Perfecting Cake Mixing Techniques

[LamsMekk]

I’m baking at 160, could it be that the temp is too low?


I’m sure I remember you saying that this is the best temp for baking though so I’m assuming not...

 

[Norcalbaker59]

I don’t know. I don’t know the formula; I don’t know how you mixed everything. The order things were addded, nothing. All I know is that you baked it at 160°C and didn’t grease the tin.

 

[LamsMekk]

340g of butter
340g Sugar
340 Self raising flour
4 eggs

Could be that the Butter is too warm?

 

[LamsMekk]

All in one method

 

[Norcalbaker59]

All in one method

This is essentially a pound cake. There are equal parts flour, sugar, fat, and eggs by weight. Although the eggs are slightly lower than the flour, this is still considered a pound cake.

A pound cake is by is very characteristics dense because of its ratios. It is the nature of the beast. If you want a light airy crumb, you have to chose the appropriate cake formula

The mixing method is going to add to density of the cake. I explained to you that creaming is NOT mixing. Rather it is mechanical leavening. When you eliminate the mechanical leavening, you will have a denser cake.



Look at the chart titled STANDARD CAKE PROPORTIONS (%) AND QUALITIES in the link below.

These ratios are NOT set in stone!! But they will give you some idea of what to look for when you are assessing a recipe. You picked a pound cake—the characteristics are a rich and dense cake. You used All In One, forgoing the mechanical leavening.

A pastry chef selects the appropriate formula AND proper mixing and leavening methods to create the texture of the cake. Remember, whipping the egg whites and ribboning the eggs is also a form of leavening.

If you want to use this recipe, you can cream the butter and sugar to create a lighter crumb. The cake will still be heavier that other formulas like a standard butter cake or chiffon cake, but it will be lighter than the all in one.

It will brown more because the high butter and sugar content.

Because you have 100% fat to flour, you will have noticeable oil, especailly when you did not emulsify your batter. When you cream the butter and sugar, then beat the egg into the butter, you create an emulsification. When you use all in one, you not only eliminate the mechanical leavening, but you don’t emulsify the butter and egg. So the butter is subjected to the heat in the oven and most likely to break. A broken butter is oily. Ditto for margarine. If you want a quality cake, I would scratch the all in one method off all together. It is not a method used by professional bakers for cake because it produces terrible cake. It is a easy home bakers mixing method, designed for those who really don’t bake cake.

Just a word about margarine, understand that oiliness is an overall general issue with margarine no matter what. Margarine is vegetable oil—a liquid that has to make it into a solid for baking. Greasy baked goods is an real issue with margarine. The margarine used in commercial baking is tempered to exacting specifications to ensure it holds together at the correct temperature and performs like butter, rather than melting and pooling into an oily mess. Batters do not absorb oil, so emulsification is key. You always have to look for margarine that is labelled for baking. But know that retail baking margarine is still not as good as commercial baking margarine.

Basic Cake Ingredients - Ingredients for Cake | Crafty Baking | Formerly Baking911 | CraftyBaking | Formerly Baking911

There are many different types of cake recipes and numerous ways of categorizing them. The general classification used is whether or not they contain fat, also known as shortening (not the be confused solely with just processed shortening), and are called: SHORTENED (BUTTER OR OIL) CAKES or...

www.craftybaking.com

 

[Norcalbaker59]

Baking margarine like this that is labled for baking AND in sticks. Margarine in tubs is NOT baking margarine—I do not care what they say on the package. Tub margarine is too soft, it is not tempered enough for baking.

 

[LamsMekk]

This is essentially a pound cake. There are equal parts flour, sugar, fat, and eggs by weight. Although the eggs are slightly lower than the flour, this is still considered a pound cake.

A pound cake is by is very characteristics dense because of its ratios. It is the nature of the beast. If you want a light airy crumb, you have to chose the appropriate cake formula

The mixing method is going to add to density of the cake. I explained to you that creaming is NOT mixing. Rather it is mechanical leavening. When you eliminate the mechanical leavening, you will have a denser cake.



Look at the chart titled STANDARD CAKE PROPORTIONS (%) AND QUALITIES in the link below.

