Fruit Tea Cranberry Chiffon

I've always thought that making a successful chiffon cake is one of those "advanced" baking skills in baking that I've hardly dared to try it out. There has been too many stories of chiffon cakes gone wrong and that I've held off trying due to a lack of confidence in my baking skills.  

I'm not so much into Pandan Chiffon Cake but when I saw a Cranberry Tea Chiffon Cake circulating on the Facebook page of a local baking group - I decided its time to conquer those fears. I loved the idea fruity flavours in a chiffon cake and immediately bought myself a chiffon tin. 

My good friend had given me a box of Passion-Orange Fruit Tea as a gift and I decided that I shall try making the Chiffon Cake with that tea. The first two attempts were not entirely successful - though the cake did not shrink, there were dense spots at the top of the cake. I figured that it could be because I did not thoroughly mix the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture. You know how you've heard so much talk about deflated egg whites that I didn't dare to mix too much!

The third time I tried the recipe, I made sure that the egg white mixture was as thoroughly and gently mixed as possible (using hand mixing). This time, the cake was higher than the previous two attempts and had no dense spots at all! I wanted to do a song and dance when I cut my cake - the texture was perfect, soft and cottony to the bite! I really enjoyed the slight sourish taste of this cake due to the bits of tea leaves in the cake. The cranberries added a sweet and tangy aftertaste as well. Now that I've cracked the chiffon code, I'm looking forward to making other types of chiffon cakes. 

Fruit Tea Cranberry Chiffon (21 cm)

Adapted from a recipe in Munch Ministry

Ingredients

Egg yolk mixture

• 6 egg yolk
• 30g caster sugar
• 2/4tsp salt
• 80g veg. oil
• 6 bags Lipton Cranberry Raspberry & Strawberry Tea Bag (I used a Passionfruit-Orange tea mix)
• 120g hot water
• 150g cake flour
• 3/4 baking powder

Egg white mixture

• 6 egg white
• 130g caster sugar
• 1/2tsp cream of tartar
• 80g dried cranberry (mix with some flour and sift away excess flour)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 175*C.
2. Sift flour and baking powder, set aside.
3. Cut the tea bags, pour tea leaf into a cup.
4. Pour hot water into it and leave it aside to cool.
5. With a hand whisk, whisk egg yolk, salt and sugar together.
6. Add oil, tea together with the tea leaf residue and flour into the egg yolk batter.
7. Whisk until well combined.
8. Use a mixer, whisk the egg whites and cream of tartar till frothy.
9. Gradually add in sugar and whisk till stiff peaks form.
10. Fold in 1/4 of the meringue into the egg yolk mixture until combined.
11. Then fold in the rest of the meringue in two portions lightly until well combined.
12.  Lastly fold in the cranberry.
13. Pour batter into a tube pan, smooth the surface.
14. Place pan into a preheated oven and bake for 55 mins.
15. Remove from oven, invert cake onto table top and leave it cool.
16.Remove cake from pan and serve.

This is for AlphaBakes hosted by Caroline Makes and The More than Occassional Baker.