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Not sure why this keeps happening. I read that mixing the yolks is critical and I mix until the color becomes whiter.

In the oven it grows very tall roughly 20 minutes after start, but starts collapsing after that. Once taken from the oven and put upside down it still collapses onto itself and becomes at roughly the same height as the pan

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  • You can not ask such a question without giving information about the time and temperature which I think it’s where you have to look for the problem.
    – Asan
    Nov 19, 2020 at 12:39

3 Answers 3

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This will happen if you grease your cake pan or if the cake isn't allowed to fully cool before being removed from the pan. Another possible culprit is overbeating your egg whites.

Egg foam cakes, like chiffon, blow up with steam as they bake. The tube pan gives them more surface area both so they bake in the middle and also to give them more to cling to.

After they bake the cake is inverted until the egg proteins set. If not inverted, the cake will collapse as the steam escapes. A good rule of thumb is about an hour rest but the cake should be nearly room temperature.

If the tube pan is greased then the cake will not adhere near the end of cooking or through the inversion rest period.

The consistency of the egg whites is also important. If the whites are overbeaten they will lose some of their elasticity and give up their steam when they are stretched too far. Chiffon cake recipe do call for firm peaks, that is if you pull your beaters out the resultant peaks don't droop. But if you beat much past that phase the whites can get fragile.

Keep in mind that you should expect the cake to shrink slightly from it's max height when the steam is hot, but nothing like the collapse in your photo.

I don't believe that over or under beating the egg yolks would have caused the behavior you were seeing.

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    I seem to be following all of what you have written. I don't grease the pan and i try not to overbeat the whites. The sunk part on the picture is actually the bottom (i think my original question didnt make it clear). I'm trying to lower the temperature to around 160C - will see what happens
    – buskila
    Oct 9, 2018 at 0:41
  • I saw that it was the bottom. Did the cake collapse while baking, while cooling inverted, or after you depanned it?
    – Sobachatina
    Oct 9, 2018 at 2:42
  • During the first 20 minutes it sprang up. After that it started to slowly "deflate". The total baking time was 40 minutes and at the end if was at roughly the same level as the edges of the pan. I inverted the pan and let it cool down for almost two hours.
    – buskila
    Oct 9, 2018 at 5:21
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    @buskila- That doesn't actually sound that off. That's close to what I observe when they come out nicely. In your photo, is the fallen center of the cake level with the pan and the edges stayed at the highest point of the rise? That seems odd.
    – Sobachatina
    Oct 9, 2018 at 14:53
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i have made perfect chiffon cakes many times, but this crater bottom cake happened to me today. what was different:

  1. i used one egg less, it was a much thicker batter this time
  2. i lowered the temperature from 170°C to 155°C halfway
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Decrese this recipe´s eggs and see what happens, sometimes too many whites will cause a huge rise than fall. Sometimes I´ve heard this happens with the wrong size pan as well but I think this is more unlikely.

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  • Linking to an online source that talks about egg whites making cakes "fall" would really add some "umpf" to your answer.
    – elbrant
    Feb 23, 2019 at 0:53

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