Light as feather, soft as a whisper…. that’s how I would imagine an Angel’s kiss to be and that is exactly how this cake felt to me. I now wish that I had the sense to make this earlier. Thanks to the left over egg whites from my Mocha Kueh Lapis and to the fact that I could only spare 15mins to potter around in the kitchen, I decided to settle on this straight forward chiffon cake recipe.
The recipe uses only egg whites, a smidgen of salad oil (I used canola oil) and a light dose of powdered sugar to yield a cake that is so moist and tender with a hint of barely there sweetness. The subtle taste and the pale white colour of the fine pored cake evokes a sense of serenity and poise that is so synonymous with its name. I imagine this to be delicious with a dollop of whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
The recipe uses only egg whites, a smidgen of salad oil (I used canola oil) and a light dose of powdered sugar to yield a cake that is so moist and tender with a hint of barely there sweetness. The subtle taste and the pale white colour of the fine pored cake evokes a sense of serenity and poise that is so synonymous with its name. I imagine this to be delicious with a dollop of whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Another big plus for those who hate cleaning up after baking, this recipe is a breeze to clean for there is no oily, buttery, creamy mess. The meringue and the batter rinses out instantly with a tiny drop of washing detergent.
So have you been touched by the Angel yet?
Angel Chiffon Cake
Recipe type: Sweets, Cake
Ingredients
- (For a 17cm Chiffon Cake Mold)
- 40ml Salad Oil (Canola/ Grapeseed oil)
- 80ml Milk
- 70g All purpose flour ( I used top flour)
- ⅛ tsp Salt
- ¼tsp Vanilla extract
- 200g Egg white
- 70g Powdered sugar (Icing Sugar)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 170C.
- In a mixing bowl, mix oil and milk together with a hand whisk.
- Sift flour and salt into (2) and mix well with hand whisk until a smooth paste is formed and no lumps are visible.
- In another clean mixing bowl, add egg whites and powdered sugar. Mix with a mixer fitted with a balloon whisk until soft white peaks are formed.
- Add ⅓ of meringue from (4) into (3) and mix well. Add the remaining meringue and fold to combine using a rubber spatula.
- Pour batter into chiffon pan and bake at 170C for 40mins.
- Remove cake from oven and cool by standing the pan upside down.
{ 40 comments… read them below or add one }
我曾做过这个天使蛋糕，本人很喜欢。因为不敢油腻。而且柔软好吃。
This cake looks wonderful. One of my favourite summertime cakes.
looks fabulous
I love the holes! Looks really yummy!
wow so clean and pure… very angelic cake indeed
pure white and soft…:)
I cant believe I was kissed by your Angel
I would definitely try this ! Keeping my fingers crossed that it will rise as nice as your for I find baking chiffon intimidating 
It usually collapse on me 
Look so feather light. The Americans here called this cake Angel Food Cake and usually serve it with cream or mix fruits compote. I think your name sounds better.
How pretty and light these look!! Oh, you make me want to bake more!
Love this healthy light chiffon cake. Definitely want to bake it for sure!
Testing
Hi
Marvellous Chiffon, with a cup of coffee or tea and a slice of your Pandan Chiffon
Cake.
Cheers!
Looks really light! I love chiffon cake!
Hi your recipes are so wonderful and the pix too! thank you so much. I wondered if there is any way a chiffon cake can be made without the use of dairy/eggs. as i want to make it for a vegan friend. please let me know if u can help. keep up your wonderful creations.
Sharon, thank you for your kind words… Unfortunately, I don’t think there is any way to make the chiffon without eggs. The lightness of the chiffon is the result of foaming egg white. Without the foam, the cake will be denser. The texture will be completely different.
I was really excited to make this, but was very disappointed in the outcome. The recipe was flawed. You did not put when to put in the vanilla and it was difficult folding in the meringue, when the dough-y part was so liquid-y. Please be more specific next time because i would hate for someone else to put all these ingredients to waste… thank you.
Hi Yumi, thank you for dropping by. I apologise for missing out the vanilla essence in the recipe. Typically, this should be added to the ‘dough’ mixture. That aside, this recipe works very well. In fact this recipe is from a Japanese Chiffon cookbook. It is not flawed, in fact it is very reliable. However, I do understand that for those who are not used to baking the chiffon cake, this can be very challenging. I know of many who are not able to bake a proper chiffon cake. This angel chiffon recipe will be a greater challenge as you will need to beat the egg white to the right consistency. The dough is supposed to be more fluid than the meringue. Is your meringue very hard? If so you will have problem to incorporate the meringue into the dough. Email me, we can discuss further.
I made this cake yesterday and it definitely did not look anything like the cake in the pictures. I also realized that the vanilla was not mentioned in the instructions and didn’t know what to do when I got to the end of the recipe so I just added it to the final cake mixture. Although the cake tasted fine, it turned out extremely flat.
Hi Sarah, I am sorry to hear that it did not turn out right. But don’t be disheartened. The recipe does work and I have other Asian readers who had tried this recipe with success. I missed out the vanilla extract earlier but this is not the critical factor. Chiffon cake is possibly one of the most difficult cake genre to master. I had to go through my fair share of failure many years ago until I feel comfortable with it. I am traveling now but will connect with you by email after I get back to help you with it.
I tried the recipe and all I can say is that it worked beautifully¡¡¡….it’s still cooling upside down but the cake raised very much. I used normal sugar, but it haven’t affected the final outcome I think…….Making chiffons is difficult, I va made many failures in the past. One question I have though is how to prevent the final shrinking in the oven?
