Black sesame chiffon

I have wanted to bake this since about 2 years ago but never got down to it because I could not find a recipe for it. All the recipes I came across were for small pans but nothing suited the 25-26" pan I had. I had come across this recipe: http://greencilantro.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/black-sesame-chiffon-cake.html. It claimed that it was for a 10" pan. However, the ingredients only used 4 eggs, which didn't seem plausible for such a big pan unless it was going to come out really flat. I multiplied the proportions to 7 eggs (which my favourite blogger seems to recommend for 25"pans) and it came to something quite ridiculous e.g. way too much liquid, and way too much sesame seed powder.

As such, I decided to adapt from my favourite and most successful chiffon blogger and used this recipe for cocoa chiffon http://thedomesticgoddesswannabe.com/2014/11/chocolate-chiffon-cake/

I initially thought of reducing the cake flour because from past experience with this recipe, it was very dense. But after the flour went in, the resulting batter seemed too thin to hold up the sesame seed powder. In the end, I more or less followed the recipe but with a few tweaks.

Rising tall with a few cracks

Ingredients (for 26 inch pan)

7 eggs, separated

190g sugar

42g black sesame powder

224g cake flour

¾ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

120 ml oil (½ cup)

192ml fresh milk

Beautiful! Pardon the air pockets.

Method

1) Prepare the black sesame seeds. Toast in a pan until lightly roasted. Let cool and pulverize in a food processor. 

2) In a small bowl, combine the following dry ingredients: cake flour, salt, baking powder, and black sesame powder.

3) In a big bowl, beat the egg yolks with half the sugar until the sugar has mostly dissolved. Add the oil and beat until paler in colour. Pour in the milk and whisk to incorporate.

4) In three batches, sift in the dry ingredients and fold in gently. Ensure no lumps.

5) In a very clean bowl, beat the egg whites until foamy. Add the sugar in three additions and beat till stiff peaks.

6) Add ⅓ of the meringue into the yolk batter to loosen. With the next third, fold it in until no streaks of white remain. Finally, pour the batter into the remaining ⅓ meringue and this time, fold very carefully until no streaks remain.

7) Pour into the chiffon tin, making sure to distribute the batter throughout the tin. Concentrate on the sides rather than the centre. For some reason, the cake seems to rise more in the middle centre funnel than along the sides. Using a spatula, making slashes in the batter to dispel the air bubbles and especially run the spatular along the rim (as you can see in the picture, I wasn't totally successful in this area). Drop the cake tin onto the countertop from a 10 cm height. Repeat a few times to dispel the big air bubbles. 

8) Bake at 170 deg C for 65 minutes. After about 45 minutes, you can tent with foil if it gets too brown, or turn down the temp to between 160 to 165 deg C.

9) Remove from the oven and immediately invert over a can to keep the cake elevated. When completely cool (about 3 hours in winter!), unmould by literally carving out the cake from the tin. 

10) Serve with the top inverted onto a plate - the flat bottom has now become the top. This hides the cracked top.