The Baking Answer Book (13 page)

2. Creaming.
Many recipes call for the creaming together of butter (or sometimes shortening) and sugar before any eggs or chemical leaveners are added to the batter or dough. Creaming is a mechanical method for creating air bubbles, during which granules of sugar trap air between molecules of fat. A lot of recipes will specify “softened” or “room temperature” butter because rock-hard butter will be difficult to beat into a smooth mixture and will resist the incorporation of air bubbles. But it is equally important that your butter not become too warm. Butter melts at a temperature of about 70°F (21°C), at which point its molecules change shape and won’t trap as much air. The result may be a heavy and greasy cake. Even cool butter will melt quickly if the air in your kitchen is warm, so take care when baking in a warm room to start with butter that is closer to 65°F (18°C), and to chill your bowl and beaters in the refrigerator for 15 minutes before using them.

Creaming together shortening and sugar presents no such difficulties, because shortening maintains an optimum consistency for incorporating air (in addition to already having been aerated with nitrogen during processing) at a wide range of temperatures.

3. Chemical leaveners.
Recipes for drop cookies, muffins, and quick breads, the batters and doughs of which are generally dense and heavy, usually call for a powerful chemical leavener: either baking soda or baking powder. When moistened, these leaveners release bubbles of carbon dioxide into the dough or batter. The bubbles expand in the heat of the oven, causing the baked goods to rise.

The leavening power of baking soda is activated only in the presence of acid. So it is used in recipes that contain ingredients such as lemon juice, buttermilk, or non-alkalized cocoa powder, all of which will work with baking soda to produce those bubbles when liquid is added to the mix.

For recipes without acidic ingredients, baking powder is required. Baking powder is a mixture of baking soda, acids, and a little bit of cornstarch to keep the ingredients dry and thus forestall the production of carbon dioxide until needed. It works exactly the same way as baking soda, but on its own instead of in the presence of an additional acidic ingredient.

Baking soda will begin to release carbon dioxide bubbles as soon as it comes in contact with a liquid, and these bubbles will pop, the gas dissipating, in a matter of minutes. So it is important to mix your batter or dough and get it into the oven quickly, before this happens and the baking soda loses its leavening power. With baking powder you have a little more time because of the way it is formulated. It contains two acids (thus the label “double-acting”), one of which begins to produce carbon dioxide immediately, and one of which reacts only in the heat of the oven.

Baking soda is more powerful, proportionately, than baking powder. In general, for every cup of flour in a recipe, you will need ¼ teaspoon of baking soda or 1 teaspoon of baking powder. Once you know these proportions, and the way baking soda and baking powder react with acids and liquids, you can see that there are ways to substitute one for the other.

Say you want to make biscuits with buttermilk instead of milk. If your recipe calls for 2 teaspoons of baking powder and ¾ cup
of milk, you can adapt it by using ½ teaspoon baking soda and ¾ cup of buttermilk. Or say you realize that your recipe calls for Dutch-process cocoa, whose acids have been neutralized, and baking powder, but you only have natural cocoa powder, which does contain acids. Replace the baking powder with one quarter of the amount of baking soda for an equivalent result.

4. Yeast.
Bread and many sweet breads and pastries such as babka, croissants, and Danish rely on yeast for rising. Yeast is a microorganism that feeds on starches in flour, producing carbon dioxide as a byproduct. The carbon dioxide, which fills air cells in the dough created by kneading, expands in the oven, causing the dough to rise.

While many bakers understand yeast’s function in bread making, they may not realize that yeast can’t raise dough on its own. It works only in the presence of gluten, the protein aggregate that develops into stretchy, elastic strands as wheat flour is mixed and kneaded with water or another liquid.

During mixing and kneading, the proteins in flour organize themselves into a webbed cell structure made of gluten strands. As the dough rests after kneading, the yeast proliferates, and the carbon dioxide it produces as it multiplies fills the gluten cells. That’s why bread dough rises on the countertop as well as in the oven. Once in the hot oven, these gases will expand, stretching those gluten cells. The well-developed gluten expands to accommodate the gases, until the protein solidifies at a certain temperature.

The open crumb of an artisan bread is a sign that the yeast was lively and productive, producing plentiful carbon dioxide,
and the gluten in the flour was well-developed and was able to stretch and contain the gas. At a certain temperature, rising ceases because the proteins will coagulate, eventually becoming the glossy crumb and crisp crust of a well-baked loaf or pastry.

5. Eggs and air.
Many cake and cookie recipes will direct you to beat eggs into creamed butter and sugar. Doing so will incorporate yet more air into your batter. But these recipes are still relying primarily on creaming and chemical leaveners to create air bubbles.

