Black Walnut Chiffon Cake

I absolutely adore Chiffon cakes. They are light, they donot have any butter and are the easiest cakes to make. They have a simple dump everything into a bowl, add egg whites and bake kind of recipe structure which is great when you want a home baked cake but donot want to fuss with too many details.

Making buttercream etc is a lot of effort that I donot usually put into everyday cakes. I instead used nutella- a chocolate hazelnut spread easily found in the supermarket and crushed walnuts to dress up this simple yet delicious cake.

This recipe makes two 9" cakes. I then used a biscuit cutter to cut out individual circles of cake, stacked two layers up using nutella as glue and then decorated the outside with walnut bits for a strong walnut taste.

Recipe from
The Good Cook :Cakes- By Time Life Books

Ingredients:
List 1
1 cup black walnuts , finely ground
21/4 cups cake flour, sifted
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
5 egg yolks
3/4 cup cold water
2 tsp vanilla extract

List 2:
8 egg whites, stiffly beaten with a tsp of lemon juice

Sift together the ground black walnuts, the flour, the white sugar, baking powder and salt. Stir in the brown sugar. Add the rest of the wet ingredients -oil, egg yolks, water and vanilla extract. Beat the btter until very smooth.

Gradually pour the batter into the stiffly beaten egg whites, folding the batter into the whites until just blended.

Pour the batter into two buttered and floured layer cake pans that have been lined with wax or parchment paper.

Bake for 45 minutes in a preheated 325 F oven. Then increase the heat to 350 F and bake for ten minutes more or until a tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

Remember to adjust times if you are using a different shaped pan.

Spread nutella on the cake slices and decorate with powdered walnut pieces.

Enjoy!