Lemon Chiffon Cake

This delicious, airy Lemon Chiffon Cake is so moist and light! We absolutely love lemon desserts and are so happy to have a chiffon cake to add to our Recipes section.

What is a Chiffon Cake?

If you've never had a chiffon cake, it is much different in texture from our usual bundt cakes or pound cakes. They contain oil rather than butter, they generally contain less flour, the eggs are separated so that the whites can be whipped up and folded into the batter.  

All of this results in the soft, light, and delicate cake which bakes up beautifully in a tube pan.  

What is the difference between a Chiffon Cake and an Angel Food Cake?

Chiffon cake and angel food cake are both fabulously light, airy cakes thanks in part to the whipped egg whites that we mentioned above. However, chiffon cakes have an added boost of flavor and moistness from the egg yolks and oil in the recipe. Angel food cakes do not contain egg yolks or fat (no oil or butter). 

 

 

How to Make Lemon Chiffon Cake 

You can find the full, printable Lemon Chiffon Cake recipe further down in this post, but here is a quick rundown of our steps!

• Do not grease the pan. I know this is unusual and so I'm putting this step first!

 

• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F

 

• Next, separate the egg yolks and egg whites, put them in separate medium size bowls

 

 

• In the bowl of your stand mixer, combine the all purpose flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. 

 

• In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks, water and lemon juice, oil, lemon zest, vanilla and lemon extract.  Add this to the dry ingredients and mix until well blended.

 

• In a separate bowl, add cream of tartar to egg whites, beat until stiff peaks form.  Do not beat above medium speed.  

 

• Fold the egg whites into the cake batter. Then, gently spoon into an ungreased  12 cup tube pan. Cut through the batter with a knife to remove air pockets. 

 

• Bake at 325 degrees F for 45 to 50 minutes.  The cake is done when it springs back when lightly pressed.

 

• Immediately turn the cake upside down on a cooling rack and let cool completely. This could take a couple of hours depending on the temperature of your kitchen. When the outside of the pan is cool it is ready to turn out,

 

 

• Run a thin blade knife around the side of the tube pan as well as the center tube of the pan and release.

 

 

For the White Chocolate Lemon Glaze

We often use our simple vanilla glaze for our bundt cakes and pound cakes but for today's recipe, we decided to get get fancy! This white chocolate lemon glaze is so flavorful and pairs perfectly with our lemon chiffon cake.

This recipe is adapted from King Arthur Flour's "poured fondant" recipe but with a touch of lemon (don't let the name scare you- it is not fondant), It is really delicious, and simple to make!

We waited to prepare the white chocolate glaze until the cake had baked and cooled.

 

Preparing the Glaze

First, measure out your ingredients so that everything is ready to go. 

Melt the white chocolate chips (we heated ours in the microwave in small increments). If you'd rather not microwave, just heat in a small saucepan.

Next, sift confectioners sugar into a bowl and add the corn syrup and hot water. Stir until smooth.

Add the melted white chocolate, lemon extract, a pinch of salt, and stir until smooth. If it is too thick, you can add a touch more water or milk.

This glaze will thicken as it cools. If it has cooled and thickened too much, you can microwave very briefly to bring it back to glazing consistency.

 

 Applying the Glaze

To apply the white chocolate lemon glaze, you can either spoon it over the cooled cake, or you can load it into a disposable piping bag with the tip snipped away. 

I personally like to pipe on the glaze with a disposable piping bag because it gives me more control over the drips- but there's no wrong way to glaze a cake!

 

*If the drips are traveling further down the cake than you intended, you can always pop it in the freezer for a few minutes to free everything into place.

Also, keep in mind that you can test your drips on the inside of the bowl to get an idea of the consistency of the drip before decorating the cake. If it is too thin or too fast, just allow it to cool for a few more minutes.

 

 

How to Store a Lemon Chiffon Cake

We stored our glazed lemon chiffon cake under a cake dome at room temperature. It held it moisture well and did not dry out. 

Why don't you grease the pan for a chiffon cake?

Traditionally, you should not grease the tube pan for a chiffon cake as you would for most other cakes. Not greasing the pan allows the cake batter to really cling to the side of the pan as it bakes.

The batter needs this structure and support because chiffon cakes don't have as much flour (gluten) as other cake recipes. The resulting cake is delicate yet bakes up nice and tall.

Why should chiffon cakes be Cooled Upside Down?

Unlike other cake recipes, the Lemon Chiffon Cake should be cooled upside down. This allows the pan to give the cake extra support as it cools and gravity helps it to maintain it's height. If you were to cool the cake right-side up, it's delicate structure would be in danger of collapsing. Once the cake has cooled, it is nice and sturdy.

Some tube pans are designed with legs with the upside-down cooling process in mind. This is especially helpful if your chiffon cake bakes up taller than the pan.  

 

More Lemon Cakes to Try

We've created so many lemon cakes over the years that we just love! 

Our homemade Lemon Cake is always a popular choice, along with our Lemon Buttermilk Cake, Lemon Sour Cream Cake, and Lemon Blueberry Cake. 

If you prefer to work with cake mixes, this Lemon Layer Cake- Doctored Mix is amazing! 

More recently, we've made a Lemon Cheesecake Cake which consists of a lemon cheese cake layer sandwiched between two lemon cake layers. 

There are so many delicious options! You can find our full listing of favorite Lemon Recipes here: Favorite Lemon Cakes and Frostings!

 

Thanks so much for stopping by! If you give our Lemon Chiffon Cake a try, we would love for you to leave a comment and photo below!