Yesterday was my mom’s 83rd birthday … and today we celebrated! Since one of her favourite flavours is lemon, I decided to whip up a light and not too sweet lemon chiffon cake for her. I found the recipe years ago in an LCBO magazine. Could be wrong. Likely am. Chiffon cake in an LCBO magazine? But the font looks right. Check it out. Am I wrong?
Moving on.
I posted a few pics of the cake a year or so ago, but I didn’t really pay homage to the cake in that post (it was mostly about my neighbour’s horrible fire). So here’s a wee bit more about the cake.
- It is not very sweet. Therefore, folks who don’t generally partake in dessert tend to love this cake. Namely, my foggy friend. Hates sugar, eats the cake.
- There three ingredients which you may not have just laying around your house:
- A shit ton of eggs. 7 in the chiffon cake, 7 in the lemon topping. Be prepared.
- 3 lemons – for the rind and juice (oh, no, don’t use the bottled lemon juice. dear god).
- A nice big hunk of white chocolate – making large and attractive curls is the best part of this whole enterprise. (Unless you’re like me and forget and end up using a little piece of white chocolate from the bulk food store…)
- There’s a lot of folding. And folding is not the same as stirring. Seriously. You must fold. There’s a technique.
- The topping takes a lot of time. It has to cook and cool completely before folding in the whipping cream. Be warned.
It’s dead easy to make the cake part. Prep a 9 or 10″ springform pan. Then prep 3 bowls worth of stuff: the dry, the eggy mixture, the egg whites. Done. A bit of stirring and whipping and folding and Bob’s your uncle. (I know, he is.)
Basic ingredients:
Comes out like this:
It’s also dead easy to make the topping … you just cook it all on the stovetop. (Maybe plan to clean out your fridge while it cooks for the 15 minutes. It’s a really long time when you’re not otherwise engaged in a task.)
Once cooled, do the folding. Look at this technique…
Put the layers together … and then the curls.
Enjoy! You’ll only have this much leftover.
Happy Birthday mom!
- 2 cups flour
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 1 Tbsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 7 eggs
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 1/2 cup canola oil
- 2 tsp grated lemon rind
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
- 2 Tbsp grated lemon rind
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 7 eggs, well beaten
- 1/2 - 3/4 cup whipping cream
- 8 oz white chocolate
- For the Cake: Butter and line 10" springform pan with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 325º.
- Sift together flour, 1 cup of the sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.
- Separate eggs, placing yolks in a bowl and whites in a larger bowl. Whisk water, lemon juice, oil, grated lemon rind and vanilla into egg yolks.
- Stir wet ingredients into flour mixture.
- With an electric mixer, whisk egg whites until foamy. Beat in cream of tartar. Slowly whisk in remaining 1/2 cup of sugar and beat until stiff peaks form. Take a large spoonful of egg whites and stir into flour mixture. Fold in the remaining whites.
- Place batter in pan and bake for 50-60 minutes (until cake is golden brown, springs back when touched and a cake tester comes out clean). Cool in cake pan. Remove. Carefully cut into 3 layers with a serrated knife.
- Mix sugar, butter, lemon rind, lemon juice and eggs in a heavy pot. Stir gently over low heat until mixture is thick and coats the back of the spoon, about 15 minutes. You should be able todraw a path across the bottom of the pan.
- Cool completely. Whip the whipping cream.
- Stir one large spoonful into the curd to soften the mixture (important!! No lumps here, people!). Fold the remaining whipping cream in.
- Spread a thin layer of lemon filling on each layer. Frost the top with more filling and smooth onto sides. Shave white chocolate all over top. Chill to harden lemon mixture.
