Lemon Chiffon

My aunt, who is visiting from China, doesn't like sweet desserts. So I thought I would make a cake that tempered sweetness on multiple fronts. This is a lemon chiffon cake filled with nectarine whipped cream and frosted with cream cheese creme fraiche whipped cream, topped with yellow and white nectarine compote.

I overdosed on lemon zest in the cake and reduced the sugar by 30%. The peach compote also has just a sneeze of sugar. And the tang of the cream cheese and creme fraiche also help combat the sweetness, in theory.

My aunt took one bite and said, "太甜了!" (too sweet!!) I thought, "不会吧!" no way! Was it really that sweet? I had to try another slice. And maybe another. This was for the sake of research, you know. I wanted to make a cake that she would like...and I was curious just how much you could reduce the sugar in a cake before it became inedible. So I made another lemon chiffon cake and used only 60 g of sugar! That's like, 4 measly tablespoons. For a whole 7-inch cake. That's a reduction of 50-70% from most recipes. I thought, this cake will probably be disgusting, but my curiosity got the better of me.

It turned out okay! In fact, I might've overdosed on salt just a smidgeon...haha. But the cake was ever so delicately sweet and delightfully lemony and feather soft. I also didn't put vanilla extract because my aunt can detect that and doesn't like it. Nevertheless, the cake was very flavorful from the lemon zest and juice. The verdict? "还是太甜了!" still too sweet. I think she's getting 蛋糕 (cake) confused with 馒头(steamed bun). Oh well...I guess I'll just have to eat these three cakes solo. Thank you, your sympathy is greatly appreciated.

The Passionfruit-wannabe-chiffon

Passionfruit is impossible to find. I called Whole Foods, and after being transferred to three different departments, I was told that it is out of season. My call to Lucky's was unlucky. I checked all over the sketchy Asian supermarkets. No success, except for one bottle on the bottom shelf of the Pandan extract aisle - I couldn't really decipher the strange characters on the bottle but there was a picture of the elusive little devil on the label! I was tempted to scrawl WANTED under its mug shot, as I used every drop of my nonexistent self-control to stave off an impending heart attack. Upon closer inspection, I noticed some unwanted suspects on the ingredients label: sugar, sodium benzoate, and yellow something. Poisonous!

But wait! Isn't passionfruit just an addictive combination of tropical flavors?? It has the floral buttery aroma of jackfruit, the vanilla notes of a banana, the tangy intoxicating sweetness of pineapple, and the tang of a bright yellow lemon. Okay I know, wishful thinking...But in my humble opinion, this chiffon cake was phenomenal. Take that, passionfruit!

I baked it in a pan too big for the batter, so it didn't rise to such an impressive height. Next time, I'm using the 7-inch tube pan. Oh yes, there will be a next time!

Banana Jackfruit Pineapple Lemon Chiffon (aka Passionfruit-wannabe-chiffon!)
1 cup (120g) Cake flour
1/3 cup (70g) Fine sugar (Grind white sugar in a food processor or Magic Bullet)
1 tsp Baking powder
Scant ½ tsp Salt
¼ cup Oil
¼ cup (4) Yolks
½ cup Magnificent Tropical Mush: (perfectly pureed pineapple, jackfruit, and banana, and the juice of half a lemon – use a food processor)
½ tsp Pure Vanilla extract
¼ tsp Cream of tartar
½ cup (4) Egg whites

1. Preheat oven to 350*.
2. Sift flour, baking powder, 1/3 of the sugar, and salt into a mixing bowl.
3. Whisk together oil and yolks. Mix in the flour until it forms a smooth paste. Add the mush and whisk until smooth.
4. Add cream of tartar to egg whites in a large mixing bowl.
5. Beat until white, gradually add remaining sugar, and beat until stiff peaks form.
6. In 3 additions, gently fold egg whites into the flour mixture just until no streaks remain.
7. Pour into an ungreased 7-inch tube pan and smooth the top. Bake 27-30 min until a tester comes out clean and dry. No peeking!
8. When cake is completely cool, remove from pan (it’s okay, I couldn’t wait either...who obeys this step anyway?).

Jackfruit Chiffon Cake

Jackfruit - how do you describe it? I think it kind of tastes like Juicyfruit bubblegum. Or a blend of banana, pineapple, and mango. The fruit itself is gigantic. I mean huge. Like, ridiculously big. And spiky. I think it's delicious, and I'm never wrong. Except when I'm not right. But that doesn't happen.

This chiffon cake is to die for! I tried one bite. It was okay. I tried another. Oh, it's good. I tried a third...and then I lost count. I realized that you have to savor it slowly because the layers of flavor unravel on your tongue. First you're hit with the sweet aroma of jackfruit, and then the delicious flavor of a perfectly tender eggy chiffon comes forth (You don't like eggy chiffon? That is just too bad. Allow me to do you a favor and eat your piece). It's almost buttery...which is weird because it has no butter. Pure magic, my good friend.

