Chiffon Cake

Ingredients

• ### Tools
• Oven (a rice cooker can be used as a substitute, but it often fails due to the material of the inner pot)
• Egg beater (electric is best; manual is laborious and has a certain failure rate) or chopsticks (not recommended at all)
• Aluminum anodized mold (never use a non-stick mold; common sizes are 6-inch or 8-inch)
• Spatula (for folding the cake batter)
• ### Ingredients
• Eggs
• Sugar
• Milk (or water)
• Cooking oil (or butter, but it needs to be heated and softened)
• Cake flour (recommended: Huiyi)
• [Optional] Lemon juice or white vinegar

Steps

1. ### Initial Separation
2. Take fresh eggs out of the refrigerator.
3. Prepare two containers and wipe them dry. Use them to hold the egg whites and egg yolks separately.
4. The container for egg whites may have a few water droplets, but **must not have any oil**; the container for egg yolks must not have any water droplets.
5. Crack the eggs and separate the whites and yolks into the two containers, either by hand or using an egg separator.
6. During separation, the yolk must not break, and **no yolk can be mixed into the egg whites**, otherwise whipping will be severely affected. (The white chalaza can go into the egg whites; it does not matter.)
7. (Note: If not using a stand mixer, the container for egg whites is also the whipping container. To avoid overflow, after adding all the egg whites, do not exceed **1/8** of the container's capacity.)
8. ### Mixing the Egg Yolk Batter (Yolk-Last Method)
9. Prepare a new empty bowl. Add **all the cooking oil** and **all the milk** from the recipe.
10. Use a whisk to stir quickly by hand until the oil and water are completely combined and it becomes a milky white suspension (emulsified).
11. Sift **all the cake flour** from the recipe and add it to the emulsified mixture. Use a spatula to mix in a 'Z' shape until there are no obvious dry flour streaks. (The batter may look a bit rough at this point; this is normal.)
12. Add **all the separated egg yolks** to the bowl and continue mixing in a 'Z' shape with the spatula.
13. The batter will now become very fine and smooth, and gluten is unlikely to form. Set it aside.
14. ### Whipping the Egg Whites
15. Prepare the remaining **3/4** of the sugar. Divide it into three portions, each being **1/4** of the total.
16. Add lemon juice or white vinegar to the egg whites (optional).
17. With the mixer on medium speed, whip the egg whites until they have *large coarse bubbles*, then add **the first portion of sugar**.
18. With the mixer on high speed, whip the egg whites until the *bubbles are finer*, then add **the second portion of sugar**.
19. With the mixer on high speed, whip the egg whites until they reach the 'soft peak' stage, then add **the third portion of sugar**.
20. > Visual cue: When you lift the beater, the meringue forms a **long, downward-curving peak** (commonly called a big hook). This stage is suitable for making cake rolls.
21. With the mixer on medium-low speed, whip the egg whites until they reach the 'stiff peak' stage.
22. > Visual cue: When you lift the beater, the meringue forms a **short, upright, and firm peak** (commonly called a small straight peak); if you invert the container, the meringue stays firmly attached to the bottom and does not slide at all. This is the standard stage required for chiffon cake.
23. At this point, the egg whites are whipped to the required degree.
24. For judging the meringue state, refer to the images in the attached link.
25. The beater should be kept as close to the bottom of the container as possible to prevent the situation where the top is whipped but the bottom is still liquid.
26. ### Mixing and Folding
27. Briefly stir the egg yolk batter a few times.
28. Take **1/3** of the meringue with a spatula and add it to the egg yolk batter.
29. Use the 'folding' technique; this technique is to avoid deflating the batter.
30. The folding technique is:
31. First, with your right hand, insert the spatula into the center of the mixing bowl and reach down to the bottom of the batter.
32. Scrape toward the 8 o'clock direction until you touch the bowl's wall, then scoop up the batter into the air, and then move it back to the center of the bowl and drop it in.
33. With your left hand, hold the mixing bowl and rotate it from the 9 o'clock direction to the 7 o'clock direction, exactly 60 degrees, completing one cycle.
34. The speed is about two folds per second.
35. This method comes from 'Kojima-sensei's Cake Classroom.' In plain terms, it's like stir-frying.
36. Pour the mixture of **1/3** of the meringue and the egg yolk batter into the remaining **2/3** of the meringue and continue folding until evenly combined.
37. Pour the cake batter into the mold and tap it a few times to remove large air bubbles.
38. ### Baking
39. Total baking time: 6-inch cake **30-35** minutes, 8-inch cake **50** minutes. Adjust flexibly according to your oven's characteristics, generally not exceeding $\pm 5$ minutes. (You can watch through the oven door in the last few minutes.)
40. Preheat with **top heat at **150**°C and bottom heat at **160**°C**. It takes about 10 minutes to reach the set temperature.
41. After preheating, place the mold on the lower rack of the oven.
42. Choose **variable temperature baking**, divided into two stages.
43. First stage oven temperature: top heat **150**°C, bottom heat **160**°C;
44. The first **3/5** of the total baking time is the first stage.
45. Second stage temperature: top heat **160**°C, bottom heat **170**°C;
46. The last **2/5** of the total baking time is the second stage. Simply adjust the oven temperature to switch.
47. After baking, take it out of the oven.
48. This operation may **burn your hands**; use a towel to help.
49. ### Special Instructions for Air Fryer (using 6-inch as an example)
50. The air fryer has extremely strong hot air circulation and is very close to the heating element. Using the oven temperature directly will cause the top to burn while the inside remains undercooked. Please strictly follow the temperature reduction and covering process below:
51. Preheat: Set the air fryer to **130°C** and preheat for **5 minutes**.
52. Place in fryer and cover: Put the mold with the cake batter into the fryer. **Immediately cover the top of the mold with a piece of aluminum foil** (shiny side up, matte side touching the food). Crimp the edges of the foil to prevent it from being blown open by the hot air.
53. First stage baking: Set to **130°C** and bake for **35 minutes**.
54. Second stage browning: Open the fryer and **remove the aluminum foil**. Increase the temperature to **150°C** and continue baking for **10–15 minutes**.
55. Check doneness: The cake is done when the top has puffed up and turned golden brown. Insert a toothpick into the center; if it comes out without wet batter, it is baked through.
56. After removing from the fryer, the steps to release steam and invert for unmolding are exactly the same as the oven version.
57. ### Cooling and Unmolding
58. (Optional) Drop the mold from a height to release the hot steam inside.
59. Invert the mold and let it cool for 10 minutes.
60. Unmolding a cake before it has cooled will damage it.
61. This operation may **burn your hands**; use a towel to help.
62. Unmold and enjoy.