Wizard Recipes

Every cook has made many sponge cakes; I know I have. Among the cakes I’ve made over the years, there have been many memorable disasters; cakes that failed to rise, burnt cakes, cakes that collapsed when taken out of the oven, tough cakes and many others too numerous to mention.

However,these days, now that I have learnt what is involved in making a good sponge, disasters are few and far between. In this posts I hope to show you how, by understanding the basic scientific principles involved, it is truly easy to make a perfect sponge every time (or almost every time!) .

A good sponge cake is moist and light; it ‘melts in the mouth’. To be light the cake needs to be mostly air; it is made from a lot of bubbles. The ‘melt in the mouth’ character comes from the thin bubble walls dissolving rapidly in the mouth.

In addition to lightness and a fine texture the sponge needs to be strong enough to bear the weight of a filling, such as cream and fruit, without collapsing.

So what should the bubble walls be made from?

You need something that has strength, but is still readily soluble in the mouth. To prepare a good sponge, you will need to make a foam of many small bubbles, in which the walls between the bubbles are strengthened with flour, and to add to the mixture flavourings and anti-staling agents.

The important questions are how to get lots of bubbles into the sponge? And how to keep them small? There are three traditional methods. The first and oldest, uses yeast, which is a micro-organism that lives by converting sugar into alcohol and generates the gas carbon dioxide as a by product.

When using yeast the bubble size is controlled by kneading a stiff dough (how this works is another story). But it is difficult to produce really small bubbles , and the yeast itself introduces flavours that are not always desirable. So this method for making the bubbles in sponge cakes is now only rarely used and is not generally recommended.

The second method is to use a raising agent, baking powder, added to the flour (or to use self-raising flour which comes with the baking powder already added). Baking powder is made from several chemicals which when heated in the presence of some water react together and produce carbon dioxide gas to form bubbles.

As with yeast based sponges, the main problem is to keep the bubbles small. The solution is to make a stiff paste with butter, flour, eggs, and some water. When the mixture is put in the oven the rate at which carbon dioxide is produced needs to be slow enough, and sufficiently uniform throughout the mixture, that the mixture cooks while the bubbles are still small (that is before they start to burst).

Then as more carbon dioxide is generated the bubbles expand until the supply of gas is exhausted, or the mixture is so stiff that the bubbles become “set” and any additional gas escapes to the surface.

It is difficult to control both the rate at which the mixture cooks and the rate at which the carbon dioxide is released. It takes lots of practice to get consistently good results.

The third technique is to make the bubbles first, then add the flour to stiffen the bubble walls and finally cook the cake.The bubbles are made by beating eggs (either separated, or whole with added sugar) until they form a stable foam (or mousse). (The reasons why beaten eggs form  stable foams is another story ).

Once the eggs are beaten into a firm stable foam the flour is folded into the mixture to give it some strength or ‘body’, and some butter added before pouring into the baking tin and putting in the oven.

In this method you can control the size of the bubbles in the beating stage and the very small bubble size can be preserved throughout cooking.

In th next posts I’ll describe in detail how the second two techniques (cakes made with raising agents and cakes made using egg foams) work, and suggest a few experiments and recipes for you to try for yourself.

Foam cakes depend on whole eggs or egg whites for their airy texture. Angel food cake is light because it doesn’t contain any fat; it gets its height from a large amount of beaten whites.

Chiffon and sponge cakes contain beaten whole eggs or egg yolks, along with vegetable oil or melted butter. Patience is the key to success with foam cakes. If a recipe calls for the eggs to be beaten until thick and lemon colored, expect it to take from three to ten minutes.

When the beaters are lifted, the egg mixture should form a thick ribbon.

How to Mix

When combining the ingredients for these batters, fold them in with a rubber spatula.

Cut down through the center of the batter, then draw the spatula across the bottom of the batter and up the side of the bowl.

