Orange Chiffon Cake—Recipe Review

Last spring I took an online food photography class hosted by Broma Bakery. I felt like some of my photography & edit style had grown stale and I wanted to jump start my photography & learn some new tricks. For one of the homework assignments, I teamed up with Ana from Rosemary & Rye (how beautiful is her new blog design?!) to shoot a recipe and it was the perfect opportunity to try out another pastry from Tartine. 

Ana has become a dear friend & collaborator since our first introduction at the calligraphy workshop I hosted with Keep Floral. She's been tearing it up at taking amazing photos and creating easy, healthy recipes, PLUS her blog just went vegetarian. 

Here she is just styling away.... and check out that plate from Mortar & Stone.

Orange Chiffon cake is a variation on ... well ... Chiffon cake. Chiffon is a light & airy cake that utilizes whipped egg whites for fluff and sugar and oil for moisture. It's similar to Genois & Angel Food. I've never been a huge fan of Angel Food Cake, so I was interested to see if this would be a recipe that fared any better. I ended up topping the cake with a citrus glaze to pump up the orange flavor. 

Chiffon cake is definitely NOT my cake of choice (because who needs any other type of cake besides chocolate?), but this was a good recipe to add to the wheel house and practice some technique and I'm a sucker for citrus. 

A few tips for baking Chiffon cake

Bring Your Eggs to Room Temp. Room temp eggs ensures you're getting maximum volume out of whipping them. This is a great tip for any pastry or bake that involves whipping egg whites. If you're trying to add volume, you might as well try to get as much as possible

Use a Springform Pan. I did not have one of these for my bake and it would have been a lot easier using one. I lined my cake pans with parchment paper, which did not yield the best results. 

Flip Your Cake Over. Huh? Well if you're anything like me, your first Chiffon cake bake won't come out perfectly. The top of my cakes were caved, which shouldn't usually be a problem because I don't think chiffon cake is traditionally iced. The caving would have caused my icing to pool so I flipped the cake over for a perfectly smooth top. 

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Find the Recipe in the Tartine Cookbook

Buy the book here

Or Try a similar recipe here