T spells Trouble


I was flipping through my chiffon recipe book, not having any idea what chiffon I wanted to bake today. Then suddenly realised that I have a lot of cocoa powder, and found that I've not been baking any food using cocoa powder lately. (Why?!?!) So I decided to bake "Chocolate Chiffon". Doesn't look difficult, I told myself.

However, even when I didn't disturb "trouble", it came looking for me. When I cracked my eggs into a bowl, wanting to separate them only after all the 6 eggs were cracked, suddenly I saw 2 yolks broke even before I finished the last two eggs. As I don't have anymore eggs left (last 6 eggs), I decided to what my instructor taught us last time-use egg shelf to scoop up the "broken yolks". According to her, the yolks will "automatically" go into the shelf, as if, it knew it belonged there. Well, what she meant was for those one or two drops of yolks, and not those which already left a trail! My yolks left many trails in the whites! I refused to give up, using the shelf to try to scoop the yolks out.

That was trouble #1. Well, we all knew that baking chiffons is an Art. Any little separation of eggs like this went wrong, we can forget about a good chiffon. Even sometimes, when everything is well done, the chiffon might not turn out well too! Just like what Grace mentioned in her latest post about her failure on chiffons. So we can all empathised with her. Like I said, I continue with the steps, knowing that I had too much egg whites with my egg yolks in the mixture, and had too much egg yolks in my egg whites to be beaten. That was trouble #2. I proceeded.

Somehow, I managed to beat the egg whites to stiff peak. Unbelievable right? Yes, but I was wrong. When I started folding egg whites into the batter, ah-ha! I saw may bubbles bursting! This was trouble #3. So I knew my chiffon "chiam" liao! There goes my chocolate chiffon cake. I imagined my chiffons will sink since during baking, the bubbles will all burst!


After baking, I was quite happy that at least the cakes rose & sustained! The came trouble #4. The holes of the chiffon were so big & not uniform I'd probably thought they are rat holes! Or maybe there were imaginary hazelnuts hidden in those holes! Looks a bit horrible right? I'll have to try again, to confirm that it was due to my egg whites. However, the taste was really good, very chocolatey! Let me try again, and if successful, I'll post up the recipe to share. Otherwise, it must be the recipe then! :p

7 comments:

Elyse said...
March 9, 2009 at 2:26 AM

These chocolate chiffons look fabulous! I'm so glad everything worked out.

Kitchen Corner said...
March 9, 2009 at 12:07 PM

Hi Jane,
I really admire you can bake such a nice chocolate chiffon cake. I still have no confidence to do it yet.

Passionate About Baking said...
March 9, 2009 at 5:11 PM

Hi Elyse & Grace,
Thanks for your compliments! Sorry to disappoint you, but this chiffon's holes are really not supposed to be like that. I was really disappointed at it actually. However, the chocolate taste of the failed chiffon was really good. A consolation afterall!

thecoffeesnob said...
March 10, 2009 at 11:36 AM

Your chocolate chiffon cakes still look really good!

I can never tell when my chiffon cakes are cooked. Last weekend, I took my lemon chiffon cake out of the oven after my wooden skewer came out clean. Surprise surprise, the cake came tumbling out of the pan when I inverted it. GRRR.

So guess what I'll be doing next weekend and the weekends after? I can never let a horrid baking session go till I rectify it.

Passionate About Baking said...
March 10, 2009 at 1:33 PM

Hi Laureen,
How about setting the timing in relation to the size of the pan you used? I usually try to play safe and put slightly longer. I understand how you felt about the cake tumbling out of the pan. I've countless of that experience too! :p Ok, I'll wait for your successful lemon chiffon post, and I don't think I'll need to wait long! ;)

Kitchen Corner said...
May 19, 2011 at 5:55 PM

Hi Jane,
I really admire you can bake such a nice chocolate chiffon cake. I still have no confidence to do it yet.

Anonymous said...
December 31, 2012 at 7:05 PM

If you'd like a tip for separating the eggs easier, chill them first before you crack em open and separate them. :)

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