Thank you very much..
Josefina
Thanks, Josefina. I am glad it worked for you. I have a couple of readers who had tried this and liked it too. I agree, Chiffon is possibly one of the most difficult cake genres to make and I know it can be frustrating at first. If your cake rises too fast, too much in the oven, it will shrink more as it bakes. What you need to do is to drive out the moisture more slowly. Your oven may be a little hotter than mine. Try baking 5-10C lower and see if it helps.
Hi!! I was wondering on your angel chiffon cake recipe; if there is any way you can tell me direct measurements. Like how much in cups or ounces and exactly how many egg whites instead of 200g.
40ml Salad Oil (Canola/ Grapeseed oil)…. ?? cups
80ml Milk….?? cups
70g All purpose flour ( I used top flour)…..?? cups
200g Egg white??…. cups
70g Powdered sugar (Icing Sugar)??….. cups
Would love to try with exact measurements. Thank you for your help!!
Hi Lokelani – You can’t get more exact measurements than this. I wouldn’t try the Angel Cake or any chiffon cake recipes with cup estimation. Cup estimation is very coarse and needs alot of eye-balling and guessing on the baker’s part and this recipe (like the French macarons) needs precision. I always like to advice my readers from the US to invest in a small digital weighing machine. However, if you really need to convert this, you can refer to this site where you can do the conversion. I use this site all the time to convert from cups to exact measurements (never the other way round)….Good luck! http://www.dianasdesserts.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/tools.measures/Measures.cfm
A word of advice: It is essentially IMPOSSIBLE to make Viennoiseries , cakes or confectionary without using very exact measurements. The reason for this is that baking essentially is applied chemistry: You need a specific ration of egg whites versus sugar or you won’t get the desired puffy quality. Same with chocolate (you need to very exactly measure temperature) etc.
“one cup” is essentially a useless description. How much is one cup? 150ml, or maybe 200 or even 300? Same with eggwhites: What are 6 eggwhites? 180 grams? 250 grams?
Long story short: Use anything other than grams, and you are screwed
Exactly!
oh my… this is the most beautiful angel chiffon cake i’ve ever seen!!! i so can’t wait to try it out! but i think i’ll mix it with some cocoa powder… will let u know of how it turns out. it’s my first time baking it. so excited!!
Hi Jeanette – I hope by now you’ve tried out the Angel Chiffon Cake. The chiffon cake is not the easiest cake to master- if you don’t get it exactly right, the first time, don’t be discouraged. Continue trying.
Hi! i really love this recipe very much. With all the descriptors and photos, Ican’t wait to try this recipe. But just one question.. can i opt out the use of salad oil?
Hi CreativeChef- I don’t think you can opt out the oil- but I have never tried it though. I suspect it will turn out very dry.
i love sponge cake,i used to bake sponge cake but i m vegetarian now,i cant bake it now ,i would b happy if i can get eggless sponge cake,tq
Hi Thavamani- Sponge is essentially an eggy cake. In fact we commonly call the Sponge, ‘Egg Cake’ in Chinese. Hence I am afraid it is not possible to get an eggless sponge cake. However, there are many other eggless cake recipes (you won’t get the airy spongy texture, though) – will try to feature some soon.
Hi, I’m wondering how long does it takes to make the meringue? As I know if I whisk it for too long…the air will all be gone..it that right? * I tried to make japanese cheesecake before, but it doesn’t work, and I think I fail it because of the egg white whisking part* Also, could you please teach me the right way of folding the meringue? Thanks =)
Hi Student Baker – It is difficult to tell you how long to whisk it as every mixer is different. What you should be careful is not to over whisk it otherwise the meringue will split. Hence some books would recommend that you use a hand whisk (electric handheld whisk) instead of the stand mixer as you can control the speed and degree to which you whisk the egg white. Whisk it to the stage where the meringue is medium stiff – meaning, if you invert your whisk, the wiggle of meringue should not drip but still be able to droop a little to form a hook. Once you get this, you can fold it gently into your batter and it should be ok.
I’ve only got a 25cmx10cm chiffon pan what do i need to alter to make this?
Reb- I recommend you double the recipe. If you have too much batter left, you can always pour them into cupcake liners and bake them together with the chiffon pan.
Hi, i have a question: I followed this recipe however I did not have a chiffon form so I used a large rectangular bread baking form instead. My problem is that the bottom of the cake somehow moved up in the form (after baking it’s concave, or has a dent) and in the inside of the cake there is a small patch which is a lot more solid than the rest of the cake. This small patch is pretty much in the lower 1/3 of the cake throughout. If you have any advice on how to rectify this, it be most appreciated.
Chris
Hi Chris, I hope your pan is not a non-stick pan. You shouldn’t also line or dust your pan with flour or oil.
Hi Chris…
Just want to share a few tips with you. There’s a reason why Angel Cake is always baked using a tube pan (@ chiffon cake mold). The tube or hole in the middle allows the cake batter to rise higher by clinging to the surface of the tube. If you use a rectangular mold, the cake batter in the middle will not be able to cling on anything and will result in a dent in the middle. Also, when you use tube pan, don’t grease the surface. Don’t do anything. Just pour the batter in and you’re set to bake. Hope that helps ^^
hi there, I realy like light and soft cakes, as I read comments i will take the risk . hope it turn out as i want, i don’t have the mold. any way i will let you know.thanks
Thanks for the great recipe! Simply light as feather, I like it very much.