Love Bite - Chiffon Cake

Cup cake recipe

By Barnali Dutta Published: 2014-06-06

Chiffon cakes are more tender than the other cakes because of the milk and oil, though without cream layer in it, it would not make the tongue dry of the kids after eating.

My son used to love those small commercial tiffin cakes which his friends often brought when they were all in kindergarten. My son always requested for those cakes, but me as a mother being concerned about giving artificial food color and plastic packaging to a 2 yr old and therefore I used to make those cakes by myself. Now on his 21st birthday, my son wishes to have those tiffin cakes to cherish his kindergarten days again.  How he used to hold it in both of his hands and bite it which all his friends would stare at, forgetting their own tiffin. :-) He still remembers a faint smell when he recalls the days like as usual everybody feels about those golden days.

Homemade low-cost tiffin cakes

Preparation Time: 15 minutes | Cook time: 15 minutes | Total time: 30 minutes | Serves 6

Ingredient:  (6 cakes)

• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup sugar 
• 2 teaspoon salted butter 
• 1 tablespoon refined oil
• 1/2 cup milk 
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla essence
• 1 cup plain flour
• 2 teaspoon WeiKFiELD baking powder 
• 4 to 5 choco chips per cake or 6 pieces of Cadbury milk chocolates [optional]

Method

1. Powder the sugar.


** Castor sugar is finely white crystallized sugar. It dissolves quickly and easily mixes with other ingredients. It gives a smooth structure to aerated products like cakes. It is also called confectionery sugar or powdered sugar.

** Take granulated sugar rather than icing sugar [because it produces carbon dioxide more than icing sugar which raises the batter] and make sugar powder from it. Sugar has a positive effect on promoting elasticity and stability and it makes foams very easy to fold.



2. Using an electric whisk beat eggs and sugar till it gets foam.


** The extent of beating is an important factor in stability of egg foam as beating processes. The foam becomes increasingly stable up at required point after which continued beating decreases the stability.

** The foam formation is quicker when the fresh eggs are taken from refrigerator. They save time because breaking and separating the egg white and yolk are not necessary.



3. Add liquid salted butter and oil and beat till thick and creamy.


** Chiffon cake do contain baking powder, fat in the form of fluid oil, milk as well as the quality of the egg foam prepared in making a chiffon cake, all ingredients influenced greatly to promote tenderness and volume, yet the texture of the cell of the chiffon cake neither fine nor large.



4. Add milk beat till combine.


** Moisture levels are involved in the staling process and prevents from forming the crust.



5. Add vanilla essence.




6. Sieve the flour and baking powder in a separate bowl, several times to mix well.


** When all-purpose flour is substituted for cake flour, the volume is small, the texture is more compact and the cake may be less tender than a cake made with cake flour. This difficulty can be overcome by increasing the sugar a bit.

** The self-rising or cake flour ingredients are shifted together many times until they are thoroughly combined and the baking powder is evenly distributed through the flour. It is made by combining flour with baking powder and salt. If you use this flour then you should replace the salted butter with unsalted one and should reduce the baking powder quantity from the given quantities.



7. Add flour to the mixture in small quantities and fold with a wooden spatula, repeat the same. Do not mix much, just add and fold mix till just smooth batter formed. It will allow to keep air incorporation intact in the cake batter.


** Because of its role in delaying gluten formation during mixing for spongy texture, the amount of mixing must be decreased as sugar level is decreased for small quantity of cake. The amount of mixing must be increased when sugar level is increased. By this the strength of the structure is enhanced, which helps to prevent the structure from failing after baking or steaming the cake.



8. Grease the mold with thick butter.




9. Fill up the lined cup cases till 1/3 full, steam over preheated steamer for 5 minutes.




10. Remove the cupcakes from steamer, place some choco chips or one piece of Cadbury milk chocolate in the center, press down lightly. Fill 3/4 over with the rest of the cake batter. Leave some space to raise the cake up. Further steam over boiling water for another 15 minutes or till an inserted skewer comes out clean.




11. You can make these cakes daily in preheated micro oven. You need to set manually the oven on high micro for 15 minutes. You can add homemade fresh seasonal fruit jam or hard dark chocolates inside the cake after 5 minute, in between the cooking time.

For variation

** Instead of milk add ripe fruit pulp, boiled apple pulp, ripe papaya or mashed banana to make fruit cakes, need not add color. For flavor you can substitute essence with cinnamon powder for those fruit cakes.

** For working mother if needed you can make these muffins 3 to 4 days in advance. Just before serving prepare fruit jam and water mixture, melt it slightly and cool it. Put the cake in this liquid jam once and take out quickly, roll the cake in coconut powder or powdered chocolate or icing sugar.