Semolina (Rava) savory cake - a game changer cake

Go HAWKS :-), after a nail biting game earlier today which I stayed away from watching (because the scores of 0-13, 0-16, 7-16, 7-19 is not really conducive to weak hearted HAWKS' fans :-)), but then it followed me wherever I went. First, it was the loud screams from downstairs that kept informing me the game was not going well for Seattle, then the little pre-teens in my class that kept looking at their Iphones and other phones for a glimpse of the latest score. As I phonily tried to discipline them and threatened to confiscate all electronic gadgets in the room, they entertained me with whispered exchange about the state of the game. And when it ended, I knew we had won just by looking at the gleeful faces :-). So not one to pass up on a chance to teach life lessons, I told my kids, "never give up, no matter how bad things may look".

If you follow football, this was a very shaky game played between two of the strongest teams and finally 4th quarter turned the tides over to favor the Hawks as the score climbed 14-19, 22-19 but ended with a tie at 22 when the clock ran out. Hey, wait, the clock didn't run out actually as the game went into overtime and hawks turned it over with a touch down in overtime to finish with 28-22 :-). Every time I watch a foot ball game, I think how untrue everything I have ever learnt about time is. You have heard the saying, "you can't hold the time in your fist", but that is what literally happens during a ball game. They stop the clock every couple of minutes and if you are sitting in your living room sofa, you will be flooded with advertisements. So a game of  '60 play time minutes' converts into '2.5-3 real time hours' :-). Who said that 'time & tide wait for none'?

What has football got to do with a food blog? I know, it seems far fetched but hear me out. Just like the game changers in today's game, today's recipe is also a game changer in its own way. If you always related a cake to a sweet in your head (I did, until I came across this recipe), here is something that will surprise you pleasantly. This is a savory cake, and made with semolina (or Rave/sooji as we Indians like to call it) and loaded with vegetables and spices that makes it a perfect breakfast or snack recipe. You can munch on it without the guilt factor and also feel extremely gratified that you had your daily quota of vegetables while enjoying a slice of this cake. This is a moist & light cake, that is to something for a cake made with nothing but 2 Tbsp of oil making up the only fat content. Win-win :-).

I had seen this recipe on many blogs and had head marked (not bookmarked unfortunately so I can call out the blogs by name), that is another thing, sometimes when a recipe catches my attention, I head mark it thinking I will definitely remember it. Loss is mine when I don't but sometimes they get rooted so much in the head that I will get it out ultimately, no promises though on how close it is to the original recipe. Here is what happened recently, I had honestly forgotten about this recipe but then when I was browsing the internet, I came across this little video on BBC food that had Anjum Anand making a savory semolina cake. That name struck a chord and I went into the kitchen immediately to whip up my own slightly modified version of the recipe. The original recipe adds uncooked/raw vegetables directly into the batter, but I slightly sauteed them before adding them in. Also, I like my green beans chopped finely instead if the inch long as in the original. Last, I added my love of life in kitchen - onions, chopped and sauteed along with some green, spicy chilies.

Something in the way she bakes it in a loaf pan was intriguing and instead of what I would have done, I used a loaf pan too. It is just easier to cut into slices. But you can very well use a cake pan or even a bundt pan to bake this deliciously savory cake. Rich in vegetables and topped with sesame, this reminds you of the Gujarati Handvo but the taste is very different and a surprise winner. Second time, I made a healthier version with cracked wheat but the verdict was to stick to the semolina version since the other one was crumbly and didn't really stay true to being a 'slice' :-). I have a plan for the next time though, I will get the finest textured cracked wheat and may be grind it up a little bit to make it finer, nobody will be any wiser. I will come back and update the blog post when I get to it.

What do you need to make Semolina cake?
1 cup fine sooji/rava/semolina
1 cup whisked plain yogurt
1 Tsp salt (adjust to taste)
1/2 Tsp sugar
1/8 Tsp asafoetida
1 Tsp sesame seeds
2-3 green chilies - finely chopped
1 inch piece ginger - peeled and grated
2 Tbsp green frozen peas
1/2 cup grated carrot
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup grated bottle gourd (optional)
1/2 cup grated bell pepper (of any color, optional)
2 Tbsp chopped cilantro
2 Tbsp oil
1 Tsp baking soda

How do you make Semolina cake?

