March 29: National Lemon Chiffon Cake Day

I had never heard of chiffon cake. The directions said to use a tube pan. What the heck is a tube pan? I looked it up, and a tube pan, appeared to be the same as a bundt pan. Perfect! I know we have one of those, somewhere around here. After finally locating it, I was happy.

So this is what I used:

But I also found one of these:

Huh. Well the one I used would create a pretty curvy edge, so I went with that one. Well, later I found out I was wrong. There is a difference between a bundt pan and a tube pan. And you guessed it, I used the bundt pan merely because it looked prettier than what was actually the tube pan. But there really couldn't be a difference, could there?

WRONG again. There is a difference. You are not supposed to use a bundt pan to bake light, airy, or sponge-like cakes (which is pretty much the definition of a chiffon cake). Oooooopps. Well, you really do learn something every day.

So just to reiterate.
If you make a chiffon cake, use THIS PAN PICTURED BELOW!!

USE THIS TYPE OF PAN! IT'S THE WINNER!

Anyways....

JazzyJ's Lemony Luscious Chiffon Cake:

 Ingredients:
- 7 eggs, separated
- 2 cups flour
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cups water
- 1/2 cup canola oil (except I only had olive oil so I just used that instead)
- 4 teaspoons grated lemon peel
- 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

Mixing the egg whites in.

 Directions:
1.  Put all the egg whites in one bowl and let sit at room temperature for 30 minues.
2. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
3. In another bowl, mix together egg yolks, water, canola oil, lemon peel, and vanilla. Add to the dry ingredients and mix.
4. Add cream of tartar to egg whites and beat until stiff peaks form. Slowly fold the egg whites into the other ingredients.
5. Pour into a ten inch tube pan and bake for 55-60 minutes. The cake should kinda spring back at you as you gently poke it.
6. Invert pan and cool for one hour. Remove from pan and frost.

Note: It should be noted that I inverted the pan and immediately removed the cake while it was still hot from the oven. I now clearly see that I luckily avoided a cake disaster. Only a little piece fell off of the cake and you couldn't really tell.

Ready to bake.

Lemon Frosting:
Note: This was very lemony, if you don't like a strong lemon flavor, I would recommend reducing the amount of lemon juice and grated lemon peel.

Ingredients:
- 1/3 cup softened butter
- 3 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 1/4 cup lemon juice (this was about the juice from one large lemon)
- 4 teaspoons grated lemon peel

Gently pour the frosting (which is more like an icing) on top and kinda let it run over the sides.

Fresh out of the oven.

See? You can barely see the chunk that fell off.

I personally think it looks beautiful, like someone would pay some serious money to eat this bad boy! The icing dripping over the side makes it look so fancy! And it didn't disappoint! I would make and eat this again. So take that! I made this chiffon cake using a bundt pan, not a tube pan, and this cake kicks butt!