The Best Chocolate Chiffon Cake

My Mom made the most delicious cakes for special events like birthdays, or Valentine's Day. When I saw the angel food pan coming out, I knew that we were going to have either a delicious Angel Food cake or her favourite Chocolate Chiffon cake. It was going to be a special day. 

Mom would have had her 98th birthday this past week. She passed away from cancer when she was only 54, and I was 20 years old. We should have had so many more celebrations together. My kids never got to know her, but I keep trying to tell little stories and memories about the Grandma they never met. I thought I would like to celebrate her birthday this year by making the Chocolate Chiffon Cake for my family.

My mom, Josephine or Joey, as everyone called her, was born on a small farm in Saskatchewan during the 1920s. She was the 10th child born, and they had already lost 3 of the siblings to infectious diseases that swept across the prairies in those years. 

The day she was born was her older brother Jim's 9th birthday, and he was very sad because no one was paying attention to him. It was not being such a special day, and there wasn't going to be a cake or any presents. He just sat out on the step for a good part of the day. Later their father came out to him and handed him a little bundle and told him that she was his new little sister and that she was his present and the very best present he could have wished for. He took this very seriously, cared for her, and loved her deeply. She told me that she followed him around like a puppy! They remained very close and always tried to keep in touch, despite living far apart, right until my mom's death.  

Happy Birthday thoughts to Uncle Jim and Mom on their day.

Jim and Joey

My mom and her parents.

This vintage cake might sound harder to bake than it really is, so I hope people just go ahead and give it a try. Trust me, the taste is worth it! I like to approach it one bowl at a time, and then the combining part is quick and easy. This is all about keeping it light, fluffy and yummy. 

Chocolate Chiffon Cake 

• 1/2 cup Cocoa
• 2/3 cup Boiling Water

• 1 3/4 cup  Flour (sifted) cake flour is ideal
• 1 3/4 cup Granulated Sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons Baking Soda
• 1 teaspoon Salt

• 1/2 cup Cooking Oil
• 7 Egg Yolks (room temperature)
• 2 teaspoons Vanilla

• 7 Egg Whites (room temperature)
• 1/2 teaspoon Cream of Tartar

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

Clean a 10-inch angel food tube pan with soap and water. It is important not to have any grease on the pan or it won't rise as well. I also like to cut a piece of parchment to fit in the bottom of the pan. The eggs have to be at room temperature so that they whip up to maximum volume. 

In a small bowl, combine the cocoa powder with the boiling water and stir so it is well combined. Now just put it to the side so it cools down..

The second bowl is for the dry ingredients. Combine the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt.

The third bowl has the oil, egg yolks and vanilla. Mix until smooth.

In the fourth bowl beat/whisk the egg whites and cream of tartar until it forms very stiff peaks.

Next, we gently mix the cooled cocoa mixture into the oil and egg yolk mixture. Don't beat it, just combine it.

Now, using beaters we mix the cocoa and oil mix into the second bowl with the flour mixture and beat until smooth. 

Carefully use a rubber spatula to fold a quarter of the egg whites into the batter and repeat until all the egg whites are folded in and combined. Be gentle and just fold, do not stir. You want it mixed, but you really want to trap as much air into the cake as possible.

Pour into the ungreased tube pan. Bake for 60 minutes at 325 degrees or until a wooden skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.  Let it cool upside down in the pan. 

When cool, turn it run a knife around the pan and remove the cake!

We like to dust it with icing sugar and serve it with ice cream or whipping cream. Fresh raspberries make a particularly nice garnish.

Enjoy!

Comfort Foods and Carrot Cakes

What is your favourite comfort food? 

 "Our Favorite Foods" has been a topic with my family and friends lately.
What foods trigger your happy memories?  Did your grandma make a special treat just for you? What kind of things did you first learn to cook? Have you shared meals that were special dates with your partner? Did you have a favourite restaurant? Our sense of smell and taste connect to our memories in very special and sometimes emotional ways.

My husband and I started dating very young; in fact, I was still in high school. The convenient place to go was a little 10 table restaurant about a 10-minute walk from my house at the end of my street. We almost always got a pepperoni and mushroom pizza. I don't remember how we originally came to make that pizza choice, but it was a decade later before we realized that neither of us really loved that type of pizza and we were just ordering it to make the other happy. That pizza is now a comfort food for both of us because it was part of a happy, loving and secure time with a full future ahead of us.


In difficult times like we are experiencing now, people are looking for comfort and security as they try to deal with the emotional and physical stress around them. Food is one thing we need to deal with each day, so it is natural to try and make choices that give us comfort.

People are currently challenged by problems obtaining food from stores. We are concerned about making our food healthy and nutritious and as the true economic impact is becoming apparent we also want to look at getting the most for our money. More people are finding time to cook while sheltering in place, and we are trying to use what we already have in our homes.  I keep thinking of the families before us that survived the great depression and the shortages and rationing that occurred during the war years.  They found amazing ways to work with what they had and working together rose to the challenge of getting through those difficult times.

A month ago, on a cold Manitoba day, my coworker and I made homemade vegetable soup at work with our seniors. It was an enjoyable experience getting a 10 out of 10 from participants. The warm smell of soup in the hallway was enticing to everyone going past. We had leftover uncooked carrots, and that generated a whole discussion about what we should do with those carrots. Make more soup? Stew? Then someone said Carrot Cake and the rest was history. There was a massive agreement that the best thing to do with carrots was to make a cake! That followed with a discussion about what is the best way to make a carrot cake. Will it be raisins or walnuts, cinnamon or nutmeg, and how about icing?

I have a lot of carrots in my home right now, so I dug out my own favourite simple carrot cake recipe. The house smells Yummy. Give it a try, use what you have and change it up to make it your own. I like to make it as a loaf or as cupcake/muffins for extra easy snacks. This recipe freezes very well too.

The Coopers' Carrot Cake

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup canola oil 
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

• 1  1/3 cup  all-purpose flour
• 1  1/2 tsp baking powder 
• 1  1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1  1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg

• 2 cups grated carrots

Method
Preheat the oven to 350° F or 180° C

• Beat the sugar and oil in your mixing bowl 
• Continue beating and add the eggs one at a time
• Add vanilla
• Add in the next 6 dry ingredients
• Stir to mix
• Add in the grated carrots
  
• Pour your batter into a greased 9 by 13 cake pan. 
• Cook for about 40 to 45 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean from the center. 
  
• Let cool and then frost if desired.

Basic Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:

• 8 oz brick of softened cream cheese  
• 1/4 cup of butter 
• 1 tsp vanilla 
• 2 cups icing sugar

Method

• Using an electric mixer, combine the cream cheese, butter and vanilla  in your mixing bowl
• Add icing sugar and beat until it is fluffy 
• Frost your cake. 

Note that you can add other flavourings to your frosting, and you can stir in other items at the end. One of my favorites is to substitute coconut flavouring for the vanilla, and beat in some shredded coconut  to make a cute Easter cupcake treat, especially if you add mini chocolate eggs on top.

Carrot image courtesy of Pixsabay