• Take semolina in a large bowl, add salt, sugar and grated ginger and mix well. 
• Add yogurt and mix well. Keep aside for atleast 20 minutes for it to soak the yogurt and become fluffy. 

• In the meantime, preheat your oven to 350F
• Heat a pan on medium heat, add mustard and let it pop. 
• Add chopped green chilies and asafoetida and fry for about 20 seconds, do not burn the chilies. 
• Add chopped onion and let it sweat and become limp. 
• Add grated carrots, bottle gourd and green peas and cook for couple of minutes until the vegetables turn soft. 

• Switch off and add it to the semolina bowl along with chopped cilantro and give a good mix. Taste and adjust as needed.

• Prepare a loaf pan (I used mini pans and hence spread the batter into 2 of them) with a baking spray. 
• Add baking soda and give a good mix to avoid baking soda forming lumps (believe me when I say you don't want baking soda bursts in your mouth :-))
• Spoon out the batter into the baking dish, top it with sesame seeds (be generous if you like sesame) and bake for 30-35 minutes until the top gets a hint of brown and a knife comes out clean. 

• Let it cool outside the oven for 15 minutes before sliding the loaf onto a plate, use a sharp knife to cut slices and enjoy with any chutney, dip etc 

Notes: 

• You can add finely chopped green beans to your set of vegetables. 
• Chopped fenugreek will make a great flavor agent too. 
• The batter consistency is that of thick idli batter, adjust yogurt or add a spoon or two of water. 
• Add upto 2 cups of vegetables to 1 cup of semolina. 
• If your frozen peas are hard and big (I get Deep brand sometimes which needs a little precooking), microwave in a bowl of water for 5 minutes to make it softer. American brand peas are ready to use directly. 
• Baking soda can be replaced by Eno fruit salt. 
• Add red chili powder for extra spice. 

Making the semolina cake healthier: 

• Use fine textured cracked wheat instead of semolina if you are avoiding processed foods. 
• This will need a little bit more yogurt as it absorbs liquid, adjust to get the right consistency. 
• It is important to let the cracked wheat soak in yogurt for atleast an hour before you use it. 
• This will have a more crumbly texture compared to the semolina version, let it cool down completely before slicing. 

Marie biscuit choco logs, good for celebration(s) - no baking needed

Hey folks,
First off, wishing all of you, Sattvaa readers, friends, well wishers a wonderfully joyous, healthy, peaceful New Year 2015! May you all keep evolving into better people and make the world around a better place to live in. Hope you all had a great time celebrating in your own personal ways to usher in a new calendar year and made some resolutions too :-). I wish you strength to live through those resolutions if that was your original resolution :-)

Having seen a few decades go by under my feet (Na, not telling you how many), I am smart enough now to not make resolutions, but enjoy every step and every small change as an achievement. Isn't that what life is supposed to be? to be alive I mean, so here is another wish coming your way to be alive and make the most for yourselves and those around you.

We are currently on vacation (and hence why there have been no posts for the last week or so :-)), did some cruising around some great, warm beaches, ate & ate till the mid line split (almost :-)) and now walking till the legs give up every night in magical lands. I am sure that is enough information for all you smart folks to guess what I have been doing, having a wonderful time of my life. I may do a separate post with some pictures on it later. Here is one for the road taken on the road until then..

And something magical happened too on this vacation, I broke out of my fear of whatever it was and braved the odds with DD & BH on every single one of the stomach churning, free fall rides through blazing sun & chilling water. There was no pre resolution here but just the mommy instinct to be with the little girl who is so quickly growing up in the hopes of catching a few more moments together. I have been patting myself on the back for all the bravery I have been showing for last 2 days (and the patting also seems to alleviate pain in the aching neck & shoulder muscles a little bit :-))

Now that I have wished you all a Happy new year, it is time for you guys to wish me Sattvaa. The blog baby completes 3 terrific years and steps into a fun filled fourth. Still a toddler but trying to be grown up. I have said this before and I say it again that when I wrote my first post on that cold Dec night breaking into the dawn of a new year, not in my rarest of rare imaginations did I think I would keep posting recipes and sharing tales with you all this long. It continues to give me pleasure to come back and write here always. It has been a great journey with ups (from 3 posts a week) & downs (shameless disappearances for days), and thank you all for staying with me and cheering me on. I have lot more recipes and tales to share, keep visiting, share the joy with friends and keep the circle growing.

