What is National Lemon Chiffon Cake Day?
The National Lemon Chiffon Cake Day, March 29th, is a bright and zesty celebration among the cake holidays.
Chiffon cake is a light cake made with vegetable oil, eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, and flavorings, making it a popular spring dessert. The fluffy texture is created by beating egg whites until stiff and folding them into the cake batter before baking. Chiffon cakes tend to be lower in saturated fat than butter cakes, thereby making them healthier than their butter-heavy counterparts.
Chiffon's mystery remains, as the chiffon's code remains
For years, the chiffon cake's recipe was a closely guarded trade. In the 1920s, angel food cake was very popular, but Henry Baker thought he could make a lighter, richer cake. Until 1927, the insurance salesman-turned-caterer tinkered with chemicals until he found the right combination of ingredients and techniques to produce the airy richness he was looking for.
He kept the dish to himself, he donated his services to the Brown Derby Restaurant in Los Angeles, which catered to Hollywood's upper crust. Baker was the only one to bake chiffon cakes until 1947. Baker's esssssequive and methods were based on what bakers and chefs already knew about cakes and leavening. The lightness of angel food cakes is due to the fact that the cake's lightness is based on egg whites. For leavening, traditional cakes used baking soda or powder. Baker created a lightness like no other by mixing egg whites and baking powder. And yet there was one other trick up Baker's sleeve. Baker added vegetable oil to the angel food cake, where no butter, fat, or shortening of any kind existed.
