For our very last class in culinary school, we had Advanced Baking and Pastry. So, you can only imagine my excitement, considering we were finishing up with the entire program with my favorite subject. Well, this was one of the cakes that I had the opportunity to make in class. The funniest part in making this cake in class was the fact that my partner and I forgot to add the baking powder and salt… Oops! They were already measured out and sitting there waiting for us, but for some reason I thought she put it in and she thought I put it in. The cake didn’t turn out horrible, and we still joke about that today. Inevitably though, I had to try this recipe out again at home(this time with the glaze), and it was delicious.
This cake is similar to angel food cake, but a little more moist. You can really taste the orange flavor in this cake, between the juice and the zest from the oranges. One of the great things about this recipe, is you can also make this in a lemon flavor if you prefer lemon over orange…just replace the orange juice with lemon juice, and orange zest with lemon zest. Easy as…cake!
Orange Chiffon Cake Recipe:
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 1/2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
4 oz. vegetable oil
6 egg yolks
2 oz. cool water
4 oz. orange juice
1 tablespoon grated orange zest
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
8 egg whites
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Sift together the flour, 1 1/4 cups sugar, baking powder and salt into a bowl. In a separate bowl, add the egg yolks, oil, water, orange juice, orange zest and vanilla. Whisk together until combined. Add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredient, whisk together until combined. In another clean bowl, beat the egg whites until foamy. Slowly beat in the remaining 1 1/4 cups sugar, continue beating until the egg whites are stiff but not dry. Stir one-third of the egg whites until the batter to lighten it. Fold in the remaining egg whites. Pour the batter into an ungreased 10 inch tube pan. Bake for a toothpick comes out clean, approximately 1 hour. Immediately invert the pan over the neck of a bottle. Allow the cake to hang upside down until completely cool, then remove from the pan. Stir the glaze ingredients together in a small bowl and drizzle over the top of the cooled cake.
Orange Glaze Recipe:
3/4 cup powdered sugar
2 teaspoons orange zest, grated
2 tablespoons orange juice
Stir together ingredients and drizzle over cooled cake.
