Rose Levy Beranbaum calls this Chocolate Chiffon Cake "guilt free" in The Cake Bible (1988), because, she says, one slice of this cake only has 110mg of cholesterol. Since I started baking, I've moved on from butter cakes to chiffon and sponge cakes. I find butter cakes more challenging. However, this version is my second attempt at this chiffon cake recipe. The first time around, the chocolate batter was too stiff. I had mis-read the recipe and only used 1/4 cup of boiling water instead of 3/4 cup to make the chocolate mixture. I started over again, and now I have 1/3 cup cocoa powder left in my pantry and 8 1/2 ounces of egg whites left over in the refrigerator. A third cup cocoa powder isn't enough to make a cake but I suppose I can make an egg white omelet!
I combined the egg whites into the chocolate batter using a slotted skimmer. This is not a common kitchen implement; it's a spatula with a round head filled with tiny holes. For cooking Chinese food, I thought the only use for a slotted skimmer is to drain deep-fried wontons and spring rolls. Since I now eschew anything deep-fried, I found another use for the skimmer: removing blanched asparagus spears and sugar snap peas from boiling water. Now I have yet another use for it! It worked really well blending the egg whites into the batter without over-mixing the batter or deflating the whipped egg whites. The finished height of this chiffon cake is 4 inches at the edges and 4 1/2 inches in the center. I trimmed the top to make it even all around. The scraps were delicious!
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