mexican chiffon cake

the hubby has been asking me for weeks to bake a yuzu chiffon cake.  we fell in love with yuzu in japan many years ago and always try to get our hands on anything yuzu. 

he found this recipe online and  we went to the grocery store today to purchase whatever we didn't have, which ended up being two mystery ingredients...caster sugar and corn flour.  

i don't bake much and definitely not from scratch.  google says that caster sugar is a super fine sugar...but it's not powdered sugar.  we looked high and low...no such thing at times supermarket.  another quick google search said that you can use plain, white sugar but it may take longer to melt.  or you can grind white sugar in a mixer but let it settle before opening up the cover or be prepared to inhale sugar dust. grrrrrreat.

and then came the "corn flour."  there were two options on the shelf -- corn "flour" and corn "meal."  i kept asking myself about using either in a chiffon cake.  the description on the "corn flour" bag says it's for making tortillas, tamales, empanadas, gorditas, etc.   chiffon cakes kinda fit between the tamales and empanadas, right?! so we bought it.

when i got home, i looked for other recipes just to confirm the use of "corn flour" and concluded that "corn flour" is actually supposed to be "corn starch."  this is what happens when people in different parts of the world call things by different names and you don't do your due diligence beforehand.  duh!

and for some reason, i never thought that the circle in the middle of a chiffon cake had a purpose.  turns out that the hole in the pan is used for air circulation during baking and for cooling the cake upside-down afterwards.  i had planned to use a plain rectangular baking pan for my "cake" but thought i better look up this last detail as well.  thank goodness i don't own a chiffon pan.  this (and google) saved me from making a mexican chiffon cake tonight!

you learn something new everyday.