Never Make The Mistake Of Cooling Chiffon Cake Right Side Up

For anyone who may be unfamiliar, chiffon cake is a type of sponge cake that has a light and fluffy texture — it's similar to an angel food cake, although there are a couple of differences in the ingredient list. Chiffon cake's key ingredients are flour, egg whites, egg yolks, sugar, and oil, whereas angel food cake requires only egg whites and uses no oil (or any other type of fat). 

Thus, chiffon cake has a bit more density than angel food cake, despite still being quite light. All in all, nailing this balanced consistency is important to successfully baking a chiffon cake, which can be daunting, but luckily there are a few tricks that can help you achieve this. One key part of the process? Cooling the chiffon cake upside down.

Chiffon cake — which you will likely bake in an angel food cake pan (also known as a tube pan) — needs to cool completely before you remove it from the pan. Otherwise, the air bubbles could collapse, which would make the consistency too dense. To ensure that your chiffon cake keeps its proper height and airiness — and doesn't collapse in on itself — it's recommended that you place the entire pan upside down and let everything cool completely before removing it.

The step of cooling the chiffon cake upside down is important, but it's not the only tip you'll want to keep in mind to make sure your cake comes out as perfect as possible. To start with, you'll want to use an angel food cake pan that is not non-stick, nor should you spray or grease the pan with oil or butter beforehand. This is important because the cake batter needs to stick to the sides of the pan as it rises to support the shape and height of the cake. 

However, if you're worried about not being able to remove it from the pan when it's done cooling, you can spray the pan with water before pouring in the batter to help this process. When it comes to mixing the egg whites in, you'll want to use a whisk — rather than a flat spatula — so that you maintain the air bubbles. If you lose them, then you risk the chiffon cake coming out too dense. 

While you want to keep those air bubbles, you don't want them to turn into air pockets that are big enough to mess up the cake's texture. To prevent this, pour the batter into the pan from a height of six or eight inches above, then gently tap the pan onto the counter to release any large air pockets. Once you nail the basic chiffon cake, you can start experimenting with flavors, such as lemon, chocolate, or orange chiffon cake.