Chai Chiffon Cake by Gin

It's light, fluffy, spicy, delicious - it's a chai chiffon cake! Created by Gin, aka @scrumptious_munchies, this dessert is a crowd-pleaser and perfect to enjoy with a freshly brewed, warm cup of chai.

Ingredients

• 2tsp loose leaf Chai Walli 11 Spice Chai
• 1tbsp loose leaf Chai Walli 11 Spice Chai
• 6 Tbsp hot water 
• 3 large eggs
• 85g caster sugar
• 40ml vegetable oil
  75g cake flour
• 1tsp baking powder 

Method

• Preheat oven to 170C
• Put 2 tsp of the chai tea into a blender/spice grind and grind into fine powder. 
• Put 1 Tbsp chai tea into fine sieve and into a bowl. Pour 6 Tbsp of just boiled water and allow tea to steep for a strong tea. 
• After cooling down, remove the tea leaves and set aside. You will only be using 4Tbsp of this cooled tea. 
• Separate 3 eggs to whites and yolks
• In a large mixing bowl, whisk yolks and 1/3 of the sugar
• Add the 40ml vegetable oil, 4 Tbsp cooled tea and whisk until combined
• Add the finely ground tea powder to the egg mixture and mix well. 
• Sift 75 g cake flour and 1 tsp. baking powder into the egg mixture in 3 increments. Whisk until totally incorporated and make sure there are no lumps.
• Using a stand mixer, whip the egg whites on medium low speed until foamy and bubbly. Add ⅓ of the remaining sugar and continue whipping. After 30 seconds or so, increase the stand mixer speed to high and add the remaining sugar slowly. Whip until stiff peaks. To check on stiff peaks, pull up your whisk and see if you can make strong “peak” that stays still without bending down
• Using a spatula, fold in ⅓ of the egg whites in the batter until the egg mixture shows no trace of egg white. 
• Fold in the rest of egg whites in 2 increments and mix gently until the mixture shows no trace of white and is well mixed. 
• Pour the batter into the ungreased 17 cm (7”) chiffon cake pan.
• To remove or prevent air pockets before baking, run a skewer (chopstick, knife or spatula) through the batter and then drop gently a few times.
• Bake in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean and the top of the cake springs back when gently pressed.
• The cake must be cooled upside down in its pan so that it stretch down instead of collapsing. Stick the cake pan on a tall heavy bottle or invert the cake pan onto a cooling rack (if you use angel food cake pan).
• Let it cool completely. 
• To extract the cake, run a thin sharp knife or thin offset spatula around both the outer and inner edge of the cake and then tap the cake out onto a serving plate.