34Cakes and icings

A good cake begins with the batter. The baker has three aims while mixing it: every ingredient blended into one smooth batter, air worked in, and a finished crumb with the right texture. Careful scaling, good ingredients and the correct mixing method get you there.

Cakes fall into two families. High-fat cakes get their tenderness from fat and much of their lift from air beaten into fat and sugar. Egg-foam cakes carry little or no fat, and whipped eggs do most of the lifting. After the cake comes the finish: a syrup, a buttercream, a glaze or a rolled coating, and then decoration.

34.1 High-fat cakes: creaming, one-stage, two-stage

Butter cakes are also called high-fat cakes. Butter is the fat, and it gives a better feel in the mouth, because butter melts at body temperature and shortening does not. Some bakers still choose shortening: it costs less and forms an emulsion more easily.

The batter is an emulsion

Four things break a batter:

• The wrong fat. Each formula is built for one fat, so do not swap. High-ratio shortening cannot hold as much as butter. Butter already contains water, so a butter formula keeps its water down to what the butter can carry.
• Ingredients at the wrong temperature. Fat and water join best at room temperature, given as about 70°F.
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• A rushed mixer. A higher speed does not make the emulsion form any faster. Air cells form at a lower speed.
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• Liquid poured in too fast. The batter cannot take it up. Add liquids in stages, taking turns with the dry ingredients, and the batter stays smooth.
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Air cells and the crumb

The crumb is the inside texture of the baked cake. Small, even air cells give a smooth, fine crumb. Large or uneven cells give a coarse one. The best cells come from beating butter and granulated sugar together slowly, at low speed. A fast mixer warms the mix and the cells do not form properly.

How flour proteins set in heat is covered earlier. see chapter 7: Flour

The creaming method

Creaming means beating fat and sugar together until they hold air. The creaming method runs like this:

• Weigh every ingredient exactly, and let all of them come to room temperature.
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• Put the fat in the mixer bowl with the paddle attachment. Mix on low until it is creamy and has no lumps.
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• Scrape down the bowl. Add the sugar and beat on low to medium speed for 5 to 10 minutes, until the mix is white, light and fluffy. Watch the butter's color change.
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• Scrape again. Add the eggs a little at a time. Let each addition disappear into the mix before the next one; the mix becomes light and fluffy again.
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• Once all the eggs are in, add the dry and liquid ingredients in turns, a part at a time. Begin with dry and finish with dry. Mix each part only until it is just taken in, then stop and scrape the bowl. Scraping and taking turns keep the batter even.
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Vanilla and spices can go in after the fat and sugar are creamed, or into the liquid. Some bakers sift spices in with the dry ingredients. Melted chocolate can be added during creaming, as long as you watch its temperature.

Weighing and the mixer are taught in earlier chapters. see chapter 5: Measuring by weight and by volume see chapter 3: Mixers

The conventional method: a small yellow cake

This way of mixing is also called the conventional method, and its creaming step works the same way. A small yellow cake shows the method in a small batch:

• Sift the dry ingredients (cake flour, leavening, salt) three times together.
• Beat butter, vegetable shortening and vanilla together. If the fats turn too soft, set the bowl in ice.
• Add the sugar a teaspoon at a time, creaming after each until the mix is light and fluffy. Then beat for about one more minute with the electric mixer.
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• Beat the egg on its own at high speed for 3 to 5 minutes, until thick and foamy. Add it to the creamed mix in thirds, beating about half a minute after each.
• Add flour and milk in turns, stirring by hand only until each is blended. After the last flour, give the batter 100 strokes.
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• Push the batter into the lined pan at once. Lift the pan 6 inches and drop it sharply on the table to settle the batter.
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• Bake at 375°F for about 25 to 30 minutes, until the center springs back when touched lightly.
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A good result shows these marks.

• Outside: evenly golden brown.
• Top: slightly rounded and smooth.
• Grain: fine and even, with small air cells and thin walls between them.
• Tenderness: so tender it barely resists your bite.
• Flavor: mild and sweet.

