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Conference turris::cooks

Title:	How to Make them Goodies
Notice:	Please Don't Start New Notes for Old Topics! Check 5.*
Moderator:	FUTURE::DDESMAISONSec.com::winalski

Created:	Tue Feb 18 1986
Last Modified:	Thu Jun 05 1997
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	4127
Total number of notes:	31160

2681.0. "CAKE: Unbleached Flour Ruined my Cake!" by TLE::EIKENBERRY (A goal is a dream with a deadline) Mon Oct 22 1990 13:22

  I'm sharing this experience in the hope that I can save others from this
frustration, and perhaps learn for your experiences as well.

  Last Wednesday, my husband and I set out to make two chocolate cakes.
We've used this particular recipe for the cake many times before, without any
difficulty.  We made a double batch of batter, and put the first set of
9-inch pans in the oven.  They cooked a little oddly.  After we removed them
from the oven, they collapsed within minutes.  I'd heard of this problem with
souffles, but never cake!

  So, we thought perhaps the problem was that my husband put the cake pans
on a single shelf, and that they didn't cook evenly.  So, we put batch #2
with a pan on each shelf.  Same results.

  Then, we figured maybe my husband missed an ingredient or mismeasured.  So
I made batch #3.  Same results.

  We examined the recipe.  It only suspicioius ingredient was the baking soda.
We thought that perhaps our soda wasn't any good any more.  So, on Thursday,
we bought a new box, and made two more batches of cake batter (assuming this
was the problem).  Same results!  :-(  At this point I was getting worried,
because I was supposed to bake a cake for a co-worker's daughter's baptism
this past weekend!  Again, we look at the recipe.

  That was when it occurred to me that on the previous weekend, I had finished
off my regular all-purpose flour, and opened a bar of unbleached flour.  We
went out and bought a bag of regular all-purpose flour, and voila - batches
#6 and #7 were fine!

  I was curious why this had happened.  I always assumed unbleached was better.
So, Friday morning I called King Arthur Flour.  Their guess was that the
difference was the fact that the unbleached flour doesn't contain any 
bromates, which gives the cake lift.  (She also mentioned that California
is banning bromates.  Any news on this?)  As a workaround, she suggested adding
a little bit of vinegar to the recipe, to react with the baking soda.  (I
don't recall if she said 1 teaspoon or 1 Tablespoon)

  My other thought on the subject comes from the Cake Bible.  The author 
talks about the PH of cake flour being altered by the chlorination.  Perhaps
this makes a difference?  

  Has anyone else had similar failures, or successes, using unbleached flour?
I've used it quite a bit in bread, but never in cakes before.  King Arther
was surprised that I had trouble with it.

--Sharon

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
2681.2		SQM::MADDEN		`Mon Oct 22 1990 15:25`	5
	I always use unbleached flour, but have not had this problem. However, most of the recipes I use call for baking powder, not baking soda. Thanks for the warning.
2681.3	Try CAKE Flour?	KAHALA::WEISS		`Tue Oct 23 1990 18:31`	8
	A simliar thing happened to my cakes when I used all purpose flour instead of CAKE flour. I know that many of the recipes in the "Cake Bible" call for Cake Flour. Swans Down puts out Cake Flour in a box about the size of pancake mix. Good Luck, Roger
2681.4	oh yeah...	TYGON::WILDE	illegal possession of a GNU	`Wed Oct 31 1990 18:57`	9
	yes, if using baking soda, and you have no bromates in the flour, this can happen. Cake flour is made with bromates -- and is a finer grind of flour as well as a different sub-species of wheat that has less gluten. If you had used baking powder, you would not have seen the problem...or if you had a recipe which called for buttermilk which gives enough acid to fire off the lifting properties of the soda, you would have been okay. It was just bad luck that you hit it the way you did. Next time, when in doubt, use cake flour for cakes.
2681.5		TLE::EIKENBERRY	A goal is a dream with a deadline	`Thu Nov 01 1990 09:32`	16
	What confuses me a bit is that the cakes did rise, they just fell once they were out of the oven. I would think that the fact that they did rise indicates that the reaction with the baking soda did occur, but that the cake never "set". We thought we had this thing beat, but last night I baked another chocolate cake, and one layer collapsed significantly during cooling. It appeared to bake normally (unlike the 5 unsuccessful cakes in the base note). Perhaps it wasn't cooked enough? We have made this cake many times successfully before. It's not as though there's something fundamentally wrong with the recipe... We moved about six months ago, switching from an electric to a gas oven. But I doubt that's the problem. --Sharon
2681.6	not baked enough or they would stand	TYGON::WILDE	illegal possession of a GNU	`Thu Nov 01 1990 16:49`	18
	> We have made this cake many times successfully before. It's not as though >there's something fundamentally wrong with the recipe... We moved about >six months ago, switching from an electric to a gas oven. But I doubt that's >the problem. Sharon, wanna bet??? I am beginning to suspect your gas oven cooks "cooler" than your electric oven...a common occurrance with electric ovens - they seem to get hotter over the years. Try the old toothpick test....carefully insert a thin toothpick or thin knife blade into the center of the cake before removing it from the oven..if any batter sticks, it isn't done. If you got some good cake from the recipe and flour you are using, then you must have the basics down right...that leaves the baking time or temperature as the probable issue. D
2681.7		TLE::EIKENBERRY	A goal is a dream with a deadline	`Fri Nov 02 1990 09:12`	28
	I always do the doneness test with a cake tester before removing the cake. We use two 9" pans - one is 1 1/2", and the other is 2" high. The pattern that I did notice on the last two cakes was this: Cake #1 - baked by my husband. He baked the 1 1/2" pan on the top shelf, and the 2" pan on the bottom. The 1 1/2" pan was removed a few minutes before the 2" pan. It shrank significantly during cooling. Cake #2 - bake my me. I put the 2" pan on the top shelf. I removed it a few minutes before the 1 1/2" pan. It collapsed during cooling. I always expected that the top shelf would cook faster, so I wasn't surprised to be removing the top pan a few minutes before the bottom one. We haven't been using the oven thermometer lately - I'm never quite sure that they're necessarily accurate. And once you stick two thermometers in, you get thoroughly confused! I'll start using it again, I guess, in case temperature is a problem. Also, we tend to cook the cakes stacked on right on top of the other. I noticed in one of my cookbooks that they say to stagger the cakes. I never had a problem before, but perhaps a combination of oven temperature and vertical stacking of pans is the problem? We're making two more cakes next week - I'll post the results! --Sharon
2681.8	I live down the street from 2 banks, never know what the temp is.	NOVA::FISHER	Rdb/VMS Dinosaur	`Fri Nov 02 1990 09:14`	10
	re: And once you stick two thermometers in, you get thoroughly confused! Reminds me of: "A man with one watch always knows what time it is. A man with two is never sure." :-) I guess it goes for thermometers, too. ed
2681.9	trust the one IN the oven	TYGON::WILDE	illegal possession of a GNU	`Fri Nov 02 1990 12:42`	2
	I always trust a thermometer placed in the oven more than the dial. Just one of those little lessons learned thru the years.