Lemon Chiffon Cake

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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 Cake Recipes section.

Lemon Chiffon Cake- So moist, light, and airy!

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.  

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
Delicious Lemon Chiffon Cake- So light and airy!
Lemon Chiffon Cake
  • 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.  
Lemon Chiffon Cake
  • 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. 
Lemon Chiffon Cake
  • Bake at 325 degrees F for 45 to 50 minutes.  The cake is done when it springs back when lightly pressed.
Lemon Chiffon Cake Recipe- So delicious, light, and airy!
  • 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,
Lemon Chiffon Cake
  • Run a thin blade knife around the side of the tube pan as well as the center tube of the pan and release.
Lemon Chiffon Cake- So moist, light, and airy!

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.

Lemon Chiffon Cake with White Chocolate Lemon Glaze

 Glazing the Lemon Chiffon Cake

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!

Lemon Chiffon 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.

Lemon Chiffon Cake

FAQs

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). 

To keep the lemon chiffon cake fresh, store in an airtight cake container or cake dome.

We stored our glazed lemon chiffon cake under a cake dome at room temperature. It held it moisture well and did not dry out. As with most cakes, we recommend consuming by the 3rd day.

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.

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 its 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.

This delicious Lemon Chiffon Cake is so light and airy!

  

More Lemon Cakes to Try

This light Lemon Chiffon Cake makes a great summer cake.

We are big fans of lemon desserts and have created so many lemon cakes over the years!. We hope that you will give some of these delicious recipes a try.

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. 

You can find our full listing of favorite Lemon Recipes here: Favorite Lemon Cakes and Frostings!

 Enjoy the Recipe

Yield: 15 servings

Lemon Chiffon Cake

This delicious Lemon Chiffon Cake is so light and airy!

This light, moist, and flavorful Lemon Chiffon Cake has a wonderfully airy texture. Perfect for a baby or bridal shower, a tea, or just because!

Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients

  • 7 room temperature eggs, separated
  • 2 cups (242g) all-purpose flour
  • 1 ½ cups (300g) sugar
  • 3 teaspoons baking powder (10g)
  • 1 teaspoon salt (6g)
  • ¾ cup (183g) lemon juice and water (add the juice of 2 lemons to a 1 cup measure, then add water to the ¾ cup mark
  • ½ cup (108g) canola oil
  • zest of 2 lemons
  • 1 teaspoon (3g) vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon (3g) lemon extract
  • ½ teaspoon cream of tartar (a substitution for cream of tartar is ½ teaspoon lemon juice)

For the White Chocolate Lemon Glaze

  • ½ cup (71g) white chocolate chips- we used Ghirardelli (you can substitute white bark coating)
  • 2 cups (227g) confectioners sugar, sifted
  • 2 Tablespoons (39g) light corn syrup
  • 2 Tablespoons (28g) hot water
  • ½ teaspoon Lemon Extract (adjust amount to suit your taste)
  • Pinch of salt (we prefer fine grain salt/popcorn salt when possible)

Instructions

  1. Do not grease the tube pan (do not use a bundt pan or nonstick pan)
  2. Lower oven rack to next to lowest position. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F
  3. Separate the egg yolks and egg whites, put in separate medium size bowls
  4. In the bowl of your mixer, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. 
  5. In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks, lemon juice and water, oil, lemon zest, vanilla and lemon extract.  Add this to the dry ingredients and mix until well blended.
  6. 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 batter.
  7. Gently pour or spoon into an un-greased  12 cup tube pan. Cut through the batter with a knife to remove air pockets.   
  8. Bake at 325 degrees for 45 to 50 minutes.  The cake is done when it springs back when lightly pressed.  
  9. 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.
  10. Run a thin blade knife around the side of the tube pan as well as the center tube of the pan.  

For the White Chocolate Lemon Glaze

Once the cake has cooled and you are ready to add the glaze...

  1. Melt the white chocolate chips -- we heated ours in the microwave in small increments, stirring in between First 30 seconds, then 10 second increments until melted. While the chips still have their shape, stir to complete the melting process.
  2. Sift confectioners sugar into a bowl and add the corn syrup and hot water. Stir until smooth.
  3. Next, add the melted white chocolate, lemon extract, and a pinch of salt and stir until smooth. If it is too thick, you can add a touch more water or milk.
  4. 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.

Glazing the Cake

You can spoon the glaze over the cake, but for more control, use a disposable piping bag with the tip snipped away.

Once you've applied the glaze, you can add lemon zest to the top if you'd like for additional color and lemon flavor. Enjoy!


Notes

*This recipe was adapted from Taste of Home's Lemon Chiffon Cake

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21 Comments

  1. This cake turned out beautifully! Thank you for sharing this recipe and I will definitely make again.

  2. Hi Donna, The chiffon cake can be frozen. Once the cake has cooled completely wrap in plastic wrap and then aluminum foil. It can be frozen for 2 months and will be perfect.

    1. Hi Kelsey, We have never baked this recipe in 8 inch round pans. The tube pan is not greased so the batter can climb the sides as well as the center tube to achieve height. Since we have not tried in any other pans I am not sure it will
      achieve the height it should.

  3. Word to the Wise: google how to keep your borrowed two piece angel food cake pan from leaking like crazy BEFORE you pour in the batter!