Next time, I will reduce the sugar a smidgeon. It was a little too sweet, but I prefer less sweet cakes so this is good for most people.

Jackfruit Chiffon

1 1/4 cup (150g) Cake flour
1/2 cup (130g) Fine sugar (Grind white sugar in a food processor or Magic Bullet)
1 tsp Baking powder
Scant ½ tsp Salt
¼ cup Oil
¼ cup (4) Yolks
½ cup Jackfruit puree + juice of half of a lemon
½ tsp Pure Vanilla extract
¼ tsp Cream of tartar
½ cup (4) Egg whites

1. Preheat oven to 350*.
2. Sift flour, baking powder, 1/3 of the sugar, and salt into a mixing bowl.
3. Whisk together oil and yolks. Mix in the flour until it forms a smooth paste. Add the mush and whisk until smooth.
4. Add cream of tartar to egg whites in a large mixing bowl.
5. Beat until white, gradually add remaining sugar, and beat until stiff peaks form.
6. In 3 additions, gently fold egg whites into the flour mixture just until no streaks remain.
7. Pour into an ungreased 7-inch tube pan and smooth the top. Bake 27-30 min until a tester comes out clean and dry. No peeking!
8. When cake is completely cool, remove from pan (it’s okay, I couldn’t wait either...who obeys this step anyway?).

Ginger Chiffon

A delicious ginger chiffon cake dusted (or rather, smothered) with a little too much green tea powder. Oops, couldn't fight gravity. It was delicious though! We used the same recipe as the pandan chiffon, but since we only had 2 eggs, we cut the recipe in half. Also, instead of pandan juice, we used ginger juice - it's just grated ginger squeezed against a very fine mesh strainer to extract only the juice and none of the icky fibers. We added a breath of cinnamon and a hiccup of nutmeg too. If you love ginger, this cake is a different take on the common heavy, molasses laden dark ginger cakes (which are still good, just different! Not trying to make them feel inferior...hehe).

Pandan Chiffon

Feather soft and divine! If you've never had pandan before...it's kind of grassy and tastes like jasmine rice on steroids. Also matches coconut, but it's a lot less assertive of a flavor. We made our pandan juice from frozen pandan leaves, but you can also buy imitation extracts and pastes with artificial coloring. No fake color here! It's a natural green. :)

We wouldn't change much about this recipe. We don't like overly sweet desserts and this one was perfect. There were some larger holes, which may have been due to poorly distributing the baking powder into the flour. Despite not using cake flour, the cake was surprisingly fine-crumbed. Another idea is to bake it as a jelly roll and fill it with coconut cream, or jasmine tea cream! Maybe we would try adding some coconut powder or coconut milk in place of some of the oil to give it more fragrance. Or some pandan extract or vanilla extract. However, having just pandan allows the delicate flavor to shine through!

Pandan Chiffon Cake

Ingredients:
(A)
4 Large Egg Yolks
70g Castor Sugar
1/4 tsp Salt

(B)
85ml canola oil (may be able to reduce this to 70 mL)
115 ml Pandan Juice (see note! make sure it's concentrated)

(C)
150g Cake Flour (we used all purpose flour sifted with cornstarch, 5:1 ratio)
3/4 tsp Baking Powder

(D)
4 Large Egg Whites
70g Castor Sugar
1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar

To make pandan juice: Blend 20 pandan leaves with 1/2 cup or less water in food processor until leaves become smithereens. Gather everything up into a fine cotton cloth and squeeze the living daylights out of it to extract all the juice. You want to concentrate the juice as much as possible, so make sure to pulverize the leaves and add only as much water as needed to get the motor going. This will make more than you need; you can save the rest for another purpose.

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Whisk and then sift (C) twice, set aside.

3. Cream (A) until sugar dissovled using hand whisk. Add in (B) in the order listed. Mix well after each addition.

4. Whisk in sifted flour and mix well. If lumps persist, strain through a fine mesh strainer.

5. Beat egg whites until frothy, add cream of tartar and beat till soft peaks. Gradually add sugar and beat till stiff peaks.

6. Fold 1/3 of the egg whites into egg yolk mixture gently with a rubber spatula until just blended.

7. Pour yolk mixture (step 6) into the rest of egg whites, fold it gently with rubber spatula until blended.

8. Put batter into a 20cm chiffon cake pan, bang the pan on a hard surface to release the bubbles and bake at 350 F for 30 - 40 minutes (we did 35) or till the top is light golden and the cake springs back when poked.

9. When the cake is cooked, remove from oven immediately invert the cake to cool. Remove the cake from the cake pan when it is completely cool, or when it is warm after about 30 min if you are impatient like we were!