What I learned about cakes today.
Cake is a many-splendored thing, there are so many different types, and so little could be covered in the meager three hours during which my pastry class meets. These are only the very basics.
Of course, with anything you make, the ratio of ingredients is important, but to cake, this is the be-all end-all determinant of texture, as mixing method is in the other items I have discussed. Cookie and quick bread recipes are easy to fudge around with and change if you’d like, cake is more picky.
The balance between cake ingredients can be best illustrated by thinking of them under the following categories-
- Tougheners provide the basic solid structure of the cake, these are generally anything that includes a substantial amount of protein- flour, eggs, and milk are the most common (and nuts or breadcrumbs, in the case of many tortes- I mention this now only because I doubt we’ll make any torte in class)
- Tenderizers are a secondary structural component, balancing out tougheners and giving a soft texture to your cake. Fats, obviously, are tenderizers, but you may not know, sugar is, too!
- Moisteners are… exactly what they sound like. Any nonfat liquid component.
- Driers balance out moisteners. Because, even though it’s good to have a moist cake, a cake that is too wet will not cook through properly. There is quite a bit of overlap between driers and tougheners, but most dry ingredients are driers.
- Leavenings are probably the one of these that I have discussed the most. You have chemical leavening- baking soda and baking powder- the steam produced by the baking process, and possibly air introduced while mixing.
When you make any modification to a recipe, you must consider how it affects the balance of the cake as a whole. Cocoa powder or cinnamon added for flavoring will act as a drier, juice and even fresh fruit will add moisture to a cake, and other ingredients must be adjusted accordingly.
The following assorted tips apply to anything, not just cakes, but they happened to come up as we were making carrot cake.
If you’re using baking soda as a leavener, time’s a-wasting! Be quick about getting everything mixed and in the oven, because while baking powder requires both moisture and the heat of the oven to work, baking soda needs only acid! (Anybody who’s made a baking soda and vinegar volcano knows this, but it’s more significant when one thinks of it in the context of baking!)
Liquid oils such as canola oil, peanut oil, etc. thoroughly coat and lubricate the proteins of your flour, helping one avoid overmixing! (However, in the case of breads and other items where you -want- to develop the flour proteins, this means you just have to work at it that much harder to do so!)
Just as the order of operations applies in any mathematical context, it makes a difference in recipes as well! (Particularly, when measuring by volume something that really should be measured by weight.) If, for example, a recipe calls for “1 cup walnuts, chopped”, you measure the walnuts, then chop them. “1 cup chopped walnuts” would refer to a greater quantity of nuts by weight, because they are chopped before they are measured.
That’s it for today, more on cake next Wednesday!
