I made a grapefruit chiffon cake for my mother's birthday.

[Denninmi]

It sounded interesting. Something just a little different. We'll have it tonight. I just did something simple and easy for dinner, put some ribeye steaks in a marinade, sliced up some potatoes and sweet potatoes, threw a little Mrs. Dash on them to roast in the oven, and an endive salad with a hot bacon dressing. Get home tonight, throw it all on, viola, dinner.

This is the recipe I used:

http://www.canadianliving.com/food/red_grapefruit_chiffon_cake.php

[Lucinda]

1. How did the cake turn out?

I love grapefruit, and I've never used it in dessert .... other than sorbet.

And I love the sweet potato/potato combo roasted. I always add a sweet potato into my mixed roast veggies now. Sooo great roasted.

[Denninmi]

2. Needed more grapefruit flavor.

The cake itself was good in terms of the texture, the moisture content was right, not too heavy or too dry, and about right sweetness, not overly sweet, but the grapefruit flavor was kind of pale. I think if I did it again, I might be tempted to take a larger amount of grapefruit juice and boil it down to concentrate it, plus add more grapefruit zest to the recipe.

If you want to try a really great grapefruit dessert, make a fresh (unbaked) grapefruit pie. So easy and so good. You need the segments from about 3 large grapefruits with all of the seeds and membranes removed, plus a couple of cups of grapefruit juice, a package of strawberry jello (could use another red flavor if you wanted, I guess), a baked pie crust (pastry or graham cracker, your choice), and whipped cream or whipped topping. Basically, you just make the jello using grapefruit juice instead of water as per the directions, then when partially set, stir in the grapefruit segments, put in the pie shell and stick it in the fridge until set completely and chilled, then top with whipped cream. Yummy.

[Lucinda]

3. The pie sounds good!

And different. I love tart/sweet desserts, and grapefruit is big favorite. I used to eat it all the time, but the fruit we get here is usually a little on the dry side for eating fresh. The pie might be a good solution for me.

If I try the cake I'll definitely concentrate the flavor as suggested. Thankie.

[grasswire]

4. that's the thing with chiffon cakes

The flavor is always going to be a subtle shadow of the fruit. A way to enhance flavor (and this might work well with grapefruit) is to make a very simple sugar glaze to drizzle over top. That's the flavor punch.

I really enjoy making chiffon cakes. Many people today have never had a homemade scratch chiffon cake.

[grasswire]

5. I'm reminded of the time I made a Lane cake for my mother's bday.

It failed.

The boiled icing didn't totally set up, and after the cake was frosting and sitting on the table that icing oozed and puddled over the edge of the plate onto the tablecloth. That was twenty years ago and it still smarts.