Kitchencraft

Southland Times, Issue 23826, 25 May 1939, Page 15

Kitchencraft

BAKING CAKES OF EVEN TEXTURE

By

/ SARAH

The really excellent butter cake has a certain characteristic which is hard to describe and impossible to photograph. This we sometimes call “velvetiness,” meaning that to the tongue and the fingers the cake has the feeling of soft velvet. Cakes which have this charactiristic are always very light and of a fine grain, which is to say that they have small holes evenly distributed. These qualities of lightness and evenness, however, do not insure the velvety feeling. The problem of mixing is to get the ingredients finely divided and thoroughly combined to form a good, stable mixture without at the same time stirring out the carbon dioxide liberated from the baking powder. Stirring can most easily be accomplished by moving the spoon round the bowl with a circular motion. When the movement is only fairly rapid we term it stirring, when it is fast we call it beating.

If the ingredients are put together in certain ways they tend to separate, we lose our intimate combination, and with it the velvety texture for which we are aiming. Before going into details about method of mixing, however, one or two things must be said about ingredients. USE ONLY BEST MATERIALS

Cakes are a luxury, and should contain only the best ingredients. Flour should be light and contain little gluten; eggs of good size, and fresh (though during the winter when eggs are expensive, preserved ones may be used successfully); the sugar fine, the essences pure, and a reliable brand of baking powder should be the only kind used. Tire order of work for the velvety cake is a time honoured one. Cream the butter, add the sugar gradually,

then the well-beaten eggs, after that the flavouring, sifted flour, baking powder and salt mixture alternately with the liquid (if any), beginning and ending with the former. Even so the cake may not be a success. We must have a thorough combination. If the process is skimped a little at any stage, a smooth mixture is not obtained, and a poor-textured and poor-volumed cake is the result.

NEVER ALLOW BUTTER TO OIL The creaming of the butter at the first stage must be done thoroughly. On a very cold day it is advisable to warm butter slightly, but avoid at all cost allowing the butter to turn to oil. If such an eventuality occurs, a velvety cake cannot be obtained. Ihe addition of sugar should be gradual, and creaming continued between each addition, and continued until the mixture is smooth, soft in texture, and whitish in colour.

At this stage the well-beaten eggs are added gradually to the creamed mixture. Between each addition beat the mixture thoroughly. Curdling at this stage should not occur. This happens if the eggs ate added too quickly, or if the beating is not sufficient. Now add the flavouring. Then stir in carefully the sifted and measured dry ingredients, being careful to have thorough combination without over-stirring. If milk or water is to be added, add alternately with the flour. Before the first portion of milk is added little delays do not matter, but from then on the process should be continuous. This is because the baking powder will start to react as soon as we begin to add the milk, hence, if we are slow, we will lose some of our carbon dioxide, and the resulting cake will be heavy. Some people find that they get better results if they separate the yolks of the eggs from the whites, and if this is done, the egg whites are beaten till they are stiff, but not dry, and added to the mixture last of all. Here speed appears to count more than gentleness of movement; so quickly fold in the egg whites and see that all the ingredients are thoroughly combined. The instant we finish stirring we tum the cake into the pan and we bake it immediately or some little time later as happens to be convenient. A cake stood for a short time before baking is quite as good as a cake baked immediately it has been combined. LARGE CAKES The temperature of baking depends upon the size of the cake. Large cakes require a lower temperature for a longer time. For example, a butter cake containing six ounces of butter, sugar and flour respectively and three eggs would take approximately one hour at a temperature of 350 degrees Fahrenheit. It may take even longer, depending upon the size of the cake tin, but the temperature should definitely not be above 360 degrees Fahrenheit. The kind of cake we decide to make will depend for one thing on the time at our disposal, and for another on how long after baking we desire to serve it. The cake with the velvety texture will retain its freshness for a longer period than will the fairly good one, even though the two are made from exactly the same ingredients in precisely the same proportions. The reason for this appears to be that the quality of stale-

ness is not altogether a matter of dryness, but is partly a question of distribution of water among the different components of the mixture. All cakes, of course, should be kept in an air-tight tin. If we desire to ice our cake, vze do not do so until it is absolutely cold.