Chiffon Cake

Born in the United States, chiffon cake bears a name associated with a light fabric. When a batter of egg yolks, vegetable oil and liquid is combined with egg-white foam and baked, it rises high into a moist, soft crumb that flexes gently. Unlike angel food cake, which uses only egg whites, chiffon cake gets moisture and richness from the yolks and oil. To make a fine, light crumb, it is important not only to whip the egg whites but also to mix the oil and liquid evenly.

Homemade chiffon cake. Location unknown, 2020, Peachyeung316 (photo source / CC BY-SA 4.0)

Egg-white foam and emulsification by the yolks

The batter is built on two parts: a mixture of egg yolks with oil, water or milk, flour and other ingredients, and a meringue made by whipping egg whites with sugar. Depending on the formula, baking powder is also used. The meringue is whipped, with the sugar added in several stages, until it is glossy and holds its shape. Not only whipping the egg whites but also evenly mixing the ingredients on the yolk side leads to a fine internal structure, or crumb.

Egg yolks aid emulsification, in which oil is dispersed as fine droplets in water. In a yolk batter where the oil is dispersed as fine droplets, the air bubbles are less likely to merge and grow larger during baking, even after the batter is combined with the egg-white foam, so the cake tends to rise with a fine texture. An experiment comparing oil droplet sizes also found that batters with fine oil droplets had a larger volume after baking, with finer pores and a softer texture. Whipping the egg whites and thoroughly emulsifying the oil and water on the yolk side allows the cake to rise with a fine texture.

When combining the two batters, mix so that the foam is retained and the heavy yolk batter does not remain sunk at the bottom. A whisk can also be used for this step. Used this way, its fine wires cut through the batter as it is lifted from the bottom, and the bowl is turned as the batters are combined; this is different from the vigorous beating used when whipping egg whites. Checking all the way to the bottom at the end prevents streaks and large holes.

Cooks also differ in how many times they add the meringue to the yolk batter. Confectionery researcher Kiwa Kojima adds the sugar in three stages, whips the meringue until it forms peaks, adds it all at once, and gently folds it in from the bottom. In contrast to the method of first loosening the yolk batter with a small amount and then adding the rest, this approach combines the fully whipped meringue all at once.

Liquid oil and batter temperature

Vegetable oil remains fluid even at room temperature, mixes easily into the batter, and keeps the texture soft even after cooling. If butter is melted and added in the same way, it may solidify again on contact with cold ingredients, forming lumps in the batter and damaging the foam.

In a comparative experiment, adding butter at room temperature produced less rise than vegetable oil, but the result improved when the batter was kept at a temperature at which the butter did not solidify. It is not that butter cannot be used in this cake; rather, liquid oil makes it easier to distribute the fat evenly without closely controlling the batter temperature. Nor does adding more oil make the cake endlessly softer: with too much oil, the baked crumb cannot support its own weight and collapses when removed from the pan.

Rising along the pan and cooling upside down

A tall pan with a central tube is commonly used. Heat also reaches the batter from the center, and the batter climbs upward along the outer wall and the wall of the tube. The pan is usually not greased, because a slippery surface makes it harder for the rising batter to cling to the walls.

Right after baking, the cake is still soft and tends to shrink if left upright, so the pan is turned upside down to cool. The pan’s feet or the neck of a bottle are used to support it without touching the cake. Depending on the formula and the pan, the cake may be left in the pan until completely cool or removed after a set time and then cooled. Baking the batter until it is fully cooked and then cooling it while it is still attached to the pan preserves its height.

Chiffon cake is not only baked in tube pans. It can also be baked thin in ungreased round pans and layered. Soft fillings such as whipped cream or mousse pair easily with the light cake, while thick layers of dense cream tend to crush it. A slice baked in a tube pan may be served with cream, and thinly baked layers may also be sandwiched with cream or other fillings.

Chiffon cake decorated with cream and sliced. Location unknown, 2012, Roozitaa (photo source / CC BY-SA 3.0)

Baker, who kept his method secret, and the cake’s spread into homes

Harry Baker, known as the cake’s inventor, made cakes at home while working in the insurance business in California. He kept his method secret for about 20 years and, in the late 1940s, passed the formula and procedure on to General Mills. He is thought to have begun experimenting in the late 1920s, but it is not certain when the cake was perfected.

According to the manufacturer’s retrospective, he never let anyone watch him make it, and after mixing he even washed the pans to hide his use of vegetable oil. What was kept secret was not just the name of the product but the method of incorporating liquid oil into a foamed batter. After cooking tests, the cake was widely introduced to households in 1948 through Betty Crocker advertising and recipes (recettes: the proportions of ingredients and the method). The American Society of Baking, a professional organization for baking technology, also records the acquisition of the formula as 1947 and its commercial introduction as 1948.

Betty Crocker is not a real person but a corporate persona created to answer questions from households and to test and spread recipes. With the addition of people who adapted Baker’s innovation into formulas that could be reproduced at home and a brand to communicate them, a cake whose method had been a secret became a staple made in homes as well. A boxed mix was also released in 1958, marking a further stage of popularization following the publication of the recipe.

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