The best cake ever (literally)
Category: Home Cooked
Submited by Josh
Friday, August 25, 2006, 6:59 pm
This is a chocolate chiffon birthday cake that I made for myself.
I recently made a cake that is, without hyperbole, the best cake ever. It's a chocolate chiffon cake, which means it rises high and is very fluffy inside and has the consistency of heaven. But it's not the recipe that makes it this way (I got the recipe from Mom, who I think got it from Betty C.) but it's the technique. I've been making this cake every year for my adult life, and I've just this year perfected the technique. What you have to do is separate the egg whites from the yolks. The whites have to be perfectly free from any dust or yolk or shell. You whip the eggs up and the air mixes with the protein in the egg and it becomes stiff and frothy, kind of like cotton. But you have to be careful because the mix is very fragile and can easily collapse. You then have to mix in the cake mixture by drizzling it on top of the egg whites. Then, you have to fold it all together (fold, not stir). You bake it in a tube pan for just the right amount of time (for me it was 65 minutes exactly), and if you did it right, the cake will rise above the level of the cake pan. Mine was spilling out all over the oven.
As you can see from the picture, I had to neuter half of the cake because my girls don't like nuts.
As you can see from the picture, I had to neuter half of the cake because my girls don't like nuts.
