All natural Blueberry chiffon

Another school term has ended. Although I welcome this short school break now, I too have mix feelings about the coming year end events. Year end exams, a family wedding, birthdays, oversea visitors and a trip away. It just spells busy busy busy. :P Nevertheless, some of these events are really much awaited for, so I'm really looking forward. Although we didn't plan for anything big this one week break, I really don't mind these "unplanned" days. Seating around sipping tea or just lazing on the sofa watching Food Network, haha!

Nevertheless, I am still baking away in the kitchen, and today's post is just one of them bakes which I did last month. ;) An all natural blueberry chiffon cake. Why all natural? Well I didn't use baking powder or cream of tartar, so it's "chemical" free!

I think many people out there believe that it is a must to add in baking powder or some levening agent in order to achieve a nice tall chiffon cake. Oh no, it's not necessarily true....I'm here to prove otherwise. ;) In fact I have not used any levening agent for my chiffons for quite awhile now. I am sure many bakers that bakes chiffons regularily will agree with me on this; it is really a matter of beating your whites to the right consistency and baking at the correct temperature. Of course many other details like using a trusty recipe, the folding of the batter and cooling the cake itself can also incur the quality of the end product. But I believe through practice and knowing your techniques well will naturally make baking a chiffon a real breeze.

Ingredients for Fresh Blueberry Chiffon Cake (21 to 23 cm diameter):
Egg Yolk Mixture:
5 egg yolks
100g of fresh blueberry compote (*see note)

60ml fresh milk
80 ml corn oil

70g sugar
130g Cake flour
3 g salt

*Note: Place 100g of fresh blueberry, 1 tsp fresh lemon juice and 2-3 tbsp caster suagr in a saucepan and cook mixture at low heat. Stir constantly and cook till the blueberries have burst and ozzed out it's juices. Once it thickens about 8 minutes, remove from fire and let cool for use later.

Egg White Mixture:
5 egg white
10g cornflour

70g sugar

Method:

• In a large mixing bowl, add in all of the egg yolk ingredients and mix well till everything is well incorporated and smooth.
• Preheat the oven to 175C.
• In another mixing bowl, add in all the egg white and beat using a mixer at medium speed till foamy. Without stopping the mixer, gradually add in the sugar and beat till stiff peaks. Turn the mixer to lowest speed, add in corn flour and beat till combined.
• Gently fold a quarter portion of the white mixture into the yolk mixture till well combined. Then add the yolk mixture to the white mixture and gently fold everything together till all is incorporated.
• Pour the batter into a tube pan (no grease or non stick please) and place in the preheated oven to bake for 30 to 35 minutes. Tester comes out clean and it's ready.
• Remove from oven and immediately invert it to cool. Do not invert/ remove cake from pan until completely cooled.

I am so glad my blueberry chiffon turned out purplish blue! I was kinda worried it'll be greyish and dull. I believe the lemon juice in the compote might have helped kept the colour. ;) And as you can see the texture of the chiffon, it is soft and fluff...yummy. ;) I believe you can use this same recipe with most of the summer berries, be it strawberries or rasphberries.

Perhaps it's time you bake an all nautral chiffon cake for your love ones too. And lately I've seen blueberries on sale in the supermarket too. So what are you waiting for? Try it and let me know how you like it. ;)

Have a great day you all! Cheers!