One-stage and two-stage cakes

Some ovens can add steam. Steam slows the crust from forming, so the cake keeps rising evenly for longer. It helps three kinds of cake: creamed, two-stage and one-stage cakes.

Baking and doneness

These rules apply to any cake in the oven:

• Heat the oven fully before the cake goes in.
• Check that the oven and its racks are level, or the cake bakes unevenly.
• Leave even space between pans so air moves around each one.
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• Use the right temperature for that cake. Too hot, and the top sets before the cake has finished rising. Too cool, and the cake may not rise enough and then fall.
• Keep the oven door shut until the cake has risen and its structure has set. Opening it early can make the cake fall.
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A cake is done when it begins shrinking from the pan's sides, when the top springs back from a light touch, and when a cake tester pushed into the center comes out clean.

Cooling and turning out

Cool cakes in the pan for 15 to 20 minutes, until just warm. Taken out sooner, a soft cake can crack. Then move it to a rack to finish cooling.

To turn out a sheet cake:

• Lay parchment over it, then a cake board.
• Flip the pan so the cake sits on the board.
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• Put a second board on the cake's bottom and flip both boards together. The cake now rests right way up.
• Peel off the parchment and let it cool.
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The small yellow cake cools for 10 minutes on a rack before taking it out of the pan. Do not slice it until it has reached room temperature.

How egg-foam cakes differ

Chiffon and angel food are egg-foam cakes, with little or no added fat. Chiffon gets a leavener as well. In angel food, the air whipped into the whites does most of the lifting.

The chiffon method runs in steps.

• Sift the dry ingredients and part of the sugar into the bowl.
• Stream in oil on low speed, followed by yolks, water and flavorings.
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• Whip the whites separately to soft peak.
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• Add the cream of tartar and the rest of the sugar, and whip to stiff peak.
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• Fold the whites into the batter.
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The pan is handled differently too. For chiffon, grease the pan and line only its bottom. Grease on the sides stops the cake clinging to them, and then it will not rise. Angel food and chiffon cool completely in the pan, turned upside down but held off the table so air can move. Hanging this way stops the cake from collapsing; it does not drop out, because it clings to the sides. Once cool, free it with a knife.

Buttercreams: safety first

Follow these rules:

• The danger zone runs from 4°C to 60°C (40°F to 140°F). Most harmful bacteria grow fast in it.
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• Store all cold food at 4°C (40°F) or below.
• Keep dairy products refrigerated, between 2°C and 4°C (36°F and 39°F), in their own covered area, because their fat picks up strong smells.
• Mark a food made ahead and kept chilled for more than a day with the date it was made and a "serve by" date. Throw out potentially hazardous foods not used within three days of being made.
• Raw eggs in some recipes have caused outbreaks of food poisoning. Use pasteurized products, such as pasteurized liquid eggs, where you can, and never serve such foods to high-risk customers such as seniors, young children or people who are ill.

Choosing pasteurized eggs in place of raw is covered with eggs. see chapter 15: Pasteurized eggs in place of raw

The buttercreams

A buttercream is a light, fluffy frosting for finishing and decorating a cake. Recipes run from simple to complex, and each kind has its own taste and texture.

There are three classical buttercreams. Each starts from a meringue, and all three are soft and smooth:

• Swiss buttercream. Warm egg whites and sugar over a bain-marie (a pan of hot water) until the sugar melts. Whip on high until the meringue cools and doubles. Add cold butter, or butter and shortening, a little at a time. Partway through it looks broken; keep adding butter and it comes back together. Add any flavoring now.
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• Italian buttercream. Boil sugar and water to 240°F while the whites whip to soft peaks. Pour the hot syrup into the whites as they whip, and keep whipping until cool. Work in the butter in pieces. It looks curdled at first; keep mixing until it turns smooth and creamy.
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• French buttercream. This one uses yolks, not whites. Cook sugar and water to 240°F. Whip the yolks to the ribbon stage, thick and pale. Pour in the syrup and whip until the mix is cool and thick. Add butter slowly, letting each piece blend in before the next, then flavor.
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American buttercream needs no cooking. Cream butter or shortening with the paddle until smooth and fluffy, beat in powdered sugar and flavoring, then thin it with cream or water. It is sweet and fluffy, takes flavors easily, and sets with a dry sugar crust on the outside. It melts at a very low temperature, so it does not suit a cake served outdoors in summer.

