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Sunday, October 4, 2015

Alpha Bakers: Banana Split Chiffon Cake


I seem to be on a losing strike lately. When I saw this recipe I thought ah, banana, chiffon, bundt cake = yum. I love bananas and have ripe bananas and this cake seems easy and I have all the ingredients on hand.

Since I made 1/2 a recipe, I used 1 ripe banana and substituted canola oil instead of walnut oil. The rest of the ingredients I stayed with the recipe.

As expected, the cake came together quick and easy, so much so that I wondered why this didn't make it to the Q&E list? Perhaps because it requires separating the egg yolks and whites, whipping the whites to stiff peaks, and folding the batter together? All in all it took me 55 minutes to put this together (I timed it). The batter was beautiful, it almost filled my 1/2 bundt pan and then it baked for an hour. The cake rose an inch over the top of the pan, as Rose said it should.

I followed the instructions to cool it over the cooling rack suspended over 4 inch above the counter. I used 4 coffee mugs. Then hubby and I went for a walk. When we came back over an hour later, the bundt pan still felt a bit warm but I was losing daylight to take photos so I un-mold the cake and... from the photo below it looked weird. It never browned, even though the top is browned as you can see the bottom of the cake browned. My cake tester came out clean when I took this out of the oven. I quickly perused the recipe to see if I messed anything up and I didn't.



Okay so it looked odd but does it taste good? That's what matters.

Hubby and I had a slice each. He said the cake is too dense. I thought the cake was fluffy but it has a sticky texture. And.. no flavor. I can't taste the banana at all!! That was a surprise! I am really bummed about it and decided not to make the chocolate sauce. I hope the rest of the Alpha Bakers had better luck than me with this cake.


Alpha Bakers is a group of bakers who are baking through The Baking Bible, Rose Levy Beranbaum's latest cookbook. Come check out the rest of the group at Rose's Alpha Bakers.

Click here for a full listing of all the recipes we are baking.

4 comments:

  1. Sorry to hear that you didn't find the cake good. I have yet to bake mine. :)

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  2. That's interesting how the shape of a bundt pan affected the browning of the cake and the denseness. Perhaps chiffon cakes are as finicky as angel food cakes? Disappointing not to care for the flavor either when it looks so pretty.

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  3. How disappointing! I'm not sure why but mine had quite a banana flavour on the first day but it faded the next day. It was still soft and delicious though. Maybe it doesn't translate well to half measures?

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  4. Sorry you could not taste the banana. With ours the banana flavor came through loud and clear. Wonder why?

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