Round One Cocoa Chiffon Cake

Cocoa Chiffon Cake with fresh whipped-in-the-lunchroom cream

Wednesday night.
Day before March Madness starts with Round One!
It was time to bring out the Good Luck Bruin chocolate.

I borrowed the book Essence of Chocolate: Recipes for Baking and Cooking with Fine Chocolate by Robert Steinberg & John Scharffenberger (of Scharffen Berger fame) from the library. This recipe for Cocoa Chiffon Cake was contributed by Flo Braker (page 137).

Folding the egg whites into the chocolate batter

Fresh from the oven

I used Dutch-processed cocoa to make this cake as the instruction just say "2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder." Later, I read more of the book (with descriptions of cocoa production and processing) and came across a section that said natural cocoa is better than Dutch-processed. Um, I realized later it was probably a major cooking faux pas to use Valrhona chocolate instead of Scharffen Berger chocolate in a book written by Scharffenberger! Oops.

After removal from the oven, chiffon cake needs to cool hanging upside down. Usually, you can hang the cake over a glass bottle. But my bottle of soda that I picked up at BevMo didn't fit (although the beverage was quite tasty so it wasn't a complete waste). I found a large old funnel in the garage and wrapped it in foil. It totally looked like a massive Hershey's kiss!

At work, I brought some cream, sugar, vanilla and my old-school electric handheld mixer to make some fresh whipped cream. Although I whipped it a little beyond soft peaks... One co-worker said the cake with whipped cream was like eating a chocolate cloud. :)

I found the recipe online - this one says to use natural cocoa!

P.S. Bruins won the first round 70-29. Next up, Texas A&M on Saturday night. Go Bruins!