Royal icing dries hard. It is piped as a thick icing for strings and outlines and to make edible flowers; thinned, it fills in outlined shapes. Break up egg whites with the paddle, then add cream of tartar and powdered sugar and mix until stiff and fluffy with soft peaks. Keep it under a damp cloth while you work.

Glazes and other coatings

A glaze is a thin, almost clear coat poured over a cake. It gives a shiny surface and keeps the cake from drying out.

• Chocolate glaze. Hot cream poured over chocolate melts it; butter, glucose or corn syrup is mixed in. Pour it once it feels cool. Cooled the right way, it can also be whipped into a frosting.
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• Gelatin glaze. Gelatin, softened in water and melted, sets this glaze. Mix it with the other ingredients and use it at once; if it sits and cools, it sets.
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• Rolled fondant. A thick sugar paste, home-made or bought, rolled out to cover a cake or molded into shapes. It protects the cake and stops it drying.
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• Marzipan. Almond paste, sugar and corn syrup, very sweet, used as a coating, for small garnishes, as a candy and as a truffle filling.
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• Modeling chocolate. Melted chocolate and corn syrup, thick and easy to shape, rather like stiff play dough.
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Cake syrup

A cake made from scratch has none of the preservatives that keep a boxed mix moist. Brushing the layers with cake syrup adds moisture. It is equal parts water and sugar, and it can be flavored or have a liqueur or spirit added.

Building a layer cake

Plan the whole cake before you start. The assembly, the frosting, the fillings and the garnish all follow from that design.

• Brush loose crumbs off the cooled layers with a dry pastry brush.
• A slightly domed top can be evened out with buttercream. A high dome is cut off level.
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• Set the first layer on a cake board of the right size.
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• Split layers in half if you want a taller cake with more filling and frosting in each slice.
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• Brush every layer but the top one with cake syrup.
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• For a filling that is not buttercream, pipe a ring of frosting around the edge of the layer first. This dam holds the filling in.
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• Save the flattest piece, a layer's bottom, for the very top of the cake, so the finished cake is straight and level.
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• Spread a very thin crumb coat over the stacked cake to trap stray crumbs, and chill it to set.
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• Add the final coat of buttercream, unless a rolled coating will go on instead. It should show no crumbs. The cake is then ready to decorate.
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Cutting a round cake

Round cakes and pies are most often cut into 8, 12 or 16 even slices.

• 8 slices: cut the cake in half, cut each half in half, then cut each quarter in half.
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• 12 slices: a little harder. Cut the cake into quarters, then cut each quarter into 3 equal pieces.
• 16 slices: the hardest. Cut it into eighths as for 8 slices, then halve each eighth.

34.2 Egg-foam cakes: sponge, angel food, chiffon

How an egg foam forms and how to whip whites are taught with eggs. see chapter 15: Foams: meringue, soufflé, puffy omelet

Egg whites pass through five stages as you beat them.

• foamy
• soft peak
• upper soft peak
• stiff peak
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• dry

Angel cake

Angel cake uses whites only, with cake flour, sugar, salt and flavorings.

• Sift the flour, salt and half the sugar together three times.
• Beat the whites with cream of tartar until soft peaks are just starting. Add vanilla and almond extract.
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• Add the rest of the sugar slowly, 2 teaspoons at a time, and beat to the top end of the soft peak stage.
• Sift a quarter of the flour mix over the meringue and fold it in gently, stopping as soon as the flour vanishes. Do this four times in all.
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• Push the batter gently into an ungreased pan. Bake at 375°F for about 25 minutes, until it springs back from a light touch.
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• Turn the pan upside down and let the cake hang until cool. Slice it with a serrated knife.
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Sponge cake

Sponge cake uses both yolks and whites, and the sugar is split into three equal parts.