Back home in India, most everyone knows and enjoys tea time. I think it is a left over from the colonization effect. Many families gather around to enjoy a cup of coffee or tea with a plate of biscuits, rusks and other snacks. 'Marie' biscuits are slightly less sweet compared to other Indian brands and favored with the hot, brewed drinks as a 'dip in'. There is something special about a biscuit dunked in hot coffee or tea and eaten before it crumbles up into a soft mass.

Here is a no brainer dessert that turns this childhood treat into is a coffee lover's piece of heaven that requires no cook time or bake time. I have a strange relation to coffee, I love, love the smell of freshly brewed coffee and that is about it, I never drink coffee since I don't enjoy the taste. At the most, my system accepts a sip or two of the cold coffee. So this dessert was perfect for me and welcome for the family who unlike me enjoy coffee. If you don't like coffee, don't get misguided by what I have said so far, the taste is very subtle and I am sure you will get carried away by the gooey chocolate and the wafer like biscuit layer in between.

I know I had a lot to say about this recipe but I am missing most of them as the thoughts are a bit 'roamy' today and I am not finding it in me to be reflective. Though the post itself may not be as juicy to read, I promise the recipe will not be a disappointment. I will see you all again in a few days as we finish up our vacation and return back home. Shall we start?
What do you need to make biscuit cake?
12 biscuits, I used Marie but any tea biscuits will do
2 Tbsp butter
4 Tbsp powdered sugar
1 Tsp vanilla essence
1 Tsp cocoa powder
1 Tsp instant coffee, I used a starbucks single serve sachet
1/2 cup cold water

How to make biscuit cake?

• Pour the coffee powder into a bowl and add cold water into it. 

• Let it settle & brew for a couple of minutes.

• Melt the butter in a microwave safe bowl, add sugar and beat them together with a spoon. 
• Add cocoa powder and fold it in. 
• Add vanilla essence and mix. 

• Lay a sheet of aluminium foil or parchment paper on a working surface. 
• Take a biscuit, dip in the brewed coffee and immediately take it out. 

• Lay it on the foil and spoon a tiny bit of the butter mixture and spread it gently. 
• Dip the second biscuit and stack it on top of the first one, repeat spreading the butter mixture. 

• Continue to do this for 6 (or as high as you want) biscuits. 
• Take a generous spoon of butter mixture and apply all around the biscuits log evenly. 

• Fold up the foil and refrigerate for 2 hours or until it hardens. 

• Repeat for the remaining 6 biscuits.
• Cut crosswise and enjoy the wafery, cocoa biscuits. Cover and freeze back remaining portions. 

Notes: 

• I used nutella once but it is harder to spread. 
• Use milk to brew coffee if you want richer taste.
• Add finely chopped or coarsely ground roasted nuts of choice to the butter cream for a nutty crunch. 
• Add coffee to cold liquid, as otherwise biscuits will start to crumble as soon as you dip. 

• You can substitute the butter mixture with melted chocolate.
• Use flavored (orange, lemon etc) tea biscuits to go adventurous. 

Christmas Fruit cake - an alcohol and egg free cake to indulge in some Holiday Gluttony

We went to attend an essay presentation night at DD's school 2 evenings earlier. These are all high school kids and have to prepare an essay on a topic of choice (approved by a faculty member/advisor) and work on it over 2 semesters. We were only able to attend may be 1/8th of the presentations as we sat in the room that DD was in along with 11 other classmates. The topics were as diverse as - patterns and uses of mathematical group - why moving Boeing manufacturing (or part of the facility) out of state is not beneficial - how Jhumpa Lahiri uses food in her short stories to convey something and a whole gamut of other topics. A very enjoyable evening. What does this have to do with today's post, you ask? Well, it is a prelude to what is to follow :-).

One of the presentations was about striking unity in diversity and how India manages to do that generation after generation. The presenter talked about her parents telling her stories of growing up in a diverse neighborhood in India where all festivals were given equal measure of importance and indulgence. That is true, in all the years I was growing up in our small city of Mysore, we never experienced any disharmony with our neighbors from different religious backgrounds. I personally think the religious tolerance in India is very high as we respect and live happily among a multitude of different practices, the key being 'Live & let live'.

