Trio-colour chiffon cake (II)

Somehow, I got "hooked" to add some "structural design/colours" in chiffon cakes.  Of course, the easiest is to make a few colour batters and pour into pan and to make some swirling effect.  Well, it would turn out like nice marbling effect.  Ever so inspired by Susanne of Loving Creations for You for her many creative & impressive designs on chiffon cakes (mostly very difficult for me to achieve those standards), first time I tried out the "not too difficult" trio-colour chiffon here.  Pretty challenging to level/even the colour layers cos action must be quick and precise so as not to deflate the batter.  Hee ... Hee... glad that it turned out not too bad. So I went on to try the curvy wave design ... opps! It ended a "tsunami" look ... haiz !

Ok, can't make nice curvy wave, back to trio-colour ... this time in 3 broad stripes (cos no confident to make many stripes).  Hmm... room for improvement to even the batter proportion. But I'm glad that the texture is so fluffy cottony soft and moist.

Recipe adapted from : Loving Creations for You

Trio colour chiffon cake
17cm chiffon pan
5 egg yolks
33g caster sugar
65g vegetable oil
70 ml water
10 ml vanilla extract
100g cake flour, sifted
A pinch of salt
Purple and green food colouring (1 - 2 drops)

Meringue
7 egg whites
75g caster sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 160°C. Place a tray of water under the lowest rack for steambaking.

2. Separate the eggs into yolks and whites. (the size of my egg is 60g each with shell)

3. In a clean mixing bowl, whisk the cold egg whites and lemon juice till foamy using the electric stand mixer. Gradually add in caster sugar in 3 separate additions and beat till stiff peak, formed into a firm meringue. Transfer to a big bowl and chill in the fridge.

4. In the same mixing bowl, cream together egg yolks and caster sugar until pale and thickened using the electric mixer (about 3 - 4 minutes). Add canola oil, water and vanilla extract.

5. Sift in cake flour and salt and whisk again until mixture is well combined. Divide the batter into 3 portions. Mix in respective colours in 2 portions.

6. Divide the meringue into 3 portions. Gently but quickly fold in the meringue into the 3 batters. You need to work very fast for the meringue not to deflate.

7. Scoop the purple  batter using a tablespoon into bottom of the base of the chiffon tin horizontally. Then repeat with green, original batters respectively horizontally across the tin. Repeat till batter is almost 80% filled in pan. Lightly tap the pan  2 - 3 times on a table top to get rid of any trapped air bubbles in the batter.

8. Bake the chiffon cake for 15 min at 160°C and then 140°C for 30 min. Test with a skewer inserted into the centre if it comes out clean.

9. When the pan was removed from the oven, I used the suggested technique to drop the pan at a height of 20~30cm onto a table top. This action helps to keep the springy texture of the cake when it is left to cool.

10. Immediately invert the pan to cool before unmoulding the cake from pan. To unmould cake by hand, gently pull cake from the sides of the tube pan. Turn the cake pan over and press down on the bottom firmly to dislodge. Gently pull the cake from the base around the edge and around the whole cake. Continue to lift up the cake and moving inwards until you reach the tube.

Looks good

Enjoy !