How to avoid holes in Chiffon cake? I have recently baked a couple of chiffon cakes, overall I'm happy with the bake - the structure and flavor are very good. However I have a recurring issue with large holes in the sponge, see the picture below.  



I suspect it is some of the meringue not being fully incorporated into the batter and that large blobs of meringue are causing these holes. I could see there were blobs of meringue, but I was concerned if I kept folding to incorporate them I would knock out air from the meringue so I left them. The meringue was pretty hard, and I found it tough going, the blobs just wouldn't break up. 

Do I need to keep folding, or is there a way to break up these blobs? Or is my meringue too hard? If it's the meringue, how do I make it softer? Should I speed up pouring in the sugar and whip the whites less?
You may want to run a knife gently through the batter to pop any large air bubbles before baking. While not included in all chiffon/angle food cake recipes, directions to remove large air pockets by running a knife through the batter in the pan before baking is not that unusual.