Baking #30: Caramelized Banana Chiffon Cake

I had been a little bit occupied with work over the past few weeks hence my updates became irregular compared to before. My baking mood kicked in yesterday and therefore, I ended up baking Caramelized Banana Chiffon Cake with the Gula Melaka which Annie gave me when Sister visited her last month.

I requested a colleague of mine to get me some Pisang Berangan. They weren’t fully ripe yet when I got them. So, I let them sit in the kitchen until they were ripe enough to be used as baking ingredient. Anyways, I felt guilty of not using the Gula Melaka soon after I got them from Annie. I remembered that I once came across a chiffon cake recipe that made use of both Gula Melaka and banana. So, Caramelized Banana Chiffon Cake it was.

Caramelized Banana Chiffon Cake (adapted from Cuisine Paradise)

Cuisine Paradise made a chart of ingredients for the same recipe in three different pan sizes. There were sizes for 17cm, 20cm and 23cm. I chose the biggest size as I had too much banana spared at home.

Ingredients:

• 8 egg yolks
• 50g Gula Melaka / fine granulated sugar
• 250g bananas (without skin and ripe)
• 60ml corn oil
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
• 130g cake flour
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 8 egg whites
• 110g fine granulated sugar *80g
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar

Directions:

• Melt Gula Melaka with 5g of unsalted butter in a heavy duty sauce pot over low heat. When completely melted, pour on bananas and start mashing the bananas until they turn into puree stage. If you want a texture with banana chunks, you could choose not to mash them to puree stage.
• Beat egg yolks until it turned pale and creamy in color.
• Add in corn oil followed by vanilla extract and mix until well combined.
• Add in caramelized mashed banana mixture and mix until well combined.
• Sift in cake flour, baking powder and salt and mix until no flour lump could be seen.
• Beat egg whites with cream of tartar until they turn foamy and frothy. Gradually add in fine granulated sugar in three batches until it forms stiff peaks.
• Gently fold in 1/3 of the meringue into the egg yolk batter. Proceed similarly with the rest of the meringue until no white streak could be seen.
• Pour batter into a 23cm chiffon pan and bake in a preheated oven of 160 degree Celsius for approximately 50 minutes or until an inserted cake tester comes out clean.
• Invert the chiffon pan immediately when removed from the oven for approximately 2 hours or cool enough to be removed from the pan.

A colleague of mine once mentioned to me that the holes in my chiffon cakes were big. She asked whether I used high speed to whip my egg whites. True indeed, I used the highest speed to whip my egg whites. LOL! She then advised me to use the lowest speed when whipping the egg whites so that air doesn’t get trapped in the meringue/batter when whipping.

The black spots on my cake were the banana chunks. I did not mash the bananas into fine puree stage as my parents preferred a chunky texture. Most of my colleagues preferred a chunky texture too apart from one.

Anyways, if you want to save the hassle of melting the Gula Melaka, you could always beat the Gula Melaka with the egg yolks instead of melting them with 5g of unsalted butter over a heavy duty sauce pot. But I chose to go through the tedious method so that I get the desired taste. Mom did mentioned that the chiffon cake tasted more fragrant with Gula Melaka. To be honest, caramelized Gula Melaka tasted like salted caramel to me. So, I wondered if salted caramel was made this way? LOL!