These ratios are NOT set in stone!! But they will give you some idea of what to look for when you are assessing a recipe. You picked a pound cake—the characteristics are a rich and dense cake. You used All In One, forgoing the mechanical leavening.

A pastry chef selects the appropriate formula AND proper mixing and leavening methods to create the texture of the cake. Remember, whipping the egg whites and ribboning the eggs is also a form of leavening.

If you want to use this recipe, you can cream the butter and sugar to create a lighter crumb. The cake will still be heavier that other formulas like a standard butter cake or chiffon cake, but it will be lighter than the all in one.

It will brown more because the high butter and sugar content.

Because you have 100% fat to flour, you will have noticeable oil, especailly when you did not emulsify your batter. When you cream the butter and sugar, then beat the egg into the butter, you create an emulsification. When you use all in one, you not only eliminate the mechanical leavening, but you don’t emulsify the butter and egg. So the butter is subjected to the heat in the oven and most likely to break. A broken butter is oily. Ditto for margarine. If you want a quality cake, I would scratch the all in one method off all together. It is not a method used by professional bakers for cake because it produces terrible cake. It is a easy home bakers mixing method, designed for those who really don’t bake cake.

Just a word about margarine, understand that oiliness is an overall general issue with margarine no matter what. Margarine is vegetable oil—a liquid that has to make it into a solid for baking. Greasy baked goods is an real issue with margarine. The margarine used in commercial baking is tempered to exacting specifications to ensure it holds together at the correct temperature and performs like butter, rather than melting and pooling into an oily mess. Batters do not absorb oil, so emulsification is key. You always have to look for margarine that is labelled for baking. But know that retail baking margarine is still not as good as commercial baking margarine.

Basic Cake Ingredients - Ingredients for Cake | Crafty Baking | Formerly Baking911 | CraftyBaking | Formerly Baking911

There are many different types of cake recipes and numerous ways of categorizing them. The general classification used is whether or not they contain fat, also known as shortening (not the be confused solely with just processed shortening), and are called: SHORTENED (BUTTER OR OIL) CAKES or...

www.craftybaking.com

This cake for some reason isn’t dense, the texture is actually very soft, it just came out oily for some reason!

I have made it before with success so I really can’t understand what went wrong. The reason I don’t use the creaming method for it is because it makes it much too soft and it lacks structure for stacking.

I made the cake twice, once with butter and once with Margarine yesterday.

I literally made cake after cake, recipe after recipe and EVERY SINGLE CAKE CAME OUT OILY.

I’m making a cake on the 31st as a sort of favour but if I don’t manage to reciting this issue then I won’t be able to make it at all.

I did notice that the batter looked oily, but I don’t know why that would be..

 

[LamsMekk]

This is another recipe that I used to make another cake yesterday.

 

[LamsMekk]

This is the method

 

[Norcalbaker59]

This is the method

Regarding the oily cake....do the baker’s percentages

• stork 210 g
• oil 60 ml (1 tablespoon is Equivalent to 15 ml)
• butter 750 g
  • total fat 1020 g

• flour 600 g

1020 ÷ 600 = 1.7



The fat to flour ratio is a whopping 170%!!!! A normal butter cake has an average of 45% fat to flour ratio. The cake is oily because the formula contains a crap load of fat.


I sent you the link to CraftyBaking that had a chart with basic cake formula. You really need to read it. If you don’t get a basic understanding of what different cake formula baker’s percentages are, you will continue to waste your time and money on crappy recipes like this one.

NEVER BAKE A RECEIPE WITHOUT RUNNING THE BAKER’S PERCENTAGES FIRST.

You need to know if a recipe conforms to standards before you try it. This recipe is formulated to make a oily cake because the ratios of fat to flour so extreme that it cannot produce anything else.





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Pound cake is not the cake normally used in a tiered cake. It is a rich and heavy cake.



BUT a pound cake that is properly formulated is plenty sturdy to stack. I stack my chiffon layer cake into two teirs, so a pound cake can easily be stacked.



Any cake must rest 24 hours before it is torted, dammed, & filled. The crumb is very fragile.



