As part of Christmas Baking 2013.
My family has a whirlwind tradition of doing everything Christmasy on one day. Christmas Eve. It's typically a very smoothly scheduled day where my sister and I visit all the parents and all the family in the course of 8 hours.
In order to survive I make lots and lots of sweets.
The chocolate shop I worked at over Christmas was going through a chocolate product shortage because of the flood in Calgary early 2013, so I had to find some less chocolatey alternatives to my regular chocolate cake with chocolate ganache and chocolate frosting. First on my list was a lemon and vanilla chiffon cake. Basically a fancy angel food cake.
I've never made angel food cake before. I even had to go out and buy a pan. And since I might as well make it as impossible as I can for this cake to turn out, I bought a square angel food pan! Neat!
The recipe I used was from my Canadian Living Complete Baking book for Sunshine cake. I used the just regular, non-passover recipe.
Sunshine Cake
(from Canadian Living's The Complete Canadian Living Baking Book; also changed a bit by me!)
2 egg yolks
7 eggs, separated
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 2/3 cups cake and pastry flour
2 tbsp grated lemon rind
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tbsp (15 mL) vanilla
1/2 tsp (2 mL) salt
- In large bowl, beat together 9 egg yolks, half of sugar, all of flour, lemon rind and juice, and vanilla until blended. Set aside.
- In separate large bowl and with clean beaters, beat egg whites with salt until soft peaks form. Beat in remaining sugar, 2 tbsp (25 mL) at a time, until stiff peaks form.
- With spatula, gently fold one-third of the egg whites into yolk mixture; fold in remaining whites just until no streaks remain. Scrape into prepared pan; smooth top. Bake in centre of 350°F oven until top springs back when lightly touched, about 50 minutes.
- Turn pan upside down and let cake hang on legs attached to pan or on inverted funnel, or bottle, until cooled, about 3 hours. Run long palate knife around centre and side of pan, pressing blade against pan and reaching to bottom to loosen cake. Unmould onto cake plate. (Make-ahead: Cover with plastic wrap; store for up to 24 hours.)
I definitely tried very hard to follow the recipe.... But I really don't like oranges in cake so I changed it to lemon zest and lemon juice instead. Even with the acidity change the cake still was very fluffy.
When trying to make the peaches, I'll admit to a giant fail. With all the family gathered around me, I attempted to light the whiskey I'd brought on fire. Flambéed peaches! Sounds fancy, right? I thought so too. It turns out though that a regular 40% alcohol won't work. As I tried many times, my expectant and soon to be disappointed family surrounding me, waiting. The whiskey light briefly (very briefly) so I called it done and poured it into the peaches, rather sad that it hadn't really worked.
But, regardless, it was still pretty delicious. Whipped cream covered and very whiskey-ed peach covered vanilla and lemon chiffon cake. Yum!
-Andrea
The Half-Assed Hobbyist