How to Make the Perfect Matcha Chiffon Cake

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Matcha is Japanese Green Tea. Matcha has grown in popularity in the last decade primarily because of its color and slightly bitter taste. People have been so crazy about matcha after it’s renaissance. Japanese dishes have long used matcha in their food as a flavoring for their noodles, tea, ice cream and cakes.

After realizing that matcha is easy to work with and tastes delicious with plenty of dishes, we’ve added the “matcha flavor” to the list of flavors to have in cakes, milk teas, ice creams, cupcakes and even chocolate.

This recipe is a classic dessert for Millennials, Matcha Chiffon Cake. Chiffon cake is a classic dessert known worldwide and it is not spared from the matcha craze.

Why is it called a “Chiffon Cake”?

We did a lot of reading about chiffon cake. According to our sources, “chiffon” cake (also pronounced as SHE-fon cake), was created by a baker in Los Angeles in the 1920s. It didn’t really explain why he called it “chiffon” but it stole the hearts of America.

Chiffon cake is very similar to Angel cake. They are soft, airy and light. The only difference is that Angel cake doesn’t use egg yolks while Chiffon cake does.

Matcha Chiffon Cake Ingredients

Here’s the list of ingredients for this delicious Matcha Chiffon Cake:

• Matcha Powder. It’s important to use good matcha powder for good results. If the matcha powder is old or it’s not the kind you like (each brand is different in its own way), you might not be happy with your finished product. The key tip here is to use matcha powder that you know is good.
• Vegetable Oil. Vegetable oil is an important agent in this recipe for various reasons. It keeps the cake moist and it keeps the whole batter from sticking to the sides of the cake mold. You can technically use any kind of neutral oil but vegetable oil is the best for baking cakes in our opinion.
• Egg Yolks. It is always important to use fresh eggs when you bake. Fresher eggs mean that the eggs are able to hold their shape and it’ll serve the baked product its maximum function. When making chiffon cake, a cake whose outcome relies heavily on eggs, use large or extra-large eggs. Make sure to cleanly separate the egg yolks from the egg whites. Don’t be afraid to use your hands. If you’re not confident in separating eggs using the eggshells, simply drop the egg in the bowl and scoop the yolk out. Make sure it’s not broken because you will be using the egg whites too.
• Egg Whites. I believe this to be the most important ingredient when making chiffon cake. Chiffon cake relies on the whipped egg whites that will serve as the natural leavening agent for the cake to rise. Some will tell you to keep your egg whites at room temperature but some will tell you to chill your egg whites so that they whip up faster. I would stick to the conservative route of keeping the eggs at room temperature. If you’ve gone this far with the cake, it would be hard to mess it up with the wrong temperature of eggs. Just like the egg yolks, make sure your egg whites are fresh. Before beating the egg whites, make sure you use a stainless steel bowl or a glass bowl. Avoid the plastic bowl because you might not end up with the results you want. Make sure the bowl is spectacularly dry. No oil, water or even a speck of anything on it or else the egg whites won’t whip up.
• Cake Flour. Chiffon cake is a lot about being soft. Everything about it is delicate. In order to have a soft, airy and bouncy cake, you’ll need to use the lightest flour there is out there which is cake flour. Cake flour is finely milled compared to other kinds of flour. This feature makes anything that cake flour is used in to be lighter and softer.
• Water or Milk. Water serves as one of the moistening ingredients of this recipe. It helps dilute the other dry ingredients so that everything incorporates well. In this recipe, we use water to dilute the matcha powder before adding to the rest of the ingredients. If you want your cake to be a little bit milkier, use milk.
• Baking Powder. Baking powder isn’t absolutely necessary in this recipe. One of the key differences between a normal sponge cake and a chiffon cake is that chiffon cake doesn’t need a chemical leavening agent. The cake rises because of the meringue. Egg whites are whipped up to stiff peaks then folded into the batter. The air pockets of the meringue will then left the batter, creating a fluffy and airy cake.

How to Make Matcha Chiffon Cake

Making matcha chiffon cake isn’t hard at all. It could be intimidating in the beginning knowing that you may or may not mess things up. Chiffon cake has tendencies to sink in the bottom after baking. If you follow the recipe, you’ll be all right!

Prepare all of your ingredients.

In a glass bowl, place the egg yolks and 1/3 of the sugar required in the recipe. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar for around 2 minutes. Add the vegetable oil and whisk.

In a measuring cup, pour the water or milk. Add the matcha powder and dilute it until the mixture is smooth. Add the matcha mixture into the egg yolk mixture and whisk until all of the ingredients are fully incorporated.

In a separate glass bowl or stainless steel bowl, pour the egg whites. Make sure that the bowl spotless. Using a hand mixer, mix the egg whites until it gets fluffy. Stop and then slowly add the rest of the sugar but in batches. Whisk the egg white and sugar mixture until you reach stiff peaks. Do not over-mix. If you over-mix, the egg whites will break and turn watery. You can no longer use that.

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites into the egg yolk batter. Do this in 3-4 batches. Do not over mix but also do not under mix. If you over-mix, the batter will get too tough. If you under mix, the batter might have too many air pockets.

For the mold, it is important to take note NOT TO USE a non-stick pan. Your cake will not rise in a non-stick pan. Use a classic aluminum chiffon cake pan with a tube in the middle. It’s a lot better if the bottom is removable. Do not grease the pan either. The batter will need to hold on to the sides of the pan to rise. If the pan is greased, the cake will not rise.

Gently pour the batter into the chiffon cake pan. Lightly bang the cake pan to remove air pockets and let it sit for 5 minutes to even out the batter.

Bake in a preheated oven of 170C for 15-20 minutes.

Note: You may also use a sheet pan for this but bake it at a lesser time.

What is the difference between Sponge Cake and Chiffon Cake?

There are so many kinds of cake that it’s sometimes hard to pay attention to these when you’re already enjoying a mouthwatering bite of good cake. However, there are differences.

A sponge cake is a cake made without added fat. The egg yolks are separated from egg whites. The egg whites are whipped up for a meringue form and then folded into the egg yolk batter very much like the chiffon cake.

Chiffon cake on the other hand requires fat. Chiffon cake has added oil to it, giving it a moist and softer texture.

Why does my Matcha Chiffon Cake sink after baking?

Chiffon cake, although easy to make, has a lot of rules. If you follow these rules, you will end up with a perfect chiffon cake.

One of the things that often happen when baking chiffon cake is that it shrinks or sinks.

The reason why the classic chiffon cake uses an aluminum tube cake pan with a removable bottom is because this whole structure plays an important role in the final outcome of your cake.

Once your cake is baked, you must invert your pan to cool. “Hang” the pan over a bottle of wine to let the air circulate within the cake. If it is not inverted, chances are, the hot air will stay in the bottom of the pan causing the bottom part of the cake to be heavier than the upper part that has been cooled.

If you do this, you will avoid sinking your beautiful matcha chiffon cake!