Flip the spatula over and draw it across the top. Give the bowl a quarter turn, and repeat until ingredients are blended.

How to Bake

Bake the cake for the minimum recommended time, then check often for doneness.

How to Cool

Cakes baked in tube pans are cooled upside down so they keep their shape. Invert the pan and insert it over the neck of a tall bottle or funnel (some pans have small feet), and cool completely.

Sponge layer cakes are cooled just like butter cakes. Jelly-roll cakes are removed from the pan and rolled up with a towel.

BEATING EGG WHITES

The secret to light, “heavenly” angel food cakes is properly beaten egg whites.

Start with room-temperature egg whites to get the fullest volume. For “stiff glossy peaks” beat the whites until they form peaks that hold their shape when the beaters are lifted but are still moist.

Over beaten whites look lumpy and watery; there is no way to salvage them. Begin again with new egg whites.

In cake making, as in the preparation of other dishes, a systematic plan must be followed if good results are desired. Any person cannot expect to have a successful cake if she has to stop during the mixing to get some of the ingredients or some of the utensils ready.

Before the mixing is begun, all the utensils and ingredients should be collected and any of the ingredients that require special preparation should be prepared. Then, if the recipe is correct, if the ingredients are measured accurately and combined correctly, and if the baking is done properly, success in cake making is assured.

The first thing to be done, when a cake is to be made, is to read the recipe to determine just what is required and to find out whether all the ingredients called for are in supply. With this done, all the utensils should be placed conveniently on the table and the ingredients collected and measured.

Some authorities advise the weighing of the ingredients in cake because weight is always regarded as more accurate than measure. If a recipe calls for weights, it will be found easier to use them than to try to change them to measure; but when a recipe requires measures, and does not state weights, it would be unwise to attempt to use scales for measuring.

The measuring of the fat often requires a little attention. For instance, if only 1/4 cupful of butter or some other fat is required, it may perhaps be more convenient to measure it with a tablespoon than with a cup.

Otherwise, unless the recipe calls for melted fat, the fat should be measured by pressing it down tight into the cup until it reaches the mark indicating the required amount. If the fat is hard and cold, as is usually the case when it is first taken from the refrigerator or other cold place, it will be difficult to cream.

A good plan is to let the fat stand until it is 70 degrees Fahrenheit, or ordinary room temperature, before the mixing is begun.

The dry ingredients used in cakes include the sugar, flour, baking powder, spices, etc. Granulated sugar seldom requires any preparation except measuring. However, sugar other than granulated, particularly brown sugar and pulverized sugar, should be rolled with a rolling pin and then sifted in order to free it from any lumps it might contain.

Flour should be sifted once before measuring and again with the baking powder, or soda and cream of tartar, and salt in order to mix them. Other dry ingredients, such as spices and occasionally pulverized sugar, may also be sifted with the flour and other dry ingredients. If the dry leavening agent appears to be lumpy when the cover is removed from the can, it should be worked smooth with a spoon and sifted before it is measured. A very small mesh wire sieve may be used for this purpose.

The liquid should be measured by pouring it into the measuring cup with the cup stationary and level. The eggs, which are, of course, one of the liquid ingredients, should be neither broken until just before they are to be used, nor beaten until the mixture is brought to the point where the eggs are to be added.

If the whites are to be used for the preparation of icing after the cake is baked, they should be kept in a cool place until they are beaten.

Fruits, nuts, and other miscellaneous ingredients should be prepared before the mixing of the cake is begun; that is, they should be cleansed, cut, ground, or chopped, as the case may be, so that it will not be necessary to stop the mixing of the cake to do any of this work.

If they are to be dredged with flour, this may be done at the time theycare prepared.

Cakes are favorites in all western cuisines, while tortes are just as popular in pastry kitchens with French culinary influence. The difference is small but significant-tortes are cakes with little or no flour. They acquire their bodies from ground nuts and plenty more eggs.

