Orange Chiffon Cake 香橙戚风蛋糕

My initial intention to come up with a series of chiffon cakes recipes failed. Haha! It is just so hard to keep up with blogging.

Anyway, I do bake chiffon cakes very often because my mum loves chiffon cake cos it is lighter and healthier and I love baking it because it is easy to make within an hour with minimal washing, minus the challenge of baking it, hehehe!

After trying different flavours of chiffon cakes, my mum told me that she still prefer orange chiffon cake, the rest so so only. What! You win liao lor! ;P

So I bake this orange chiffon cake for her, despite my desire to try another new flavour. Hahaha!

I am back to using my all-time favourite recipe book "好吃戚风蛋糕轻松上手". Because its 17cm recipe fits so nicely for my tin. Other recipes, if I make adjustment, will either come out too short or too tall. The proportion of flour also not too low and makes the cake more stable and easy to succeed. The extra egg white also makes the cake fluffier. No baking powder and cream of tartar are used, I haven't been adding these to my chiffon cakes for a long long time.

Orange Chiffon Cake

Ingredients: (17cm chiffon tin)

3 egg yolks
20g caster sugar
35ml vegetable oil
1 tsp Cointreau
60ml freshly squeezed orange juice
1/2 tsp orange zest (I used zest of 1 whole orange)
80g cake flour

4 egg whites
50g caster sugar (I used 40g)

Method:

1. Whisk egg yolks and sugar until the sugar dissolves.
2. Gradually add in vegetable oil, followed by Cointreau, orange juice and zest.
3. Add sifted cake flour. Mix until just combined. Set aside.
4. In another bowl, whisk egg whites until foamy. Add in sugar gradually and continue whisking until stiff peak form.
5. Gently fold in the egg white into the egg yolk batter (in step 3) in 3 batches.
6. Pour the batter into an ungreased chiffon tin. Give the tin a few slight knocks on the tabletop to remove air bubbles. Bake in preheated oven at 170 deg C for 35 minutes.
7. Remove from oven and invert the tin immediately onto a cooling rack.
8. Unmould the cake only when it is completely cool.

Adapted from: 好吃戚风蛋糕轻松上手

I'm linking this post to Bake Along #64: Chiffon Cakes jointly hosted by Joyce of Kitchen Flavours, Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids and Lena of Frozen Wings

An InLinkz Link-up

Japanese Cotton Cheesecake

I bought cream cheese while it was on offer some time ago. Better quickly use it up. It had been a long time I last bake a cheesecake and I'm craving for one! I'm sticking to a trusted recipe by Alex Goh. I remember I saved a photo of the recipe from the book... BUT I can't find it! Have been keeping too many recipes everywhere and never organize. Anyone has this problem? Haha!

It's ok. I think can easily find the recipe online. :)

Some bakers might have faced problems when baking this cheesecake. I have this phobia too! Scared it will crack, scared it will sink, scared it become dense... Although I rarely make cheesecake, I have more experience in whipping egg whites now, so that makes the task less intimidating. :)

My cheesecake turns out to be pretty good, except for a little crack. I should have stay beside the oven and turn down the temperature. There's uneven browning at the top too. Can't help because of my oven. Or is there a way to brown it nicely? Mostly importantly, it is tall and did not sink! Yeah!

Here's a slice of the cut-out cheesecake. So soft, cottony and melt-in-the-mouth. It's so good when it's chilled! Eating cheesecake is like eating durian. Either you like or hate it. Luckily I like both! Just realize 2 of my nieces are cheesecake lovers. One of them said my cheesecake tastes like the Starbucks one wor. You sure or not? Lol! :p

Japanese Cotton Cheesecake

Ingredients: (I use 6 inch round pan and use 3/4 of the original recipe in brackets)

125g cream cheese (160g)
18g butter (25g)
90g milk (120g)

30g cake flour (40g)
23g cornflour (30g)

3 egg yolks (4)

3 egg whites (4)
1/8 tsp cream of tartar (1/8 tsp), I omitted
75g sugar (100g sugar)
pinch of salt, I omitted

Preparation:

1. Grease and line the bottom and side of the pan with baking paper. Wrap outside of the pan in foil.
(I did not wrap the pan in foil as I prefer to use a normal pan instead of removable base pan.)

2. Place a tray with water at the lowest rack and preheat the oven.
(I did not put the pan in water-bath. I place the tray of water at the lowest rack and the pan at the middle rack.)

Method:

1. Place cream cheese, butter and milk in mixing bowl and double-boil until the mixture becomes thick and creamy and no lumps. Set aside to cool.
(From my experience, it's difficult to get a lump-free mixture. You can pass the mixture through a sieve to get a smooth mixture. For lazy me I just skip it as the lumps will disappear after adding the flour and eggs.)

2. Add in sifted flour mixture and whisk until combined. Do not overmix.

3. Add in egg yolks and whisk until combined. Set aside.

4. Whisk the egg whites until foamy. Add in sugar gradually and whip until soft peaks. Do not whip to stiff peak. Fold the egg whites into the cheese mixture gently in 3 separate additions.

5. Pour the batter into the pan, knock a few times to get rid of air bubbles. Bake in oven at 160C for 45 minutes until the top is golden brown and skewer inserted is clean.
(I bake at 160 deg C, lower to 150 deg C once I spotted crack on the cake, should have reduced earlier. Total baking time is 35 minutes for my 6 inch cake.)

6. Off the oven and leave the cake in the oven with the door slightly ajar for about 30 minutes. Remove the cake from pan, remove the baking paper and further cool down before chilling in the fridge.
(I did not remove the cake from oven immediately to prevent the cake from sinking quickly.)

Adapted from：Fantastic Cheesecake by Alex Goh

I am submitting this post to "My Treasured Recipes #1 - Alex Goh (June/July 2014)" hosted by Miss B of Everyone Eats Well In Flanders and co-hosted by Charmaine of Mimi Bakery House.