Sencha Sakura Chiffon Cake – Recipe

The weather might be struggling to decide what season we're in, but I'm insisting it's SPRING. So, it's time to bake with sakura blossoms.




I have some sakura sencha tea, which is a blend of sencha green tea and dried sakura blossom petals. It makes a wonderfully delicate, floral tea. Now technically you can eat tea leaves, and it's actually a legit snack in Japan to pour a little soya sauce over used tea leaves after brewing the tea itself. I've tried it, and it's indeed delicious. So I thought, why not blend them into a milk infusion to make the flavour even more prominent in a sponge cake? And so my sencha sakura chiffon cake was born.



Ready? Let's go.

Ingredients A:

5 egg whites
135g caster sugar
Pinch of salt

Ingredients B:

5 egg yolks
130ml milk, simmered with 2 tbsp sakura sencha and blended
50ml vegetable oil
125g self raising flour

To Decorate:

200ml double cream, whipped
Pickled sakura blossoms, rinsed soaked in cold water for an hour and dried

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 160°C. In a large bowl prepare a meringue from Ingredients A by whisking the egg whites until they form stiff white peaks, then whisking in the sugar and salt until glossy.

2. For Ingredients B, whisk the egg yolks, oil and tea-infused milk together. Whisk the flour in until smooth.

3. Fold a large spoonful of the meringue mixture into the B mixture to loosen it up. Now pour all of B into the A bowl and gently fold to combine, keeping as much air as possible.

4. Pour into a 21cm round UNGREASED chiffon pan, and tap lightly on the counter to knock out any large air bubbles. Bake for 15 minutes, turn down the heat to 150°C and bake for 10 more minutes, then 140°C for 20 minutes, and finally 130°C  for 15 minutes. This should help keep browning at bay!

5. Remove from the oven and immediately invert the pan to help keep the cake's shape. Wait until completely cool before running a knife around the edge of the cake pan to release it.

6. Decorate with the cream and blossoms before slicing and serving.


Enjoy, and have fun.


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