• Separate the eggs. Sift the flour with one part of the sugar three times.
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• Beat the yolks with lemon zest, lemon extract, salt and cold water until very thick and lemon-colored. Beat in the second part of the sugar until the mix mounds.
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• Beat the whites with cream of tartar until soft peaks begin. Add the last part of the sugar slowly and beat to the top of the soft peak stage.
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• Sift the flour over the yolks a quarter at a time, folding gently after each. Spread this over the whites and fold until blended.
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• Pour into an ungreased pan and bake at 375°F for about 20 minutes. Hang upside down to cool, and cut with a serrated knife.
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Lemon chiffon cake

Chiffon brings in oil and baking powder, and it uses all-purpose flour.

• Sift flour, a little sugar, baking powder and salt into a bowl, and make a well in the middle.
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• Add oil, yolk, water, vanilla and lemon zest in that order, and beat smooth with a wooden spoon.
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• Whip the whites with cream of tartar to the start of soft peaks, add sugar slowly, and beat to the top of the soft peak stage.
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• Fold the flour mixture into the meringue. Bake in an ungreased pan at 350°F for about 25 to 30 minutes, until it springs back. Hang upside down to cool and slice with a serrated knife.
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What a good foam cake looks like

When a foam cake goes wrong

These faults show up in foam cakes, each with its usual causes.

A little shrinking from the cake's highest point in the oven is normal.

34.3 How the ingredients change a cake

A cake formula is a balance. How much of one ingredient is right depends on how much of the others there is, and on how much the batter is worked. A set of general rules explains why muffins, conventional cakes and quick-mix cakes have such different formulas.

Six rules of balance

• Structure against tenderness. Flour and eggs build the structure. Fat and sugar make the cake tender. The ratio of flour to liquid, and the mixing, also affect structure.
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• Wet against dry. Milk, egg and water are the liquids; flour and sugar are the dry side. Keeping them balanced controls how much gluten can form, keeps the batter flowing well, and leaves enough water to make steam.
• Sugar against liquid. More sugar for the same liquid raises the temperature at which the proteins set, so the cake can rise further before its structure fixes. At the right ratio you get the best volume and tenderness. Past it, the batter may spill over the pan, burn or fall. More sugar calls for more liquid and more structure, and egg adds both.
• Leaveners against each other. If you raise one leavener you may lower another. Cakes can rise on baking powder, on baking soda with an acid, on steam, on air held in a foam of egg or of creamed fat and sugar, and on yeast.
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• Flour near twice the liquid. As the flour-to-liquid ratio gets close to 2 to 1, mixing develops more gluten, and how long you mix matters more.
• More tenderizers, more beating. As fat and sugar go up, the batter needs more beating, and the grain turns out finer.

How heat sets egg and flour proteins, and what eggs do in a recipe, are covered earlier. see chapter 7: Proteins set: coagulation see chapter 15: What eggs do in a recipe

Quick-mix yellow cake

A quick-mix cake goes together in two mixer steps, with no creaming.

• Put the shortening, half the milk and all the dry ingredients (cake flour, sugar, baking powder, salt) in the mixer bowl and beat on medium speed for 2½ minutes.
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• Add the rest of the milk with the egg and vanilla, and beat 3 minutes more.
• Bake at 375°F for about 25 to 30 minutes, until it springs back from a light touch.
• Cool it 10 minutes on a rack, take it out, and wait until it reaches room temperature before cutting.
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Pound cake

This pound cake has no milk at all. Its only liquid is two eggs, and it takes half a cup of butter to one cup of flour.

• Sift the flour with the salt.
• Cream the soft butter with vanilla until light. Add the sugar a tablespoon at a time and keep beating until it has mostly dissolved.
• Beat the eggs until foamy, add them in thirds, and beat about a minute after each.
• Add the flour slowly while beating, then beat 2 minutes more on medium.
• Bake at 350°F for 20 minutes, then turn the oven down to 325°F for about 25 minutes more, until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool 10 to 15 minutes before taking it from the pan, and cut only when it is at room temperature.

Comparing the cakes

Set five products side by side.