Some tortes may have a small amount of flour to thicken the batter, some have dry bread crumbs. Tortes use 2 to 4 times the number of eggs that most cake recipes call for. Both cakes and tortes receive high esteem on dining tables, and when it comes to a celebration or a festive occasion, one or the other is unquestionably the choice as the last course in our dining rooms.

The selection may be as simple as a home-baked cake from a mix, or a basic inscribed supermarket cake in technicolor or elaborate, exquisite torte from a high-end pastry shop.

The name torte has been misused by fashionable menu writers to enhance the image of a simple cake. Torte connotes something rich, European and elegant. Now airline meal menu may denote “torte” as one item on your crammed tray of food for the small piece of simple, unpretentious white cake topped with a strawberry-flavored sugar syrup.

The high reputation of tortes is well-deserved. Not because cakes cannot be equally sumptuous and elaborate and just as difficult to produce. Yet, a humble home baker can bake a simple, easy, almost foolproof cake, but any true torte takes meticulous care, some knowledge and baking experience before you can serve it with pride. And they are anything but foolproof.

Tortes don’t have a flour matrix to give them strength, and are particularly sensitive to collapse if you dare to disturb them before fully set in the oven. They rely entirely on solidified egg white foam structure for support, which is considerably weaker than a combination of flour and egg white. There is no starch that gelatinizes on heat to give the body extra strength.

Perfect cakes and tortes are light and tender, with moist body, just the opposite of good yeast bread where the goal is a chewy and firm texture with strength provided by the gluten structure. The trick to a light cake is not allowing the gluten to develop, the arch enemy of all sweet baked products. Since tortes have no flour, gluten problems don’t exist. Cakes do have flour but you can do two things to reduce the chances for gluten development:

1. Use cake flour which has minimal protein (that produces gluten),

2. Stir the batter as little as possible to discourage gluten formation. The high fat in cakes is helpful-fat coats flour particles and insulates them from moisture. Without moisture, gluten cannot develop.

Planning ahead

Before you start the baking project, decide if you want a layer cake and if so, how many layers. You can have a two, three or many layers. The authentic, glorious Hungarian dobos torta has seven bread-slice thin layers. There are two ways to make layers.

Either divide the cake batter into as many portions as layers in the cake and bake each in separate pans, or bake the cake in a single pan and cut the cooled cake with a serrated knife into layers. There is a difference. If you bake in a single pan, the cake bakes longer and you have more chance of a collapsing catastrophe. But with a serrated knife you can cut even, flat-topped layers.

In single pans you are safer when baking, but you may need to trim off the domed tops for even layers, and the cake tends to dry out more in the shallow pans. For 2 or 3-layered cake, the choice is yours. For a 7-layered cake you need seven cake pans-it is very difficult to cut a single cake into seven thin, equal layers.

Have sets of good-quality, heavy pans and torte pans (with removable bottoms), preferably in more than one size. Light, inexpensive aluminum pans will not help for even baking. You can grease the pan either with solid fat (butter, vegetable shortening) or, for convenience, with oil spray, both produce identical results.

Dust the greased surface with flour and shake off excess to assure that the cake will release easily. For additional insurance, cut a round of waxed or parchment paper to fit the bottom. Fit the paper into the pan after greasing and flouring both the pans and the paper’s surface in contact with the cake. You will have virtually no chance for the dreaded stuck-to-the-pan cake.

And here is another professional trick that is an extra step for you but helps baking professional-looking and high quality cakes and tortes. The sides of cakes and tortes brown faster than the rest because they are in direct contact with the hot metal.

Home bakers generally leave the over-browned layer on the cake and cover it with frosting. If too brown, they may trim it off. Many professional bakers, on the other hand, want to avoid too much browning.

They wet a kitchen towel, fold it until it is a long, thin narrow strip and tie it around the cake pan. The moisture in the towel slowly evaporates in the oven, cooling the metal just enough to reduce over-browning. An extra step but it is worth it.