Wednesday 26 October 2011

Chocolate Marble Chiffon Cake




Well, this bake is not so successful (to my definition). I think my problem is I didn't separate the egg yolk batter evenly and I didn't mix the plain egg yolk batter with the egg white batter well. It also has less egg white compared to the cocoa egg yolk batter. So, the white portion is a bit dense. This recipe has reduced sugar, so the cake itself is not so sweet. This is adapted from http://cookingcrave.blogspot.com/2009/07/chocolate-marble-chiffon.html.

I left the eggs to cool down to room temperature and wiping the water condensed on the eggs before separating the yolks and the whites. I found that it's easier to beat the whites to stiff peak and there's no water residue at the bottom of the egg white batter if I separate the eggs when they are at room temperature. But as I found out from other baking sessions, in certain types of eggs, the egg yolks are not easy to be separated from the egg whites as in the egg yolks will break apart and contaminate the egg whites. If the egg yolks break, I will probably have fried eggs for lunch/dinner and then start separating new eggs all over again.

Ingredients:

(A)
  • 95g egg yolks (5 jumbo eggs 70g and above)
  • 25g caster sugar
  • pinch of salt
  • 1 tbsp honey
(B)
  • 80g corn oil
  • 80g water
(C)
  • 95g cake flour
(D)
  • 10g cocoa powder
  • 10g cake flour
(E)
  • 240g egg whites (5 jumbo egg whites 70g and above and 1 grade C egg white 56g)
  • 110g caster sugar (Perhaps I should increase the sugar content back to 120g to make it sweeter)
  • 1/2 tsp cream of tartar (or 15g corn flour)
Method:
  1. Cream ingredient (A) with hand whisk till sugar dissolved.
  2. Add in ingredient (B) in respective order and mix well before adding the next item.
  3. Fold/sieve in ingredient (C) and mix till no lumps.
  4. Divide the egg yolks mixture into two equal portion in two separate mixing bowl. Note: Make sure it's really EQUAL.
  5. Mix 10g flour into one of the egg yolks mixture and 10g cocoa powder into the other bowl of egg yolks mixture respectively. Mix well till no lumps.
  6. Beat egg whites in a clean large bowl until soft peak forms. Add in cream of tartar. Note: If using corn flour, sift the flour in.
  7. Gradually add in sugar, one tablespoon at a time. Beat until stiff peak forms.
  8. Gently fold in half of the egg whites mixture into the cocoa egg yolk mixture and plain mixture accordingly until well combined. Note: Make sure the egg whites are well combined with the egg yolks mixture, do it slowly, gently and fast because the mixed batter can't sit for too long - this is the most tricky step)
  9. To assemble the marble effect: Spoon in the plain batter to three or four different corner of the 23cm cake pan, then continue to cover the plain batter with cocoa batter. Layer by layer till the end. Bake at preheated oven at 170c for 35-45 minutes or till it's cooked.
  10. Invert the cooked cake immediately on a wire rack until it's completely cool before remove the cake from cake pan.
Rising in the oven.

 Saturday 15 June 2013
I stumbled upon an opportunity to make this for the second time. So, I made this again and, I only put in 1 tsp honey as I was running out of that ingredient. This time it rose quite high without cracking and did not sink too much. Still the bottom layer still exhibited a slightly higher density than the top layer...sighh....The marble pattern also did not look as good as the first attempt above....sighh.....however I was happy with the cake's height though, while cooling down, it didn't shrink too much....


After unmounding....
It had a good height, yay!!! ^_^

But the marble pattern is not so nice....

Friday 21 June 2013
So, I am not satisfied with last week results and I made this again for the third time to to satisfy my urge of creating better marble pattern. For this time, I mixed the honey in the water portion, not the egg yolk portion. I am not sure if this is the right or wrong decision. The cake came out very moist, very soft and very fluffy. I had bad experience with chiffon cake getting too moist as I was afraid that it will be underbaked, like my banana chiffon cake last time.

Luckily, the following day, it still moist but not wet, so, I think to increase the moisture in the cake, add the honey into the water portion should be okay. But I think I will stick with adding the honey into the egg yolk next time. I took quite some time mixing egg whites in, as I found tiny egg meringue can be trapped and it is very difficult to get them mixed. But the results.....tadaa.....I have a very balanced density at the top and bottom layer....yay!

The cake cracked a little bit and I had a feeling (well, I didn't really measure them) that the height is not as tall as the one baked in the second attempt. Not sure why. And the marble pattern improved too. So, I am a happy girl! ^_^. My audiences said the cake was not too sweet, just nice, so, I will stick with 120g sugar for the egg whites.


After cutting a slice....

This looks prettier to me....
  
Cake density all well balanced...


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