• muffins
• the conventional yellow cake
• the pound cake
• the quick-mix yellow cake
• the chiffon cake

For each, record three things.

• the baking powder, fat, sugar, egg and liquid per cup of flour
• the flour-to-liquid ratio
• the mixing time after flour and liquid are both in

Then judge each baked cake for appearance, texture and flavor.

You should be able to explain the job of each ingredient in a cake batter, such as the shortening, the egg, the cake flour and the baking powder, and how each depends on the others.

34.4 Icings, buttercreams and decorating

Keep it cold and safe

Many icings and fillings contain cream, butter or eggs. These are potentially hazardous foods, and cold food is kept at 4°C (40°F) or below, out of the danger zone of 4°C to 60°C (40°F to 140°F).

Whipped cream, used as a topping or filling, has to stay in the refrigerator and come out just before the cake is cut.

Throw out a potentially hazardous food that has not been used within three days of being made. Where a recipe calls for raw egg, a pasteurized product such as pasteurized liquid egg is the safer choice.

The danger zone, cooling and cold holding are taught in full earlier. see chapter 2: Heat: cooling, holding and reheating

Icings

Buttercream is a smooth, creamy icing, often called frosting. You can make it firm for flowers, medium for borders, or thin for covering a cake or writing on it. It colors and flavors easily, but it melts in great heat, so it is a poor choice for a hot venue.

Decorations

• Gum paste: gelatin, cornstarch and sugar, for figures and other sculpted pieces. It is edible but dries very hard.
• Piping: pressing icing through a decorator bag fitted with a metal tip to make lines, swirls, letters, dots, shells, basketweave and latticework.
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• Pulled sugar: sugar boiled with water and corn syrup, then shaped into roses, bows and other designs.
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• Sugar flowers: usually made by hand from a sugar syrup that sets hard, used in place of fresh flowers.
• Dragees and pearls: dragees are hard sugar balls painted silver or gold; pearls are candy beads made to look like real pearls, in many colors and sizes.
• Gold leaf and edible images: edible 24-carat gold, and pictures printed with edible ink on frosting paper.
• Floral wire: wire for building 3-D decorations. It cannot be eaten.
• Petal dust: gives a cake sparkle or sheen.

Decorating techniques

• Airbrushing: spraying food coloring on with a small air pump.
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• Basketweave: a crossing pattern, in fondant or buttercream, that looks like a woven basket.
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• Cornelli: fine, elaborate piping that looks like lace.
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• Chevron, damask, houndstooth and quatrefoil: repeating patterns. Chevron is rows of colored V shapes, usually in fondant. Damask borrows plant, geometric or animal patterns from silk cloth. Houndstooth is a run of broken checks. Quatrefoil is a shape of four leaves or lobes, like a four-leaf clover.
• Hand-painting: painting fine detail onto a cake with food coloring and brushes.
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• Marble and ombre: marble swirls flavors or colors together, inside a cake or in fondant; ombre shades one color into the next, often light to dark.
• Ruffles and Swiss dots: fondant shaped to look like fabric ruffles, and rows of tiny piped dots like those on a bridal veil.

Boards, stands and accessories

• Cake board and cake circle: a cardboard base for the cake; a cake circle is a corrugated round sized for standard round cakes, plain, waxed or decorated. Neither is edible.
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• Pillars and tier separators: supports, in plastic or wood, that hold the tiers of a stacked cake apart.
• Cake stand: a plate raised on a pedestal to show a cake off.
• Side decorations: strings, garlands and other icing work around the sides.
• Wedding extras: cake toppers, bridges or stairs between cakes, fountains set among the tiers, and a backdrop behind the cake for photographs.

Other ways to serve cake

A cupcake is a little cake, usually iced, baked in its own cup-shaped holder. Cupcakes are sometimes served on a tiered stand in place of a single cake. Miniatures are small wedding cakes, decorated one per guest. A groom's cake was traditionally richer than the bride's, often with chocolate or fruit, is served apart from it, and is often decorated around the groom's hobbies.

How to plate a dessert and garnish it is taught earlier. see chapter 28: Five things to plan