 

I studied in a convent, went to the chapel to pray before heading to many an inter school competition :-), put up nativity displays and organized Christmas plays every year in addition to eating the cakes that the nuns gave us and those that many friends brought from home. Though Nammamma never baked anything in her kitchen, we had our share of yummy baked goodies from the neighborhood Iyengar bakeries or from friends. While we didn't do anything specifically for Christmas at home, there was enough festivities around to suck us into the joy of the season and celebrate it with our friends.

After coming here, Christmas has been so much part of our lives. Initially it felt like a wonderland outside especially in the snow clad Eastern states we have lived in. The novelty wore off slowly, however I never tire of walking through artfully lighted streets and neighborhoods. We started placing our tree in the house for the little girl who had that innocent, childhood faith in the fact that the big man in red suit would come in on Christmas eve even in the apartments we lived that didn't have a chimney :-). As she grew older and the secret Santa was identified to be the doting mom & dad, lists & letters to Santa turned into subtle pre-Christmas hints to the parents. While many things changed, tradition of decorating the tree continued. This season can get pretty lonely (ironic given that everyone is celebrating) and I ache for my family that are not here with me.  We have been fortunate to have somebody at home - cousins, grand parents, aunts, uncles or friends when we actually decorate the tree every year, it is our small Christmas miracle. Last year, looking at all the majestic pine trees we are surrounded with, we decided to get a small live tree instead of the plastic one we had been using. After New year, we transplanted the plant into a bigger pot not expecting much but it grew a few inches taller over the summer and we have a cute, little live tree that we don't have to cut. We brought it inside last weekend and a young cousin who has recently moved to town showed up for brunch and we had a great time putting some trinkets and dressing up the small tree after a heavy lunch. We thought it looked pretty without lights, didn't have the heart to wrap warm strings of lights around a living, breathing tree :-)

Tiny little decked up tree inside the window talking to the giant aunts/uncles outside

With our little tree up in the corner and lights on the windows, I wanted to bake something special for the Holiday season. I have heard much bad rap about fruit cakes but they never seem to go out of fashion when it is the end of the year :-). Once when I was in India, a friend of my FIL from Kerala brought a big home made fruit cake to share with us. I had never had the dark kind of cake before, so greedily grabbed a big piece and settled down on the sofa next to amma. Both of us bit into the slices in hand when I asked the lady for the recipe. She promptly started with flour and Rum :-). Now the only time alcohol has knowingly entered our bodies is via a cold/cough medication and we both have a 'thing' about it, so we put the cake pieces down into our respective plates hoping that our generous friend would not notice the dip in enthusiasm. Needless to say that BH all of a sudden seemed to grow a lot of interest in the discarded piece of cake :-). But that conversation made me wiser to the fact that typical fruit cakes had Rum or brandy and good ones were actually ripened over months with a steady feed of alcohol resembling the drip irrigation.

 

I have wanted to make a fruit cake for a long time and kept looking for an alcohol free recipe, found some, book marked them and never got to making one. Now that I feel much more confident about baking and have learnt the use of replacement ingredients, this year I decided to make a fruit cake and make it without both Rum or eggs. Here is the recipe mine is loosely based on but I have made modifications to replace the 2 ingredients. It doesn't have the 'caramelizing' process usually done in Indian fruit cakes so no elaborate cooking needed. The verdict at home was, 'it is simply superb', wish I could send a slice to each of my readers, but here is one for all of you virtually.

The cake doesn't look very dark as I used light brown sugar and didn't have the molasses but the juice soaked fruit bites and the cake itself are irresistible. In my quest of a perfect fruit cake recipe which has gone on for a couple of years atleast, I have gathered some 'fruit cake baking wisdom', look for the tips at the bottom of this post. I found them very helpful as I baked mine. Do give this a try, you have some time before 25th and can still make it if you are getting ready. Drop in and let me know how you liked it.

What do you need to make fruit cake?
1/2 cup (1 stick US measure) butter
3/4 packed cup brows sugar (use dark brown sugar if you are particular about the color)
1 cup unsweetened apple sauce (or 4 eggs)
1 & 3/4 cup AP flour
1 Tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 Tsp freshly powdered cloves (about 6 cloves)
2 Tsp lemon juice
1 Tsp baking powder
1 cup ground almond
3 cups chopped dry fruits - any combination of dark raisins, golden raisins, cranberries, blue berries, apricot, dates, pinneapple etc.
1 cup orange juice - I took 2 big oranges and squeezed fresh juice, the flavor was undoubtedly stronger and better than store bought orange juice
1 cup candied orange peels
1.5 cups chopped nuts - any combination of walnuts, pecans, pistachio etc

How do you make fruit cake?

