Alpha Bakers: The Renee Fleming Golden Chiffon Cake

I need to work out.

Not because I am eating dessert every week now (that part is obvious). But because it took me what feels like forever to fold the super stiff (very stiff clumps) of egg whites for this cake. My upper arm/biceps was not very happy after that exercise.

I made this cake last year right after the book is released and the Alpha Bakers started. It was one of those ambitious weekend, which was Thanksgiving weekend, where I made this cake and the Kouign Amann for the Alpha Bakers' submission - or also known as "what the heck was I thinking making 2 recipes not from the Quick and Easy Week" weekend. Between this cake and the Kouign Amann, I felt like I lived in the kitchen for 2 days! Yeah I know I'm cheating since we were supposed to bake together but I.just.can't.help.myself - this cake looked so good in the book and it wants me to bake it.

In the end, all efforts was worth it. The Kouign Amann got rave reviews, with 2 friends saying they want to place an order in the future. Another friend emailed me a week after the party to say "Jenn, the cake was delicious. Next time, make two!" And this cake was a big hit too, even though it looked kinda funny with the cooling rack making those circle impressions on top of the cake.

Since I baked this last year and had only partially written this post at that time (slacker me), I already forgot what happened so forgive this very short post.

At her book signing last year, Rose said egg yolks are much smaller comparatively than when she published Cake Bible. This is because they use younger chickens now to produce the eggs. The younger the chicken the smaller the egg yolks.

It took 5 eggs, instead of 4, to get the required egg yolks weight for this cake. And it took less than 4 egg whites to get the recommended weight. I still have 15 grams of egg whites leftover, which I freeze for future use.

My cake baked for 40 minutes and I didn't get the brown crust that Rose's cake does. My cake tester came out clean so I took the cake out. I think I overbaked the cake because it started sinking right away after it came out of the oven, and I think that's why the cake had those circle impressions from the cooling rack.

I did make the dried lemon zest, brought it to the party and forgot to serve it....

A good friend of mine left me a bag full of dried roses when she moved away. I didn't really care much for them but I kept the bag. I kept it throughout the years and it survived several moves. I think I kept them for sentimental value. Every time I see the bag, it made me smile, thinking back to the school days when we used to hang out together in coffee shops with our laptops and tea, writing papers or working on projects. It has been over a decade since those days and now I finally have a good use for them.

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.