How many tiers? Are you stacking properly with dowels? With 3 or more tiers, you should use a center dowel down the center of the cake





How to torte a cake; this will help you get even layers. AND YES TORTE. Nothing says unprofessional more than un-torted cake layers. All those un-torted layers stacked on top of each other by the guy at preppy kitchen just goes to show he NOT a trained pastry chef. Untorted layers has too many issues. See below. I find a good serated bread knife works best.


Note the cake is very level and there is no dry crust on the sides of the cake. This is a properly baked cake. You cannot prevent the crust from forming on top as the batter is exposed to the hot dry heat in the oven. But notice the light metal cake tin. And I am sure they used cloth baking strips. My cake formulas are such that the top crust is soft enough I can gently scrape the top crust off with a paring knife.

https://www.mybluprint.com/article/what-is-torting-a-cake



How to dowel a cake. It’s shows a fondant, but it applies for buttercream. Just an aside, if you plan to use fondant, the cake must be de-gassed the night before you cover it in fondant. Otherwise the escaping gas from the leavening will form bubbles under the fondant.

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WRONG WAY TO MAKE A TIER—TOO MUCH CAKE TO FILLING AND ICING, SO THERE IS NO BALANCE IN FLAVOR AND TEXTURE; TOO COSTLY AS IT USES 3 LAYERS PER TIER INSTEAD OF 2. YOU WILL HAVE TOO CHARGE TOO MUCH FOR YOUR CAKES IF YOU DO NOT TORTE. PLUS IT LOOKS TOTALLY UNPROFESSIONAL.

Diagram of how a cake is doweled. The top tier does not need dowels since it does not support anything. Wilton and other company now make cake boards with center holes so you can run a center dowel through the stacked cake; I prefer to use heavy duty straws like boba tea straws, but any good sturdy will work. I just don’t like wood.


If you use real flowers, to decorate, they have to be from a florist who buys them from a certified organics grower; they must be edible (check online for the list of safe flowers); the stems must be covered in florist tape and inserted in a plastic straw so it does not come in direct contact with the cake.

 

[Norcalbaker59]

I haven’t tried this recipe, but the ratios are more in line with the standards for a vanilla cake. Ptak is the pastry chef who baked the wedding cake for Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Ptak is American, but lives and works in London, so this recipe is based on UK ingredients.

The fat is 41%; I would bake it as written first. If it is dry, then increase the fat up to 10%. The vanilla is low at 1 tsp (5) vanilla extract. I would use vanilla paste or a good brand of imitation vanilla and increase it 8g - 10 g. Imitation vanilla vanilla is indistinguishable from real vanilla in bake goods, and most people often prefer it. See articles below.


Clair Ptak Vanilla Cake

Note: Ptak uses this for her Victoria Sponge, vanilla cake, and vanilla cupcakes


Ingredients

• 125g unsalted butter, softened, plus more for greasing the tin
• 200g caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• ½ tsp salt
• 300g plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 160g whole milk

to make a Victoria Sponge

• 700g double cream
• Plum jam
• Icing sugar, for dusting

METHOD

1.  Preheat the oven to 150C/Gas 2. Butter a deep 20 x 7½cm cake tin and line with parchment paper.
2.  In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter with the sugar until almost white and fluffy. Add the eggs, vanilla and salt and mix until fully combined.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and baking powder, then add half of it to the butter mixture until just combined. Add the milk and mix until combined.
4.  Now mix in the remaining flour. Scrape the bottom of the bowl and mix once more. Pour the batter into your prepared tin and smooth the top with a palette knife or spatula.
5.  Bake for about 50-60 minutes, until the top of the cake springs back to the touch. Allow the cake to cool for 15-20 minutes, then remove it from the tin and set on a wire rack to cool completely.
6. To make a Victoria Sponge: whip your cream to soft peaks and bring your jam to room temperature.
7. Once the cake has cooled, use a long, serrated knife to slice horizontally through the cake. Use the loose bottom of a cake or tart tin to slide in between the layers and lift off the top layer. Slide the bottom layer off the cooling rack and on to a serving plate or cake stand.

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the truth about vanilla is experts can’t taste the difference or pick the imitation vanilla. So do customers.

