Aspiring Bakers #1: Black Sesame Paste Chiffon Cake

I always have a lot of fear when baking chiffon cakes. Many times, although the cake rises very well in the oven, it tends to collapse during cooling. I hate to see it falling out of the tin halfway during cooling. Even if it doesn't fall out, it will have a sunken top like this. :( This was a pandan chiffon that I had baked years ago. I dare not blog about it. However, I keep this photo as a reminder of how badly I did.

So I always have some form of stress and anxiety when I'm unmoulding the cake cos I will only know whether I'm successful or not until the moment I fully unmould my cake. Below is my latest chiffon cake. Although it looks as if it is perfect, it has actually shrunk quite a lot after cooling. See the crustless ring at the bottom of the cake? It is not because I did not unmould it properly. It is because the cake has shrunk so much that the cake detached from the cake tin and leaving the crust on the tin. I'm not too sure what has gone wrong.

This Black Sesame Paste Chiffon Cake recipe is taken from Happy Flour, who is really good at chiffon cakes. I'm "eyeing" some of her other chiffon cakes as well. I like the texture of this cake, very soft and fluffy and has a very nice black sesame flavour.

I'm using this Black Sesame and Honey Paste.

I am submitting this chiffon cake to Aspiring Bakers #1: Chiffon Cakes (Nov 2010), the very first monthly baking event hosted by me. If you have baked any chiffon cakes in the month of Nov 2010., you can submit it to me by 30 Nov 2010. Click here for the details.

If you want to be the host for future monthly events or suggest a theme, please email to smallsmallbaker@yahoo.com.sg.