• Chop all the dry fruits into small pieces and soak them for atleast 48 hours in the orange juice. Use a big container with lid, put it in the refrigerator and shake them every few hours to make sure all the pieces come in contact with orange juice.
• I made the orange peels at home following this recipe, original source here as I couldn't find them anywhere in the stores near me even after a much hilarious wild goose chase, story for another day. They turned out so good that we ended up eating half of them just like that :-)
• On the day you make the cake - Chop the candied orange peels and nuts into small bits, keep it ready.
• Powder almonds into a fine consistency and keep it ready.
• Mix softened butter (keep it out of the refrigerator a few hours earlier) and brown sugar in a big bowl, beat them with a whisk to a creamy consistency. I used my stand mixer which made the task a no-brainer :-)

• Add 1/4 of the apple sauce, beat it in until homogeneous, add 1/4 of the flour and mix it till well incorporated.
• Continue this process 3 more times until all the apple sauce and flour have been used.
• Add powdered nutmeg, cloves and lemon juice and mix them well. Add the baking powder and give a good mix.
• If you are using the stand mixer, switch it off and fold in the remaining ingredients gently - start with powdered almonds, soaked dry fruits along with any remaining orange juice, chopped nuts and candied orange peels.
• Prepare a loaf pan by laying a parchment sheet to cover the bottom and the sides leaving about an inch or so hanging out from the sides. Lightly grease the parchment paper with butter or cooking spray.
• Preheat the oven to 325F,  keep a wide baking tray half filled with water on the top shelf.
• Pour the prepared cake batter into the pan, smoothen the top with a flat spatula.
• Place the loaf pan in the middle of the water tray and bake it for 135 minutes (2 & 1/4 hour) to 150 minutes (2 & 1/2 hours) until a tooth pick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.

• Let the loaf pan stand on a cooling rack for 15 minutes before you pull the cake out holding the hanging parchment sheets and let the cake cool completely over night - DO NOT slice atleast for the next 10 hours. This cake develops flavors slowly.
• I rolled the cake in a cling wrap after about 6 hours to keep the cake moist and let it continue to cool for the next 4-5 hours.
• Make thick slices of the cake and enjoy with family and friends.

Notes:

• The cake has a good weight you can feel in your hands but is not dense when you eat it.
• The dry fruits soaked in orange juice tasted wonderful in every bite, if you want it to be milder use apple juice or a combination of orange and apple juice.
• Fruit cake baking wisdom 1 - Put the loaf pan inside a preheated pan containing water, this helps prevent an early browning of the cake as it is in the hot oven for a long duration.
• Fruit cake baking wisdom 2 - Putting parchment paper in the pan not only helps develop the color slowly but also makes it easy to lift this cake out once baked.
• Fruit cake baking wisdom 3 - Soak fruits in juice overnight or as long as 2 days for them to soak up the liquid and soften.
• Even if you have big bottles of store bought nutmeg & spice powder in your pantry, do yourself a favor and powder them freshly. It makes the cake come alive with fragrance.

Lemon Chiffon cake for a celebration

I started baking recently, may be a couple of years back and have stuck to recipes that I get from reliable sources, recipes that are not very labor or time intensive, more savory than sweet recipes, and recipes that are devoid of eggs generally. Well, that is my comfort zone. I joined this group of baking enthusiasts called Baking Partners a few months back, this is infact my 3rd recipe with this group. I wanted to learn new techniques and try new recipes and the challenges from the group have made me get up and out of my comfort zone, not only get exposed to things I wouldn't myself have dared to go after but also made me a little more adventurous trying new tastes :-). For that, I am thankful. Swathi who started this group, reminded all of us that with this month's challenge, the group celebrates its 1st birthday, although I am 9 months late coming in, it most definitely is an ocassion to celebrate with sweets. So here is our July month challenge  from the Baking partners group - a delicious Lemon Chiffon cake.

