A century ago, chiffon cake did not exist.It did not grace the plates of our forebears, surreal in its fluffiness, with its thousand tiny holes, more air than sugar.It was born of American ingenuity, and perhaps a peculiarly American despair.In 1927 in Los Angeles, a former insurance agent named, by kismet, Harry Baker, having abandoned a wife and children in Ohio to make a new life in Hollywood, fiddled obsessively with ingredients and measurements in his home kitchen until he came up with the recipe for a cake that was escape incarnate.
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