From Cook’s Illustrated:

”We tallied the results of our first two tastings, frosting and pudding, and found that an imitation won, followed closely by a pure extract. The rest of the rankings were a jumble. We were surprised. We knew from past tastings that imitation vanillas could be good in baked goods, but we were shocked that Baker’s (a budget imitation product made by McCormick) won tastings in which the vanilla was stirred in at the end, uncooked. We scrutinized ingredient lists and called in experts to help us understand why.”



These are articles from various professional cooking/baking sites that discuss tests and direct experience with customers using real and imitation vanilla. I use both. I cannot tell the difference. I have yet to have anyone say, “Hey, you used imitation vanilla in this cookie!”

The Best Vanilla | America's Test Kitchen

Cyclones, theft, petrochemicals, market swings—vanilla is anything but boring. We delve into this fascinating world and find the best products for your kitchen.

www.cooksillustrated.com

Imitation Vanilla???!!! – Joe Pastry

Is Real Vanilla Always Better Than Imitation Vanilla?

According to our test kitchen, not necessarily.

www.epicurious.com

Is Better Vanilla Extract Worth the Price? | Taste Test

Real vanilla extract doesn't come cheap. Depending on where you buy it, it can range from a little under a buck an ounce all the way up to several dollars. Add real vanilla beans into the mix and prices can climb even higher. But does more expensive vanilla make for better flavor? Tastier...

sweets.seriouseats.com

 

[Norcalbaker59]

Alternatively you can try white cake. The most well-known formula is Rose Levy Beranbaum’s White Velvet Cake. It uses the reverse creaming method which is really a method designed for commercial baking with A special type of high ratio shortening.

It requires cake flour. But you can purchase he treated flour in the UK that RLB says works with her recipes. There’s a couple of brands now available but I guess Matthews right now is the most common. You can also make your own if you Google Kate’s heated treated flour

White Velvet Cake rec

https://s3.amazonaws.com/realbakingwithrose.com/files/recipes/RLB%27s%20White%20Velvet%20Cake.pdf

how to heat treat flour

Kate Flour

Update May 2012: Heat-treated flour is now being sold to home bakers in the UK! See: Boom Boom Ain’t It Great To Be Floury. From Cake Flour to Kate Flour Kate flour has been created as a repl…

amerrierworld.com

heat treated cake flour

Matthews Heat Treated Cake Flour

This soft flour has been heat treated to allow the addition of high levels of sugar and liquid into your Cotswold Flour cake recipes.

www.fwpmatthews.co.uk

 

[Norcalbaker59]

Regarding the weak cake: that’s odd, the one bowl cake should be the cake that you cannot stack, not the cake make from the creaming method. The one bowl method does not create an emulsion with the butter and egg; so the batter is going to be loose. Not to mention be oily. Then there is no real mixing to speak of because everything is dumped in the bowl at once, so no gluten development. When you use the creaming method, the flour is mixed in longer with the mixer, so some gluten development. The awful dense texture and weak cake that cannot be stacked is why professional pastry chefs don’t use one bowl mixing. It really is a home baker’s method mixing method. But I was just sitting here thinking about what you wrote, and I thought for a minute that I misread it. So I came back to check. But you were talking about the cake that was made with the creaming method.

 

[LamsMekk]

Thank you so much for all of the info I really appreciate you taking the time to do so.

I’m not ready to tier cakes yet but I am layering. I do plan to make tiered cakes hopefully soon so I can refer back to that information when the time comes.

I have tried real vanilla Pods but do prefer the bottled liquid stuff. I’m not sure if this is imitation or simply impure vanilla. It’s called Madagascan vanilla.

I’ve realised that my major issue is that I’m too fast to make a judgement on the quality of a cake when it’s out of the oven. I think that cakes need several hours to find their actual texture.

I would love to use edible flours for cake decorating but they are so expensive here and more suited to up market shops.

One issue I have had though is hard top cupcakes. This issue seems to arise no matter what recipe I use so I’m assuming it could be my fan oven?

 

[LamsMekk]

They’re far too crisply on top
And the fact that this is an issue irrespective of the recipe makes me suspect my oven...

