Orange Chiffon Cake with Poh’s Twist

Yes, it’s cloudy with a chance of fluffy chiffon cake again but this time, it’s an orange version decorated à la Poh’s style from Poh’s Kitchen. Poh is the runner up  on the first Masterchef Australia series. Hmm..I didn’t really do justice to her recipe; merely borrowed the idea of chantilly cream filling, chocolate ganache and roasted hazelnuts. I guess I wanted a bigger cake as this was to be my brother’s birthday cake. So I used the recipe from Joy of Baking  instead and added 1 more egg to it. But I really liked Poh’s idea of pairing chocolate and cream to a cake that’s usually eaten plain and chocolate remains a popular complement to orange.

The cake turned out wonderfully light, moist and cuts so beautifully. This is probably the best chiffon cake I’ve made, in terms of texture, all thanks to inverting the cake tin immediately after baking to suspend the air in the sponge. I did not hesitate one bit; as soon as the timer alerted me with a shrill, it was out of the oven and upside down in an instant to cool. Also, it is really paramount with chiffon cakes, that you DO NOT grease or line the chiffon cake pan as this helps the batter cling to the sides of the pan, thus giving it that even rise. To remove the cooled cake, all it takes  is to run a palette knife or plastic spatula around the inside of the pan to loosen the cake and it comes out nicely. Although on hindsight, the base could be lined to ease the removal of the cake as you will notice from the second photo below. 

I was delighted with the cake itself but being a birthday cake, it has to be embellished and a quick one too as I was running out of time. The cake was supposed to cool down before I can slice it, fill it and ice it, so I blasted my fan and it cooled down in 1 hour as opposed to 2. Phew. Then it’s quick work with whipping up the thickened cream with icing sugar and vanilla paste, making the chocolate ganache and J helped me with the roasted hazelnuts. I managed to decorate it in 15 minutes, place it in a cake carrier, ran upstairs for a shower and out the door in the next 15 minutes. Dinner was in 45 minutes and it takes 40 minutes to get to the city. 😀

If you’re interested. click on both links above and try out the recipes

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4 comments to Orange Chiffon Cake with Poh’s Twist

  • i saw this and she was doing croissants too.. haha.. good job!!

  • Mei Sze

    I’m holding off on the croissants until our baking classes start..I’ve only ever helped my aunty with croissants many years ago but I know it takes a while..with the butter, layering, chilling..Hmmm..can’t wait for the bread and pastry segment of the training to kick in.

  • its soooo much fun! but lots of waiting around.. omg! but then again, on poh’s segment, she did it with the french chef and they make it look so easy, perhaps the time lapse was not captured being it on tv..

  • Mei Sze

    It’s the magic of TV. 🙂 Definitely, there will be waiting intervals. Otherwise the butter will melt.