Chai Chiffon Cake Recipe

On By ally bakesIn Cake, Easy, Recipe

I always seem to have at least five or more egg yolks in my fridge at a time since I’m always making Italian meringue buttercream, which as you might know, requires A LOT of egg whites. I usually make leche flan in order to use up those egg yolks, but in order to change things up a bit, I’m making an egg-yolk based chiffon cake.

tempImageForSave 2

Usually when you think of egg yolk based desserts, you think of rich, thick, custardy-type desserts like crème brûlée, leche flan, or lemon curd. Light and airy desserts usually have an egg white base because of the amazing whipping properties of egg whites, but this dessert is amazing because of how much it rises, even though it lacks the whites and has so much YOLK.

Another great thing about this cake is that the only source of fat in this whole cake are the egg yolks itself, so since this cake uses seven large egg yolks, with each egg yolk being about 4.5g of fat, this whole cake has about 31.5g of fat in total.

I also happened to buy a case of chai tea a few days ago, and really wanted to incorporate those spices and black tea flavour into the cake somehow, so I added some tea into the cake itself, and then I made a sugar syrup to brush onto the cake, and finished the cake with a glaze made from the sugar syrup and icing sugar mixed together. If you really wanted to amp up the spice in the cake, you could definitely add the actual chai spices (ground cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, peppercorn, cloves, etc) straight into the cake itself, but I’m planning on making a spiced ginger coconut cake very soon (stay tuned!!!), so I went easy on the spices for this cake.

tempImageForSaveI love this cake because it was super easy to make and it was a great way to use egg yolks that doesn’t result in a custard of some sort. Here is the recipe:

Chai Chiffon Cake

  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

Ingredients

7 egg yolks from large eggs
175g (7/8 cups) granulated sugar
75g (1/3 cup) brewed chai tea (can be substituted for just hot water)
105g (7/8 cup) sifted cake flour
5g (1 tsp) baking powder
2g (1/2 tsp) salt

For the chai syrup:
125g (1/2 cup) hot water
1 chai tea bag
50g (1/4 cup) sugar
1/2 cinnamon stick

For the glaze:
75g (5 tbsp) of the chai syrup (above)
100g (1/2 cup) icing sugar

Topping:
63g (1/2 cup) chopped, toasted walnuts (optional)

Method:

  1. Set your oven to 180C/350F. Line the bottom of an 8″ round pan with parchment, but do not grease it!
  2. In a medium mixing bowl, sift and whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt, and set aside.
  3. In a stand mixer with a whisk attachment, whip the egg yolks on medium to high speed, gradually raining the sugar in until fully incorporated and the egg yolks have gone from a dark yellow, to pale pastel yellow and is very stiff. About 5 min.
  4. Add in the tea or hot water and mix for a few seconds to combine.
  5. Add in the dry ingredients and whisk on high speed just until combined, and pour into the prepared cake pan.
  6. Bake for 30-35 min, do not check on the cake until minimum 30 min have passed or you might deflate the cake.
  7. Take the cake out of the oven and turn the cake pan upside down and leave to cool on a wire cooling rack.

For the simple syrup:

  1. Steep your tea for 3-5 min, pour into a small saucepan, removing the tea bag, and adding the sugar and cinnamon stick.
  2. Boil on high heat until the sugar has dissolved and the syrup comes to a rolling boil, then take off heat and let it cool before brushing on to the top surface of the cake.

For the glaze:

  1. In a small mixing bowl, add the icing sugar, and a tbsp of the chai syrup at a time, whisking between additions until you get the perfect runny glaze consistency.
  2. Drizzle or pour over the top of your cake and decorate with walnuts (optional), serve immediately and enjoy!

Feel free to check out my video tutorial here:

 

5 thoughts on “Chai Chiffon Cake Recipe”

    1. Thanks Nicholas! I’m always looking for ways to use my leftover egg yolks so I had to get a little creative haha, I’m open to suggestions as well! You should definitely try making Italian meringue buttercream!! It’s my go-to for cakes because the texture is amazing, and it’s easy to flavour. Super glad to have inspired you!!:)

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Leave a comment