Chiffon cake is a very fluffy and light-as-air American cake.
The history of Chiffon cake is very bizarre: Harry Baker, its inventor, was not a pastry chef but an insurer and moved to Hollywood in 1923 with his elderly mother. He was obsessed with the idea of ​​inventing a new dessert with whipped eggs and tried at least 400 recipes before being able to find the perfect one. The consecration of the Chiffon cake came when Harry Baker started working at the Brown Derby, a brand new restaurant in Los Angeles. This is where our cake had its first audience and its first admirers. Harry Baker used to work for 18 consecutive hours to produce the forty-two pies a day that he served in the restaurant and which Hollywood stars competed for with glycemic hysteria.
This is the festively-decorated Christmas version. I also really like it in purity, to soak in milk in the morning.

Xmas Chiffon cake

  • Preparation time: 90 minutes
  • Ingredients for a chiffon cake mold
  • Difficulty: Easy recipe

  • Ingredients
  • 9 oz (250 grams) of sugar
  • 10 oz (285 grams) of all-purpose flour
  • 7 eggs
  • 11 tbsp (160 ml) of water
  • ½ cup (120 ml) of seed oil
  • 1 sachet of baking powder
  • ½ tsp of cream of tartar
  • The seeds of a vanilla pod
  • For the nougat cream:
  • 1 lb (450 grams) of cream
  • 9 oz (250 grams) of mascarpone cheese
  • 7 oz (200 grams) of torrone (nougat)
  • 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar
  • For the Amaretto liqueur dip:
  • 6 tablespoons of Amaretto Liqueur
  • 6 tablespoons of water
  • 3 tablespoons of sugar
  • For decoration:
  • Whipped cream to taste
  1. Instructions
  2. Preheat the oven to 325°F.
  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks with cream of tartar.
  4. Mix the egg yolks with the oil, water, and the seeds of a vanilla pod. Sift the flour and baking powder. Add the sugar.
  5. Combine the powders with the liquids and mix well.
  6. Fold the whipped egg whites into the egg yolk batter in three batches until no white streaks remain.
  7. Pour the batter into the ungreased chiffon cake pan (it is a pan with feet). Bake in a hot oven for fifty minutes. Increase the oven temperature to 350°F and continue cooking for another ten minutes or so.
  8. Remove from the oven and, after a while, turn the pan face down until cool before unmolding.
  9. Meanwhile, prepare the filling.
  10. Put the nougat, cut into large pieces, in the freezer for an hour. Take it back and coarsely chop it
    with the mixer.
  11. Put the cream and mascarpone in a very cold bowl and start whipping with an electric whisk. Add the icing sugar and finish whipping. Add the chopped nougat, folding gently with a spatula.
  12. Prepare the syrup with the Amaretto Liqueur, hot water, and sugar.
  13. Take the chiffon cake and cut it horizontally into three layers.
  14. Place the first layer on a serving plate and brush it with syrup. Add 1/2 of the cream, spreading it well with a spatula over the entire surface of the cake. Repeat with the next layer. Close the cake with the last layer.
  15. Decorate with whipped cream.

Tips to ensure the success of the dish:

  • The egg whites should be whipped until stiff. In pastry it’s called “goose beak.”
  • Insert the first part of the whipped egg whites and mix the mixture vigorously. The second and third parts of the egg whites, on the other hand, should be folded with a spatula with slow movements. Be gentle so you maintain as many of the air bubbles as possible.
  • You need to buy a chiffon cake pan. This pan should NEVER be buttered.
  • Let the cake cool inside the pan, upside down until cool.
  • To whip the cream with the mascarpone well, the bowl must be very cold. It’s better if left in the freezer for a few hours.