Other cake recipes, however, rely more strongly on eggs, both whole and separated, for a good rise. There are several ways to handle eggs so that they will function this way. Sometimes, a butter cake recipe will direct you to beat only the egg yolks into a mixture of creamed butter and sugar, then whip the whites in a separate bowl and fold them into the batter. Incorporating additional air into the whites will give a butter cake extra lift when a lighter texture is desired.

Recipes for French-style sponge cake, or génoise, will direct you to beat whole egg yolks and sugar over simmering water until they are warm and the sugar is dissolved, and then continue to beat them off-heat until they’re pale yellow and reach the “ribbon” stage. This takes between 3 and 5 minutes and produces a mixture that is pale yellow and thick, and when lifted by the beaters falls back into the bowl in thick “ribbons.” As with creaming, air is incorporated into the eggs. Warming the mixture softens the fat in the yolks, which makes the egg and sugar mixture more elastic and able to hold more air. The dry ingredients are sifted over the yolk mixture and very gently folded in, sometimes along with a small amount of butter.

The cake must be baked immediately, before the foamy batter starts to deflate.

American-style sponge cake has a lighter, dryer texture than génoise, not only because it doesn’t contain any butter to weigh it down and moisten it, but because whipped egg whites are folded into the batter just before baking. The protein in egg whites, when properly whipped, unwind and link up with each other, similar to the way proteins coagulate when cooked, but stay moist and elastic. Air beaten into them expands in the oven until the proteins set at a certain temperature.

The lightest style of cake, angel food cake, contains no egg yolks or butter and is leavened solely with egg whites. This type of cake must be baked in an ungreased pan for two reasons. Any kind of fat will destroy the structure of whipped egg whites, dissolving it and ruining the cake’s chances of rising. In addition, when the low-protein (because it has no yolks) cake is removed from the oven, it needs to cling to the sides of the pan as it cools, allowing it to solidify before it can collapse in on itself. For the same reason, to protect its high but fragile rise, an angel food cake should be inverted straight out of the oven and cooled upside down in the pan, so that gravity can preserve the rise until the proteins in the cooked whites solidify.

Baking Experiment

The Half-Pound Cake recipe on the following page is an example of how cake can be raised by creaming alone.

Half-Pound Cake

Pound cake is a traditional English recipe dating back to the early eighteenth century, famous for its easy-to-remember ingredients: 1 pound each of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour. A 4-pound cake, however, is a bit large for most households, so I’ve adapted the traditional recipe to a more modest size and, like most modern versions, for a lighter, more tender cake.

Most recipes today call for a little bit of baking powder or baking soda as insurance, but it is fun to make this cake without relying on either one, just to prove that creaming (along with the added leavening power of eggs) does really work. Baking the cake at a moderate temperature allows the air bubbles time to expand before the cake sets, for an optimum rise.

Note that the butter should be soft but not warm — if you are relying on creaming alone you will want your butter to hold as much air as possible, and it will do so only if it doesn’t melt. Chill your mixing bowl for 15 minutes before beginning to cream, as a precaution against melting. Lightly beating the eggs before adding them will help incorporate them into the creamed butter and sugar. The extra egg yolks help the batter hold onto the air beaten into it.

SERVES 8 TO 10

3 large eggs plus 2 large egg yolks, at room temperature

1½ cups cake flour

¼ teaspoon salt

½ pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened but still cool

1
cups sugar

1.
Preheat the oven to 325°F (160°C). Chill a large mixing bowl in the freezer for 15 minutes. Coat the inside of a 9-by 5-inch loaf pan with cooking spray and dust it with flour, knocking out any excess.

2.
Combine the eggs, yolks, and vanilla in a glass measuring cup and lightly beat. Combine the flour and salt in a medium mixing bowl.

3.
Remove the large bowl from the freezer and add the butter and sugar. Cream with an electric mixer on medium-high until fluffy and almost white, about 3 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary.

4.
With the mixer on low, add the egg mixture in a slow, steady stream, stopping to scrape down the bowl at least once. Turn the mixer to medium-high and beat for 30 seconds longer. Add the flour, about ½ cup at a time, until fully incorporated, scraping down the bowl after each addition. After the last addition, mix on medium-high for 30 seconds.

5.
Scrape the batter into the prepared pan, smooth the top with a spatula, and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 1 hour 15 minutes. Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. This cake will keep at room temperature, wrapped in plastic, for up to 3 days or refrigerated for up to 1 week.