Step 1

Gather all the ingredients. Preheat the oven to 340ºF (170ºC). For a convection oven, reduce cooking temperature by 25ºF (15ºCYou will also need a 17cm (7") chiffon cake pan. If you have a different size chiffon cake pan, please read this post. Make sure you use the correct chiffon cake pan. The best types are the aluminum ones with a removable base (Do not use non-stick bakeware for chiffon cake – it will not work). Do not grease the mold because the cake needs to cling on the sides and center of the pan for support as it rises or it will collapse.

Step 2

Put 2 tsp Earl Grey loose tea leaves in a food processor (I used a Nutribullet here) and grind them to fine powder. Alternatively, you can use a mortar and pestle to grind tea leaves, or put tea leaves in a bag and crush them.

Step 3

Put 1 Tbsp. Earl Grey loose tea leaves in a fine sieve over a bowl and pour 6 Tbsp (90 ml) of hot water to seep a strong tea. After cooling down, remove the tea leaves and use ONLY 4 Tbsp (60 ml) Earl Grey tea and set aside.

Step 4

Separate 3 eggs to whites and yolks. Keep the egg whites in the refrigerator (or freezer) until you're ready to use.

Step 5

In a large bowl, whisk 3 egg yolks and roughly ⅓ of 85 g sugar.

Step 6

Add 3 Tbsp vegetable oil, 4 Tbsp tea, and whisk all together until combined.

Step 7

Add the powdered Earl Grey tea in the egg mixture and mix well.

Step 8

Sift 75 g cake flour and 1 tsp baking powder into the egg mixture in 3 increments. Whisk until totally incorporated and make sure there are no lumps.

Step 9

Using a stand mixer (make sure there is no trace of water or oil), whip the chilled egg whites on medium-low sped (speed till opaque, foamy and bubbly. If you put the egg whites in the freezer, the surface and edges may be frozen already, but that's okay. You can add half-frozen egg whites into the bowl. Add ⅓ of the remaining sugar and continue whipping. After 30 seconds or so, increase the stand mixer speed to high (speed and add the remaining sugar slowly in small increments. It takes about 2-3 minutes until stiff peaks form (from the moment you switched to speed 10, but this is just a rough guide and it will vary based on stand mixers.). To check on stiff peaks, pull up your whisk and see if the egg whites go straight up (stiff peak) and just the tip is soft enough that it folds over, like taking a bow.

Step 10

Using a spatula, fold in ⅓ of the egg whites to the batter until the mixture is homogeneous.

Step 11

Fold in the rest of egg whites in 2-3 increments and mix gently until the mixture is homogeneous.

Step 12

Pour the batter into the ungreased 17 cm (7”) chiffon cake pan in same location to prevent from foaming more bubbles. To remove or prevent air pockets before baking, run a skewer (chopstick, knife or spatula) through the batter and then drop gently a few times.

Step 13

Bake in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean and the top of the cake springs back when gently pressed. If the top gets burn too quickly, cover the top loosely with aluminum foil.

Step 14

The cake must be cooled upside down in its pan so that it stretch down instead of collapsing. Stick the cake pan on a tall heavy bottle or invert the cake pan onto a cooling rack (if you use angel food cake pan). Let it cool completely. To extract the cake, run a thin sharp knife or thin offset spatula around both the outer and inner edge of the cake and then tap the cake out onto a serving plate.

Step 15

Dust powder sugar on top, if you like.