
CHIFFON CAKE
Equipment
- 25cm-10inch Chiffon Cake tube pan with removable bottom
Ingredients
- 6 large egg yolks room temperature
- 1 tsp lemon zest
- 1 vanilla bean pot seeds or 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 200 g (1 cup) caster sugar I suggest to use fine sugar (not powdered), if you can't find it, go for a granulated one
- 120 g (1/2 cup) water
- 215 g (1+3/4 cup) all purpose flour
- 25 g (2 tbsp) cornstarch
- 1 tsp baking powder
- Pinch of salt
- 120 ml (1/2 cup) vegetable oil choose a vegetable oil low in flavor like sunflower seed oil, canola oil...
- 6 (240 g) large egg whites room temperature
- 1/2 tsp cream of tartar or few drops lemon juice
- 100 g (1/2 cup) caster sugar I suggest to use fine sugar (not powdered), if you can't find it, go for a granulated one
Instructions
- In a large bowl, place egg yolks, lemon zeest, vanilla, 200 g (1 cup) sugar, pinch of salt and mix until creamy.
- Add water and combine.
- Add sifted flour, cornstarch, baking powder and mix just until combined (don’t overmix!).
- Add vegetable oil and mix just until combined. Set aside.
- In a very large bowl, place room temperature egg whites, cream of tartar and mix with an electric hand mixer until white foamy. Start adding 100 g (1/2 cup) of sugar little by little and mix over high speed until firm and stiff peaks form.
- In two times, gently combine about 1/3 of the egg whites mix in yolks mix. Then add in two times the yolks mix into the whites mix and gently fold using a spatula until well combined (don’t overmix).
- Pour the batter into a 10inch-25cm tube pan with removable bottom (don’t grease or flour it!).
- Bake in preheated oven at 170°C–340°F for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Cool the cake completely (about 2-3 hours) upside-down. That's the reason why you don't have to grease and flour your cake pan or the cake falls down when you place it upside down 😛
- Unmold the cake: run a knife around side and center tube of pan. Unmold the cake and invert on a serving plate. Run a knife around the bottom of pan, slightly twist it and remove the center tube from the cake.
- Sprinkle with some vanilla powdered sugar (optional). Slice with a serrated knife and serve it with some whipped cream and fresh strawberries (optional).
Video
Notes
Hello, I am Valentina! Welcome to How Tasty!
I am an Italian girl in love with baking and cooking. I’ve been raised in a cooking family, baking since I was a little girl and learning from my mom and my professional chef grandma.
I created the Youtube channel How Tasty in 2017 to share with you my passion.
You don’t need to be a professional cook to follow all my recipes thanks to the video tutorials and the tips & hints you can find here.
Let’s cook!
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Tips:

To make this cake you need the traditional tall tube cake pan used for Angel Food Cake or for this Chiffon Cake. It’s a very tall tube cake pan that let the cake perfectly cook through thanks to the tube in the center.
Thanks to its feets on top, it’s easy to cool down the cake upside down and get the perfect cotton texture.
If you don’t cool it down upside down, the cake could collpase and you won’t get the classic unique spongy cotton texture.

This cake is very easy to make, you should just pay attention to fold very gently the egg white mix into the yolk mix: this cake needs all the air you incorporated in the batter, so you should pay attention to not deflat the batter.

Since egg and sugar are the main ingredients of this cake, is very important to not skip flavoring. I’ve used vanilla and lemon zest that are my favourite (and most aromatic!) ones; feel free to add your favourite flavoring, like almond flavor or orange zest.

This cake is a delicate sponge with a unique texture: do not store it in a humid place or in refrigerator. For this reason I suggest to serve it with frosting/whipped cream and to not frost or filling the cake with the frosting if you think you could get leftovers to store in the fridge.