When Swathi sent the details with 2 recipes, I immediately knew which one I would be making. Although the layered Honey cake looked most inviting, my heart was set on the chiffon cake. When we were in India a few years back and DD went to elementary school, we lived in a Bengaluru home and there was a bakery around the street corner from that house. I had a long commute to work and crazy hours and would vanish early in the morning and return late at night. The little girl had to get used to a new life from what she had seen so far and she was not a very happy camper, BH's travelling didn't help the situation either, it was basically overwhelming at her age. Having grand parents at home was a great blessing as she had company when she came back from school. Afternoons were a cherished siesta time for my inlaws and after the little one finished her after school snacks, they would go back to sleep for another hour or so. On one of our weekend strolls, we discovered this bakery just a block away from home and the aromas coming from the store were intoxicating. We stopped and picked up a slice of fresh sponge cake among other goodies and for my little girl it was a bite of lemony, pillowy heaven and she was hooked on immediately. From then on, for the next few months we lived in that house, she would walk up to the store in the afternoon all by herself holding some cash firmly in her little fist, get a slice of the cake atleast 2 times a week and come home. For her, it was an act of learning to associate herself with her new surroundings, making an independent exploration of her new life, making friends and enjoying good food, infact the spongy, lemony cake remains her favorite cake of all times. When I saw Swathi's challenge recipe, I knew this could bring back memories for my little girl as well as for us.

A chiffon cake is similar to angel food cake in some respects but differs from it significantly. If you are not a cake expert (I mean cake eating expert), someone can pass this slice on to you calling it either a sponge cake or angel food cake or chiffon cake because for a newbie the texture might taste similar (though not same). Chiffon cake uses oil instead of butter and also incorporates both egg whites and yolks in the recipe. The well beaten egg whites lend the airy texture to the chiffon cake but the tricky part you should know when to stop beating the egg :-).

Although I am not a vegan, I stay away from eggs and with so many like minded people out there, there is no dearth of eggless recipes if you only look in the right spot. I think my egg aversion is from childhood, my father used to insist that my sister take eggs daily as part of her 'make the girl healthier' diet. Now, I am sure my father had his reasons to trust the authenticity of this diet but a budding medico, my sister was in no way going to believe that she needed the eggs in her daily diet nor did she consider herself unhealthy by any means. Since, nammamma didn't cook, bake or scramble an egg in her saatvik kitchen, my poor father found an alternative to get the protein filled egg into my sister's system, crack it open, pour it into a glass of milk and beat it homogeneous. And that most definitely made the egg an enemy for life for my sister :-). Even after all these years, she runs miles from eggs and garlic, her two nemesis in the kitchen realm. Why is this relevant to my dislike of the eggs? When you dote on your big sister and consider her the role model for everything good and bad in life, you tend to pick up these idiosyncrasies too, so I stay away from eggs as a general rule and don't miss anything protein wise in my diet. So making a chiffon cake that called for 3 egg yolks and 7 egg whites (well, half of each in my case since I halved the recipe) was a little too much for my 'egg free' kitchen. But I braved on, got home a half dozen eggs and went on to make the recipe.

With the beautiful weather we have been having for the past few days, I am busy elsewhere and also my cooking has taken a back seat naturally and I kept postponing my chiffon cake making until the last minute. Just as you would expect, I had my questions with the recipe at the last minute and fervently hoped my group members would check the posts and respond to my queries. Thanks Chitra and Pam for your help. The cake turned out very nicely, I made some slight changes (to the proportion) of ingredients to avoid what seemed like a disaster in the making and was pleasantly surprised with the outcome. It was soft and pillowy not unlike the angel food cake and tasted deliriously delicious with a scoop of ice cream and some berries on the side. If anyone has an eggless chiffon cake recipe tried and tested, let me know, I would love to bake it.

