Marble chiffon cake

Last Saturday, we had a small party to celebrate the Mid-autumn Festival. Because I could not find some main ingredients for moon cakes, I made a marble chiffon cake instead. This is my most successful chiffon cake that I have ever made. One of my friends once told me that a good chiffon cake shows some cracks on its surface. This time, I got them! Yi-ha! Look at the texture, isn't it gorgeous?

Marble chiffon is just a little bit different from chiffon cake, not very difficult, but, you know, there are always some tricks in baking cakes.

1. Prepare a 9-inch spring form pan, don't grease the pan so that it can allow the batter to cling to the sides of the pan as it rises.

2. Cocoa mixture: Combine 4 tsp sugar, 4 tsp oil, 4 tsp cocoa and 40 ml water, whisk until smooth. Set aside.

3. Take five eggs from the fridge and place them on the dry towel, dry the surface of chilled egg to avoid any drop of water. You need three bowls for separating egg white and yolk: yolk bowl, egg white bowl and working bowl. Crack the egg to get a sharp and even break; pull the shells apart over working bowl, the egg white runs to the bowl; flip flop the yolk between the two shells three times, let all white leave the shell. Never let any yolk drops into the egg white (That's why you need a working bowl, in case the egg white is contaminated by yolk drops or even rotten egg or egg with blood). Put yolk into yolk bowl. Transfer egg white into egg white bowl, cover the bowl, in case it is contaminated by water or something else. Repeat the steps to finish separation of the five eggs. Bring egg white and yolk to room temperature.

4. Whisk 1/3 cup skim milk and 5 tsp sugar to have sugar completely dissolved; whisk into 1/4 cup vegetable oil (check the label: the oil should not contain silicates as they tend to inhibit foaming); sift into 1 cup cake flour and mix them well; finally, combine the flour mixture with five yolks to obtain smooth batter.

5. Beat egg whites until foamy; add several drops of lemon juice and 1/3 cup sugar; beat until stiff peaks form.Well beaten egg white won't drop when its container is turned up side down.

6. Adjust the rack in the oven to the low position and preheat oven to 325 F.

7. With a rubber spatula, fold 1/4 beaten egg white with batter obtained in step 4 until smooth (Some folks say that you can just blend them. Yes, if you use baking powder, I agree. However, if you don't use baking powder, any portion of egg white is important to create the great texture. So, just fold, gently but quickly fold.)

8. Pour the smooth batter back into the remaining 3/4 beaten egg white, fold batter very gently but quickly -- try to finish this step in no more than two minutes otherwise, batter will be deflated. There should be no egg-white lumps in it.

9. Remove one-third of batter to a separate bowl, gently fold in cocoa mixture.

10. Pour half of the non-cocoa batter into spring form pan; gently swirl the pan to flat the batter and allow it cover the whole bottom.

11. Top with half of the cocoa batter, gently swirl the pan to allow the batter evenly spread over non-cocoa batter.

12. Repeat layers.

13. With a narrow knife (with sharp tip), swirl gently through batter to form marble (don't overwork).

14. Give the pan three gentle raps on the counter to release any large air bubbles and smooth the top with spatula.

15. Bake for 50 minutes or until the cake tester or toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean and the cake is golden.

16. Immediately remove the cake from the oven, invert the pan and stand it on the rack. Let the cake cool completely.

17. Run a rubber spatula around the inside of the pan, then remove the cake from the pan, invert the cake onto a greased rack. (Most of the time, the cake falls off the pan after cooling to room temperature.)

And I made this dessert for the party as well. It is as round as moon LOL