Workshop: Green Tea Chiffon Cake

I hosted a cake workshop for 12 students past weekend. We made Green Tea Chiffon Cake and decorated them for Father's day. Here are some final products.

Equipment 

For beginners in baking, it is necessary to talk about the basic equipment and materials before we can follow recipes properly.

1. Electrical Mixer: This is a must have tool if you are serious about baking. I cannot image how to beat egg white for 10 minutes by hand. I have an KitchenAid Professional 600 Series 6 Quart Bowl-Lift Stand Mixer which I highly recommend. You want to have a mixer that has stainless steel bowl so that you can put it in freezer when you make whipped cream frosting.

2. Mixing Bowls: I have a set of Cuisinart Stainless Steel Mixing Bowls. I would recommend to get mixing bowls with lid so that you can cover your bread dough during bulk fermentation and proofing.

3. Hand tools: you should have a balloon whisk, a silicon spatula, an icing spatula

4. Baking Pans: The most common one I use is the Wilton Aluminum Performance Pans Set of 2 9-Inch Round Cake Set. To make chiffon cake, you need the aluminum pans, not the non-stick type, so that the cake can rise properly.

5. Cake turn table is used during decoration. The one I have is Wilton Trim-N-Turn Ultra Rotating Cake Stand.

6. Cake decorating set: This is a good starter kit - WILTON 2104-2532 Cake Decorating Set 25-Pieces, which include everything you need to decorate a cake - piping bags, couplers, decoration tips, and icing colors.

7. Cooling rack is used to allow air flow on both sides of cake to let it cool properly.

8. Kitchen scale: you need to have a kitchen scale that support tare function.

9. Egg Separator: you do not need an egg separator. I prefer to use hands only.
10. Cake lever: you do not really need it, a bread knife and steady hand works well enough.
11. Flour sifter: any kind would do. It is used to sift the flour to make sure it does not cake up.

12. Parchment paper sometimes is available at Costco. Otherwise, any grocery store will have it.

13. Measurement cup and spoons

Material

1. Cake flour: you can get this from any grocery store.  If you run out of it at last minute, you can use all purpose flour. For each cup of all purpose flour, replace 2 TBSP of it with cornstarch or corn flour.

2. Granulated Sugar: this is just the regular sugar
3. Large Egg: in all my recipes, I use the extra large egg from Costco.
4. Heavy whipping cream: this is used to make whipped cream frosting. You should prepare more than you need just in case you waste a batch. An 8" double layer cake needs about 4 cup of heavy whipping cream.

5. Powered sugar: some recipes call it confectioner's sugar or icing sugar, is a finely ground sugar with anti-cake agent. It is used for frosting.

 5. Green tea powder: I bought this from Ranch 99 - a local Chinese grocery store.

Chiffon cakes

Here is the ingredient comparison for different chiffon cake variations.

Ingredients	White	Green Tea	Chocalate
Egg Large	5	5	5
Cake flour	85g	75g	60g
Green tea powder	0	12g	0
Cocoa powder	0	0	30g
Oil	40g	40g	30g
Milk	40g	40g	40g
Sugar for egg white	60g	60g	60g
Sugar for egg yolk	30g	30g	30g
Lemon juice	0	0	1tsp

Here are some recipes
Chiffon Cake(戚風蛋糕)
Chiffon Cake - Chocolate
Chiffon Cake - Green Tea
Chiffon Cake with Buttercream Rose Swirl
Chiffon Cake with Strawberries and Cream
Chiffon Cake with Whipped Cream and Christmas poinsettia

Sugar Water (optional)

1. Boiling 75g water and 38g sugar until the sugar is fully melt. Set aside to let is cool.
2. Mix in 1 TBSP Brandy or Rum

Whipped Cream

1. 4 cup of heavy cream + 1 cup powdered sugar + 1 bag Gelatin. (optional add vanilla extract or green tea powder for flavor)
2. Beat with stand mixer to desired consistency.