What do you need to make Lemon Chiffon cake?
Original recipe suggested by Saraswathi, adapted from The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum
Makes one 9 inch round cake pan (with a ramekin placed in the center to imitate a tube pan)
Dry Ingredients:
1+1/8 cup - 2 Tblsp AP flour or 1+1/8 cup store bought cake flour- see instructions below to make your own cake flour at home
2 Tblsp corn starch
3/4 cup + 1 Tblsp caster sugar/baker's sugar - see notes for alternative
1/4 Tsp salt
1/4 Tsp baking soda
1.5 Tblsp lemon zest (I upped this by 1/2 Tblsp as we love citrusy flavored cakes at home, stick to 1 Tblsp otherwise)
Wet ingredients: 
1/4 cup oil (canola or vegetable oil)
1 egg yolk (standard large egg)
1/3 cup water
1 Tblsp lemon juice
1/2 Tsp vanilla essence
Meringue:
2 Tblsp sugar
3.5 egg whites (standard large egg)
3/4 Tsp cream of tartar (I didn't use this) or 1 Tsp lemon juice

How to make Lemon Chiffon cake? 

• Cake flour preparation: Measure 2 Tblsp corn starch in a cup, add AP to fill the rest of the cup, take it out into a plate and measure out another 1/8 cup of AP flour. Now sift this mixtures atleast 4-5 times for the corn starch to become one with AP flour. 
• Preheat oven to 325F, keep a 9 inch round pan with a ramekin placed in the center. If you have the regular sponge cake tube pan, go ahead and use it instead :-).
• Combine sugar & lemon zest in a large mixing bowl and mix them with your fingers until the sugar is completely coated with the zest and the flavor is infused.

• Add the flour, soda & salt to the bowl, whisk it with a hand mixer or whisk a few times until well incorporated. 
• Make a well in the center of the flour, add the wet ingredients and mix them using a hand mixer (or whisk) until the mixture is smooth (no lumps) and homogeneous. Keep aside.
• Take a clean bowl, add the egg whites in it and start your hand mixer to beat them. They turn foamy and then start to come together. Add the sugar and cream of tartar (if using) at this stage and continue to beat the eggs. 
• Cream of tartar is an egg stabilizer and brings out the best in egg whites and helps you reach that elusive stiff peak consistency. I didn't have this on hand and when the egg whites seemed to not solidify, I added an extra Tsp of sugar and and a Tsp of lemon juice to give it a body. I liked the resulting cake texture. 
• Once the eggs start to form the stiff peaks (when you life the whisk up, the egg whites should form a spiky peak that holds up shape, take part of it, add it into the flour mixture bowl and mix it in by gently folding it in. 
• Add the remaining egg whites and fold them in together. Do not beat or mix vigorously at this point, the airy egg needs to stay like that. Your goal is to gently incorporate all of egg white in to the flour. 
• Pour the batter into the pan, run a knife around to remove any captured air bubbles or gently knock the pan on the counter a few times and bake it for 50-55 minutes (mine took 50 minutes) until the cake bounces when touched on the top. 

• Once the cake comes out of the oven, immediately place it upside down giving it a support to raise the pan above the counter and letting air circulate underneath. 

• The cake has to cool down completely like this before you take it out (about 50 min to an hour)
• Run a sharp knife around the outer edge and around the ramekin and gently force the cake out of the pan. 
• Top it with any sauces of choice or enjoy it with just a dusting of sugar on top, berries and ice cream on the side like we did.

Notes: 

• The original recipe called for cream of tartar which is an egg stabilizer. My reading on this topic was dubious and there were all kinds of suggestions implying that omitting the cream of tartar was perfectly acceptable. My two cents on this topic is if you can get of hold of the cream of tartar easily, go ahead and use it. I didn't and so I ended up adding 2 additional Tblsp of sugar to get the consistency. 
• I followed tips from a fellow baking partner and made my own cake flour by replacing 2 Tblsp of flour in a cup of AP flour with corn starch. this worked very well though I cannot make a comparison of how an actual cake flour cake would have turned out (I didn't make it :-))
• Use corn starch and not corn meal as the corn starch is fine ground, remember to sift the two together atleast 4-5 times for them to get friendly with each other.
• The cake is not very tall like the ones you see in the bakeries since my pan lacks height. If you use a tube pan, you will end up with a tall, majestic cake. 
• Caster sugar is a finer ground variety of regular white sugar, it is also labeled as Baker's sugar. If you do not have this in pantry, go ahead and powder the regular white sugar in your spice grinder. Do not use confectioner sugar or powdered sugar as that has additional corn starch in it which this recipe does not need.

• It is important to invert the cake pan and set it high above the surface allowing air circulation, else the chiffon cake apparently has a tendency to fall flat. See my pictures that look like a space shuttle landing on Earth, that is how I made this work.