leave to cool completely. Make sure the cake is not to close to your tabletop so the condensation does not harm it.

After cake is cooled completely, run a knife around all edges and unmold. 

Cut a big slice and enjoy the fruits of your hard work!

Pandan cake

Ooh I have wanted to make this cake soooooo badly for such a long time!
It always seemed like it would be a whole lot of trouble with great risk of failing, but turns out it is really easy! I won't lie to you, there can be lots of pitfalls. But thanks to all those other great bloggers out there, you CAN learn from other peoples mistakes!

Ok so I've been looking out for a chiffon pan for a while now, but I just couldn't seem to find one.
So when I went to my Asian super the other day, since I knew they also sold all kinds of other household appliances, I had an eye open for it. And there it was... my very own chiffon pan. Yippie!!!

One of the blogs I follow Happy Home Baking, has some awesome chiffon cake recipes and I later found this great post on many chiffon cake pitfalls by I eat I shoot I post, so I was good to go!

I was very surprised at how fast the batter was made and how effortless it all seemed. Within no time my cake was in the oven. And it turned out soooo yummie! It was really soft and moist, with that lovely airiness that I love so much. Hmmmm, just thinking about it makes my mouth water again!

But, there are of course a few things I still need to master. Patience is not my virtue, so I have a very hard time waiting for the cake to properly cool before removing from the pan :(
This inevitably results in an delicious but not so pretty cake .Also I need to figure out how many eggs to work with. Happy Home Baker uses a smaller pan than I do, but she uses larger eggs. So I did adapt the recipe a bit (I upped it one egg) but I feel it needs a bit more work. And since my oven is not always cooperating, aka the temperatures are all over the place, I need to determine how to tune it best to get the most beautiful and delicious chiffon cake.

That being sad, I enjoyed my cake enormously! And before I knew it, it was already finished.
Here's the recipe I used, enjoy!

Dried apricot and pecan cake with a dash of rum

I had set out to make a date and pecan cake and had already put almost all my ingredients in place but upon inspection of my dates they seemed to have gone bad :(

After sulking for a few minutes I decided to bake anyway and searched for a recipe which called for similar ingredients. I eventually choose a dried apricot and pecan recipe that seemed incredibly easy so finally the baking could commence!

The recipe was indeed easy breezy and the cake turned out nice, but it was not wow... Maybe because I still had my heart set for that date cake I dunno. I think this recipe is best suited for a bunt cake or a loaf cake, which i did not do since I used a regular round tin, but done up with a big puff of whipped cream and nice cup of tea, it was just as lovely!
So there you have it: Dried apricot cake with chopped pecans and a dash of rum.

You can find my recipe here!