Thursday, August 16, 2012

Will Cake For Work

It's been quite a while since I've made a chiffon cake, and it's no secret that I adore them. Actually, I adore anything made with meringue, and chiffon cake is the combination of a simple French meringue and a typical cake batter. Then, they're folded together and baked in a tube pan, which, coincidentally, is my favorite thing to bake in.

My love of all things meringue comes 1.) my love of marshmallow, which meringue ISN'T, but is very similar to, and 2.) the sheer volume of angel food cakes I made when I was a pastry chef at Cypress Restaurant in Tallahassee. Literally, I made one cake per day, and worked there for about a year, so you do the math. I got really, really good at folding fluffy French meringue with dry ingredients, which is teeny, tiny step away from making a chiffon cake.

Last night, the arts and culture editor at Orlando Weekly, who I have known a long time and have made a friend, tweeted at me right before the U.S. Men's National Team was set to take on Mexico at the Azteca, in what would be a historic match for U.S. soccer. Here's our conversation:





I'll forgive her for the ™... the proper superscript for Tupperware is ®.  I only care because it used to be my job to care.

No matter, though. This is what came out of it all...



I used a different recipe this time than I have in the past -- this one from Bon Appetit. I usually use Baking Illustrated, from the editors of Cook's Illustrated magazine, but their chiffon cake recipe is faulty (which is REALLY unusual for Cook's Illustrated), but this recipe was fantastic.  Find it here.