Honey Earl Grey Chiffon Cake

A fun bunch of my mummy friends were interested to learn chiffon cake from me, so we had a babies baking playdate. Of course the mummies baked, not the babies :D And it was really difficult to bake with the babies around! It was funny to see all the babies taking turns to cry for milk and the mummies going.. "Wait for the cake to go into the oven first!". Really tiring but great fun :).

I was interested to try Earl Grey chiffon cake because a dear friend of mine Sharron had told me that it was one of the best chiffon cakes! And it was... oh so good! I added honey into the recipe as I remembered from my Honey Matcha Chiffon Cake that the addition of honey just adds a third dimension into the cake!

If there is one chiffon cake you must try, please try this one! It is so fragrant, smooth and refreshing! It is so loaded with earl grey flavour, it was better than having a cup of honey milk earl grey! The texture was also really soft and moist, due to the honey. All the mummies said the cake was really good and my son also whacked 3 slices in a go!! :)

Ingredients (makes one 17 cm chiffon tin)
3 egg yolks
20g sugar
40g vegetable oil
40 ml earl grey tea (3 earl grey tea bags in 50 ml hot milk + 1 tbsp honey)
60g cake flour
Tea leaves from 3 earl grey tea bags

4 egg whites
45g sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1. Heat up 50 ml fresh milk and dip earl grey tea bags. Cover and let it simmer for 3 min. Remove tea bags and add in honey. Remember to really squeeze out the milk from the tea bags for strong tea flavour. The tea bags will soak up milk, so actual volume will be around 40 ml after the addition of honey. Leave to cool (top row, left pic). Keep the tea leaves.

2. Preheat oven to 160°C.
3. Beat egg yolks with sugar with whisk till pale yellow before stirring in oil and 40 ml earl grey tea (weigh out 40g to be precise) (top row, centre pic).
4. Next add in sieved flour (top row, right pic) and whisk till no trace of flour found. Add the tea leaves (middle row, left pic) and mix well (middle row, centre pic).
5. Meringue: Beat the egg whites with ¼ tsp cream of tartar till stiff peak, mixing in caster sugar in 2 additions (middle row, right pic).
6. Fold in the meringue gently into the batter 1/3 at a time (bottom row, left pic).
7. Scoop the batter into the chiffon tin instead of pouring as the batter is thicker. This is to prevent air pockets (bottom row, centre pic).
8. Gently tap the tin on table 3x to remove air bubbles.
9. Bake the cake for 15 min at 160°C then 35 min at 150°C.
10. Invert immediately once out of the oven to cool.
11. Unmould after the cake is cool. Bottom row, right pic shows the cake after cooling, right before unmoulding.

I just bought some snow powder which is a form of icing sugar mix that doesn't melt from Phoon Huat, so I was eager to try it out. See how the snow powder transforms a cake with the help of a floral stencil! Just place the stencil on top of the cake and sieve some snow powder on top of the cake. I found the snow powder more fine than the normal icing sugar, so probably I will take note to use a finer mesh the next time round. But it was really good and didn't melt at all even through the next day.

Every slice was really packed with earl grey goodness and very soft and moist. I love it! Thanks Sharron for bringing this onto my radar!

I think of lovely Karen as I write this too as she's really good with earl grey chiffon. Hope you feel better soon! *hugs*

With love,

Susanne