 

[LamsMekk]

Same issue with the red velvet batch.. and these have a lot of buttermilk in so I wouldn’t assume that they would crust on top

 

[LamsMekk]

They’re a lovely rich red though! Not clear in the pic, but I used the sugarflair Christmas red

 

[Norcalbaker59]

They’re far too crisply on top
And the fact that this is an issue irrespective of the recipe makes me suspect my oven...

FAN OFF!!!!

OMG, I Keep forgetting the ovens in the UK are the worst with those fans. No fan. The ovens are way too small for baking with a fan. You see that volcano top? That is caused by the excessive heat. We talked about this already. The batter bakes from the outside inward. The batter sets too quickly on the outside, and center is still raw and rising. When it sets too fast, the center bursts through the top, just like a volcano.

The fan, a dark tin, aluminum muffin liners, too high an oven temperature are the contributing factors.

A commercial oven has a fan. But the interior is large and with a lot of racks. The rack are also much larger. A dozen trays or tins may be baked at once. So the hot air is circulated in between all those racks. A baked goods in small home oven cannot absorb all that heat from a fan.

But even in a commercial oven adjustments must be made. When a baker uses a commercial oven for the first time, they always have to revise their formulas and baking temperatures and times to that oven.

But even with cake and cupcakes a fan is frequently not used because the forced air is so strong it damages the goods. For cupcakes the fan will literally blow the batter out of the liners.

If you cannot turn the fan off, then drop the temperature.

 

[Norcalbaker59]

Thank you so much for all of the info I really appreciate you taking the time to do so.

I’m not ready to tier cakes yet but I am layering. I do plan to make tiered cakes hopefully soon so I can refer back to that information when the time comes.

I have tried real vanilla Pods but do prefer the bottled liquid stuff. I’m not sure if this is imitation or simply impure vanilla. It’s called Madagascan vanilla.

I’ve realised that my major issue is that I’m too fast to make a judgement on the quality of a cake when it’s out of the oven. I think that cakes need several hours to find their actual texture.

I would love to use edible flours for cake decorating but they are so expensive here and more suited to up market shops.

One issue I have had though is hard top cupcakes. This issue seems to arise no matter what recipe I use so I’m assuming it could be my fan oven?

Cake must always rest 24 hrs before the crumb is set. Especially if chemically leavening is used to allow the excess gas to escape. The cake moisture must be allowed to balance out as well, and any flavoring to develop fully. Heat will destroy flavorings, so you cannot tell the final flavor of the cake until it is fully cooled. The steam escapes from the cake while it is hot. But the sugar is hygroscopic, so it will draw moisture back in. That is what I mean when I say the moisture must balance out. So 24 hrs for cake. For a cupcake, you should wait at least 2 - 3 hrs to taste test.

Do not refrigerate. Refrigerators have evaporators to keep condensation at a minimum; so these will dry out your cake. Butter cakes actual freeze very well and improve when frozen. A lot of bakers freeze shortly after removing from the oven when the cake is still warm to trap the moisture in. Just make sure the cake is cooled enough that it is not fragile. Wrap in plastic so the cake layer is in close contact and no air is between cake and plastic wrap. Double wrap so no odor gets in.

Madagascan is real vanilla. All vanilla is native to the region in the world that we know today as Mexico and Guatemala rainforests. Because vanilla is not found any where else in the world, it cannot breed with any other varieties of vanilla. So worldwide all vanilla orchids are genetically from Mexican or Guatemalan rainforests vanilla. The vanilla cultivated in Madagascar is Mexican vanilla; the vanilla cultivated in Tahiti is from the Guatemala rainforests. These vanilla orchids cannot be genetically changed—ever. Vanilla is an orchid, so it is an epiphytes. People try to say Madagascar is superior to Mexican vanilla, but it is Mexican vanilla. Vanilla does not grow in soil, so terroir really doesn’t apply much to vanilla. So when they say Madagascar is superior, I ask them to explain how/why, they can’t. It‘s nothing but marketing BS.

The pods are very expensive. I prefer vanilla bean paste to extract. My brother does business in Mexico, so he brings me vanilla bean pods.

 

[LamsMekk]

I can’t turn off the fan
Can I reduce the heat to 150? Will this help?

Ok Madagascan vanilla is vanilla, I like it!

Home baking is so awkward in so many way! We just don’t have the correct equipment!