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Baking Cakes Made Easy

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by: gwydion
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There is a frequent misapprehension that baking, especially the baking of cakes is somehow very difficulty. Whist it's true that many cooks to approach baking as more of a science than an art, obsessively weighing each ingredient to the last gramme, afraid that if they don't the cake will never rise.

All you need to make a cake rise is air, lots of air...

In fact, modern cakes are a fairly recent invention, beginning in Italy at the start of the 18th century. By the 1740s these 'Italian Cakes' were all the rage in London. What was different? Well, the traditional raising agent, yeast, was replaced by whipped egg-whites where the air is trapped in the beaten egg and expands whilst cooking to make the cake rise.

In fact there's nothing new in this process and it's hardly surprising that the trend began in Europe. Indeed, the Romans used this very technique to make cakes and the traditional 'Pan di Spagna' (Spanish Bread) had been a staple of Sicilian cuisine for centuries.

However, it was only during the Victorian era that modern cakes as we know them today began to be baked. Suddenly yeast fell out of fashion as the rising agent of choice and bicarbonate of soda (baking powder or baking soda) became all the rage. In fact, baking soda does a very similar job to yeast. In contact with acid or water and heat bicarbonate of soda breaks down to release carbon dioxide and it's this gas, as it expands in the oven that makes a cake rise and gives the soft and fluffy texture that we all love.

Adding half a tablespoon of 'bicarb' to finely-milled flour before making a cake became all the rage. So much so that flour manufacturers began to add it to flour themselves, so that self-raising flour (sometimes also known as cake flour) was born. But if you don't have any just add half a teaspoon of baking powder per 200g of ordinary plain flour.

At its heart a cake is a creamed blend of butter (or margarine) and sugar to which eggs and flour are added before baking. The secret to any cake is to do everything thoroughly and to add as much air to the mixture as possible.

This begins with the first process of creaming together the sugar and butter. Do this vigourously... and when the recipe asks you to cream until pale and creamy do just that. The mixture really should be paler than when you started and the butter should be soft and the sugar completely incorporated into it. Also, beat as vigourously as you can, as this is the first stage into which you can incorporate air into the batter.

Next you typically add eggs to the batter. These make the batter more liquid but they also act as the scaffold and add flavour. As the cake bakes the protein molecules from the eggs solidify and gel together and it's this that allows the cake to hold its shape. When incorporating the eggs into the creamed butter always use lightly-beaten eggs and always incorporate just a little of the egg at a time. The more thoroughly you can combine the eggs with the butter mix the better your resulting cake mix will be. After all, it's the butter that makes the cake moist and it's the eggs that let it hold it's shape.

Perhaps the most important aspect of any cake is the flour. Always use the best and finest flour you can. Use self-raising for convenience, but plain flour to which baking powder has been added also works. When using flour always sift it into a bowl before use. This removes any lumps it also separates the flour particles. This both introduces more air into the cake mixture but also means that each flour particle can be coated into the butter mix and will hold itself better in the cake. You're also getting rid of any static charges that may hold the flour particles together and give you a lump of raw flour in the middle of the cake.

Tip the flour into the butter mixture and stir thoroughly to combine. I always do this gently with a spoon as it traps more air in the mixture, giving a lighter cake. At this point, never, ever, leave the cake sitting. The bicarb is already being converted into carbon dioxide and the quicker you get the cake in the oven the better and more well risen it will be.

Typically you would use a moderate oven (170°C–180°C) and you would bake for between 30 minutes and 60 minutes, depending on the batter and the other constituents of the cake (if there are any).

About the Author

Dyfed Lloyd Evans is the creator of the Recipes Archive where he presents a large selection of Cake and Baking Recipes. Now that you know the secrets of perfect baking, why not fetch some recipes and try your hand at cake making today!

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