The night before

[Winterybella]

I feel I know the answer,but I am going to ask anyway. Are there any cakes that can be prepared the night before and popped into the oven the next day with a great result? I feel like the answer is no, but in this day and age you can never tell.

I had big plans to bake yesterday, but by the time I got around to it, I was exhausted and it was really late. I thought to myself it would be really neat if I could just prepare the batter and stick it in the oven before heading to work this morning. Can any baking work quite like that? I've been searching but so far no one seems to be recommending it.

 

[DancingLady]

I don't think much if any time would be saved. It would have to be refrigerated because of the egg and to keep it from getting too many little bubbles, it would then have to be taken out and set out to warm to about room temperature before going into the oven, or else the center will take too long to bake and the edges will get crunchy. I think it would take longer to warm it to room temperature than it does to mix it, so probably not a good option.

 

[Winterybella]

Thanks DancingLady. I really appreciate your tips. I was thinking someone somewhere must have known about this and I searched the web to see what I could find. Sure enough it's quite possible and the recipe I stumbled on seems like quite the treat. Here is the link.

http://www.mybakingaddiction.com/make-ahead-banana-bread-coffee-cake/

 

[confettine]

Interesting recipe you found there!
I think the most common reason why people don't prepare batter ahead of time is that most batters have baking powder/baking soda and, if you don't bake it as soon as mixed with the liquids, it loses some of its power. I expect that any batter without this though should be fine overnight -- you might also want to make crepes batter the night before and just pop a few in the pan the next morning!

 

[primalclaws1974]

Cakes are so easy to make, I don't think this would save much time. It also may make the cake stale, and hard and crumbly. I do prepare many foods the night before, because I am rushed. I do most of my breakfast foods the night before, including baking cinnamon roles. This way I can just microwave them when everyone's rushing in the morning.

 

[Winterybella]

I have looked at this time and time again but I feel I am not going to try it just yet. Actually only this morning I thought it would have been good to have something already prepared that I could stick in the oven and have it ready in a half an hour or so. As easy as baking is to some, I don't see myself rushing to prepare a cake from scratch before I head off to my day jobs.

It's only because I don't want any major mistakes that I have not tried the recipe in the link yet. I have been out for long hours during the day and get home really late at nights. The idea of preparing something the night before still appeals to me.

 

[ACSAPA]

There are a ton of recipes on Pinterest for making your own cake mixes by putting all the dry ingredients in a Ziploc bag and only adding the eggs , oil ,etc. when you are ready to bake.

So you could have a bunch of these bags ready to go and just add eggs , etc. right before you bake them. And technically they would be homemade ,since you're not using a store bought mix.

 

[Winterybella]

I like the sound of that. Instead of Betty Crocker's Cake Mix, it will be WinteryBella's Cake Mix. I have not spent a lot of time on Pinterest. Truth is, I am trying to learn to navigate better and generally understand how everything works.

Since my recent success with baking from scratch, I think I will try a few more from scratch recipes before I tackle 'the night before" recipes. I want no mistakes just yet. Still I am thankful for the information. I will definitely check it out.