Strawberry & Elderflower Chiffon Cake

Cheesy family photo!

   Like many, I've had my heart set on a Kitchen Aid stand mixer for some time. Forever jealous of those who already own one, I finally decided to 'invest' in my future bakes.

   I ordered my wee little robo-mixer online last night and collected from my local Waitrose this afternoon. It was all loaded up for me in a trolley ready to wheel to the car park. I transfered the royal cargo into the boot of my noddy car and poodled off home dreaming of the chiffon cakes I could now bake, for now I can whip up as many egg whites as I fancy. (Otherwise, I'm just too impatient to whisk 9 egg whites to stiff peaks by hand!)

   Although my recent purchase of American measuring cups has proven helpful when baking from online recipes, I decided that I felt more confident baking something I've not made before in metric. Far too excited to bake and too impatient to convert cups to metric, I was lucky to stumble across a lemon chiffon cake recipe on The Cake Hunter...another Sophie, of course!

   I decided to make a strawberry version, seeing as its 'summer' and Wimbledon fortnight. Inspired by Steph from Riverside Baking's recent bakes with cordial I used strawberry and elderflower cordial to flavour the cake.

Strawberry & Elderflower Chiffon Cake
(Adapted from The Cake Hunter)
     9 large eggs, separated
     375g golden caster sugar
     270ml water (with Bottle Green Strawberry and Elderflower Cordial diluted)
     1 1/2 tsp baking powder
     2 tsp salt
     430g plain flour
     180ml sunflower oil
     zest of 1 lemon
     Fresh fruit to decorate
     Strawberry jam
     Cream cheese frosting

• Heat the oven to 150 degrees. Grease and line 2 x 9 inch springform cake tins.
• Beat the eggs whites in a stand mixer until stiff. 
• Mix together the remaining ingredients in a LARGE mixing bowl (I had very little room to fold in the egg whites in my mixing bowl, oops!)
• Fold in the egg whites with a large metal spoon.
• Divide the mixture between the two tins, pouring from a low height to ensure no air is knocked out.
• Bake for 1 hour, until golden and a skewer comes out clean.
• Remove from the oven and place tins upside down on wire cooling racks for 10 minutes.
• After, take the cake out the tins and leave to cool completely.

   To make the frosting, I improvised...feeling a little over confident with my new robo-mixer I threw the remnants of a box of icing sugar, a large spoon of margarine and a whole tub of regular Philadelphia into the mixer and gave it a little whizz. Of course, I had to be a little girlie as usual and trickled in a few drops of pink food colouring!

   Once cooled, I sandwiched the cakes together with a layer of strawberry jam and some frosting. To finish, I topped the giant cake with fresh fruit and some gold dust...naturally.

   10 minutes later, the cake started sinking...overconfident was I no more! Half way through baking, I swapped shelves as these giant sized cakes wouldn't fit side by side on the same shelf in my oven. Lesson learnt. 

   I took a slice out and drove it over to Harriet to give her a cakey boost to her busy week. The slice, or wedge, just about managed the giant roundabout between our houses. I got home a further 10 minutes later to find that the middle of the cake had sunk some more, and pink frosting was oozing out.

   Sinking strawberry cake tasted good but never, ever, again will I open the oven door half way through baking! I've also since noticed that I forgot to read the end of Sophie's recipe where it mentions to freeze the cake for 10 minutes before icing to firm up. Doh!