Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chiffon Cake
I decided to try this combination since I had the peanut butter powder I bought in the US - great for baking, pancakes, and protein shakes! I couldn't find any recipe online, so I made my own.
It's my first time baking something with the marbling effect. I was marvelling at the marbling #alliterationftw. You can see from the photo that it's relatively fluffy at the top but dense at the bottom.
Chiffon cakes are meant to be light, and I initially planned to use just peanut butter powder and cocoa powder, so that the batter wouldn't get too weighed down by gooey peanut butter and melted chocolate. But how can I have a peanut butter cake without REAL peanut butter? That just feels wrong.
The advantage of experimentation is that it invites mistakes to be made. So I included Skippy's creamy peanut butter into my recipe. The batter became unbelievably gluey and sticky that I had to add water to offset the dryness. Even then, the batter was a lot heavier than how it should be. I'll use less peanut butter next time and more peanut butter powder maybe - or just leave the real peanut butter as a glaze over the top of the chiffon instead of mixing it into the batter!
The consistency was not very fluffy (not surprising since the batter was heavy with peanut butter). It could also be due to the reduced caster sugar in the meringue and egg yolk mixture that reduced the incorporation of air into the batter. Or, maybe it was the omission of baking powder from the recipe?
Feedback for taste was pretty dire. Tasters commented (and I agree) that neither peanut butter nor chocolate could be tasted. Some thought that it tastes like mooncake (a traditional pastry with lotus paste filling eaten during the mid-autumn festival)! One taster who doesn't like peanut butter liked this, because it didn't taste like peanut butter at all >.< Tasters who were good cooks thought it was too flour-y and that the peanut butter powder had a stale taste. What a tragic outcome in terms of taste ... it just goes to show that looks doesn't mean everything, even for cakes.
When I checked, I realised that my peanut butter powder HAD indeed expired at the end of 2015! Thank God none of my tasters got a tummyache from my carelessness. That could've explained the strange taste of the whole cake.
So many things went wrong... so baker beware if you want to try this recipe! I will try this again sometime with fresh peanut butter powder and update this space again.
Ingredients:
Egg yolk mixture -
4 egg yolks
20g caster sugar
40g vegetable oil
97g water
50g creamy peanut butter
50g cake flour
20g peanut butter powder
10g cocoa powder
Egg white mixture -
4 egg whites
90g caster sugar
Pinch of cream of tartar
Method:
Preheat your oven to 160C. I don't normally do this right at the beginning since I take about an hour for preparing my ingredients and batter, making it a waste of electricity. Usually, I preheat the oven after my meringue is done.
1. Pour hot water in the bowl you're using to beat your egg whites to remove traces of grease.
2. Separate the egg yolks and egg whites into different large bowls. Crack the eggs over the bowl for the egg whites, holding the shell upside such that the yolk remains in the shell while the whites drip into the bowl. This is probably the most fool-proof way of making sure your whites are not contaminated by your yolks (necessary to whip up a good meringue)! Set aside the bowl with the egg whites.
3. Beat egg yolks and caster sugar on high speed till thick, creamy pale yellow. Mix the vegetable oil, water, and peanut butter in and blend well.
4. Sift the cake flour and peanut butter powder into the egg yolk mixture while simultaneously using a whisk to incorporate the dry into the wet.
5. Once fully mixed, pour out a third of this into a smaller bowl. Mix the cocoa powder into this small portion well. You now have two bowls of egg yolk mixture - one with peanut butter batter that's light brown, and one with peanut butter chocolate batter that's dark brown. Set them aside.
6. Use a handheld mixer or KA stand mixer to beat egg whites on medium speed till foamy. Then add in one third of caster sugar and the pinch of cream of tartar (to stabilize the meringue) and continue beating till creamy. Add in remaining caster sugar in half-portions and beat till meringue has stiff peaks and glossy. Turn the bowl upside down - if nothing slides out, you got it right.
7. Portion about a third of meringue into your peanut butter (PB) batter and mix well (but not too hard, you don't want to lose the air). Put about a quarter in your peanut butter and chocolate (PB&C) batter and mix well too. Continue portioning your meringue into the two bowls of PB or PB&C batter.
8. Alternate the pouring of batter into the chiffon cake pan (I used an 8 inch but the batter didn't rise very high; I think 7 inch will work better) so that you get chocolate spirals in your peanut butter batter. For me this was entirely done based on random movements since it was my first time...I'm unaware of any skill involved but I know there must be some (I've seen a chiffon cake with patches on it like a cow before. Follow @spiffycakes on Instagram and be amazed.)
9. Bake at 160C for about 50 min or until tester comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool upside down completely before unpanning the cake.
