Chocolate orange chiffon cake
Photo © Jan-Erik Nilsson for CMC, 2009
The perfect cake to pack along in a picnic basket? Why, a chiffon cake, of course!
This chocolate orange chiffon cake is the latest addition to our baking spree. Light as a feather in texture, the chiffon cake’s no fuss, non-greasey, cream-free nature makes it just about the most convenient cake to pack for that picnic by the beach.
Chiffons make a perfect cake for picnics.
The recipe I used for this cake came originally from The Joy of Baking website, the orange chiffon cake recipe. I wanted a hint of chocolate in my cake, so here’s what I used:
8 eggs, separated
2 1/4 cups (225 grams) sifted flour
1 1/2 cups (240 grams) superfine white (castor) sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (120 ml) vegetable oil
3/4 cup (180 ml) orange juice
2 tablespoons (10 grams) orange zest
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
Apart from mixing the ingredients right, folding the egg whites into the egg yolk batter and adding the flour a third at a time till you can get a smooth batter from it, what keeps the chiffon cake from collapsing after coming out of the oven is turning the cake upside down, or suspending it upside down, to cool. I’ve found an ungreased baking pan to be essential for the cake to reach its desired height because it allows for the batter to cling to the sides of the pan as it leavens during the baking process.
This cake baked at 170 deg C for about an hour in a normal convenction oven and then cooled for about an hour or two before being removed from its pan.
Cherries from our garden.
Chiffon cakes also make for perfect sandwiching, that brings you something akin to the Classic Victoria Sandwich, a traditional and fairly sweet English tea / party cake that goes well with both tea and coffee.
It’s just about time to harvest the cherries from our garden and this lot (shown in the picture above) went into the making of the chocolate orange chiffon sandwich.
Sandwiched
Butter cream or in this case, plain whipped cream, was put atop fresh sliced cherries on one layer of cake and another layer of cake was placed on top of that.
For this particular chocolate orange chiffon, which I found to be somewhat sweet, even though I’ve cut some sugar from the main recipe, a mild vanilla cream sandwiched with a fresh fruit of your choice, such as strawberries would also be a wonderful tea-time delight!
Enjoy!