Pumpkin Maple Walnut Chiffon Cake

• The video for this recipe was for a basic pumpkin chiffon cake with chopped walnuts folded into the cake batter and without any cream and maple glazed walnuts as decoration
• Make sure your chiffon cake pan does not have a non-stick coating or your cake will not rise. The cake needs to cling to the side of the pan to rise tall

Bring ingredients to room temperature:

• Before you start making the recipe, make sure the eggs and milk are at room temperature. Separate the eggs when they are still cold and then let the whites and yolks come to a room temperature, about 30 minutes or so.

Prepare cake batter:

• Separate the egg yolks from the whites. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks salt, oil, milk, pumpkin puree, and pumpkin spice, maple extract if using
  
• Sift the cake flour into the yolk mixture, then use a rubber spatula to gently mix until you don't see any more loose flour. Set aside
  

Whip the egg white meringue:

• Preheat your oven to 330 F (165 C). Place the oven rack 3rd from the top. For convection oven, lower the temperature by 20 F (15 C)
• Beat the egg whites on medium speed until frothy, add cream of tartar or lemon juice/vinegar and whip until it turns whitish and air bubbles are fine.
  
• Gradually add the sugar as you beat, in 3 batches. I beat them at medium speed (speed 6 on Kitchen Aid). This will take a bit longer than beating at high speed. I used to do higher speed (speed 8), but the meringue is smoother and nicer when I maintain the speed on 6 and much more stable too.
  
• I highly recommend stopping several times to check on the consistency and scraping the sides of the bowl to make sure no sugar left on the side of the bowl. Whip until you reach a stiff peak but still have a slight bent on the tip. Then lower the speed to 4 and whip for 1 minute to even out large bubbles and stop beating
  

Fold meringue into the cake batter:

• Gently fold in 1/3 of the meringue into the thick batter. Using a rubber spatula, swipe from the side and gently fold over to mix and then continue. Repeat this motion several rounds. Continue on with the second 1/3  of the meringue again to mix. Continue to do this until you are done with the meringue and the batter and meringue are nicely mixed. You shouldn't see anymore white meringue
  
• If you choose to fold some walnuts into the cake batter, scoop some of the batter into the chiffon pan to cover the base. This is to prevent the walnuts from sinking to the bottom of the pan.
  
• Fold the chopped walnuts into the rest of the batter gently if that's what you choose to do.
  
• If you don't want to add walnuts into the cake batter, pour the cake batter into an ungreased chiffon pan.
• Use a chopstick or a skewer to draw a zig zag on the cake batter to pop any large air bubbles that are trapped inside and also to even out the batter. The large air bubbles will create large holes in the crumbs later. Gently drop the cake pan from about 10 cm height on the counter 2-3 times.
  

Baking:

• Pop into the oven and let it bake at 330 F (165 C) for 50-55 minutes or until the toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean
  
• Don't be alarm if your cake has some cracks on top. What you are looking at will become the bottom of your cake. I find that baking at this temperature in my oven prevents the cake from cracking
  

Invert the cake once out of the oven:

• Once out of the oven, drop the cake pan from about 10 cm height on the counter several times to prevent shrinkage. Then carefully invert the pan upside down. Your chiffon pan may have the little stands for you to invert, but I find it not high enough. I use a glass jar and set the inverted pan on top of the jar and let it cool down completely. Please don't be tempted to remove from the pan if it's still warm. It takes about one to two hours to cool down completely
  
• Once it's cool down completely, use a spatula knife to run through the edge of the cake and outer middle tube to help release the cake. Gently push the base of the pan to lift the cake up. Gently use your hand to release the cake from the bottom.
  

Make some maple-glazed walnut:

• While waiting for the cake, you can make some maple-glazed walnut. You can leave the walnut pieces whole or cut into smaller chunks. I like to toast the walnuts in a dry pan over low-medium heat for about 8-10 minutes or until they smell really fragrant.
• Then add the maple syrup and pinch of salt and continue to cook over low heat until the maple syrup starts to get sticky and coat the walnut pieces. Remove from the pan onto a baking pan lined with parchment paper. Separate them as much as you can so they don't clump to each other. Set aside to cool down completely
  

Prepared stabilized maple whipped cream:

• Chill your mixing bowl and whisk attachment in the fridge for 15 minutes. The cream whips better when everything is cold. Make sure the heavy cream has been chilled in the fridge too
• Pour the heavy cream, cornstarch, and vanilla extract into a mixing bowl. Start whipping at medium-low speed until it becomes thick and creamy and has a soft peak. Add the maple syrup one tablespoon at a time and continue beating until you get a firm peak. Beating at medium-low speed is to prevent us from overwhipping the cream. We don't want to overwhip this because it turns grainy and worse, it can separate and turn into a butter. Keep this in the fridge

Decorate the cake:

• Place the cake on a cake turner if you have one (I unfortunately don't have one!).
• Frost the top and the sides of the cake using an offset spatula. Smooth the cream on the side and the top of the cake using the offset spatula or a bench scraper.
• Return the cake to the fridge and let it chill for 3-4 hours or overnight before serving. This gives the whipped cream some time to set and hardened

To serve:

• Right before you serve the cake, decorate the top with maple-glazed walnut pieces

To store:

• Leftovers need to be put in the fridge. Cover the cake well and put it in the fridge for 2-3 days. They can be served straight from the fridge