Banana Chiffon Cake

For the longest time, my mother has been begging me to make a chiffon cake--apparently, it's a rave among the ladies in Japan. People over there are coming up with every flavor imaginable--from conservative one like chocolate to the rather unorthodox pizza flavor. The latter has pizza sauce, vegetable juice, and basil stirred into the batter. One lady has perfected her skills in making it (took her two years) and is successfully selling her cakes--limited to the first 200 lucky customers per week.

A chiffon cake is based on whipped egg foams, which acts as a leavening agent, and provides the cake with its volume. It is similar to an angel food cake, but contains egg yolks, oil or butter, and may contain an additional leavening agent like baking powder. This results in a richer, more tender cake.

I have made angel food cakes in the past. And it took me a few tries before I made a decent product; the biggest issue was the cake collapsing, a problem solved by proper preparation of beaten egg whites and using cream of tartar. Chiffon cakes follow a similar procedure, so felt fairly confident in making it.

So...

Voila!

Banana Chiffon Cake with sliced bananas and whipped topping (fat-free!). It was the fluffiest cake I've ever tasted, minus the fat; I substituted the oil in the recipe with mashed ripe bananas, and also reduced the amount of sugar by 20%. According to a diabetic cookbook, the amount of sugar in a recipe can be reduced by 1/3 to a 1/4 without affecting flavor.... ironically, I then topped it off with full-sugar chocolate syrup :P

Hmmm...I just might get hooked on this chiffon cake...