I make my cakes from a box and everyone loves them, but to me, I get a chemical aftertaste I do not enjoy, and I am very self conscious about it ( a nervous wreck!) BUT, my scratch cakes suck! I either have them run out of the pan, or not raise and stay dense, dry, chewy, or the all of the above, plus a taste of play-do. I just learned that bleached and unbleached flour is different, and I always thought it was just the color, and bleached sounds gross., but could this have been my problem in the cakes that don't call for cake flour? What exact flour should I be using? Do I need a variety?

Hi Anna,

You may have had an issue but in my experiments, unbleached flour is just not as light. It is also darker in color in the finished product.

If you have any issues with recipes, I will be happy to share any of mine in a pm to you. You may not agree that they are what you want, but I can guarantee success and maybe you will find a technique you are doing that if changed, your recipes would be better when it is baked. We may even have some of the same recipes.

I think you may have bad recipes or ones without enough technique. Let me know. You are welcomed to any, plus details. It could be as simple as over/undermixing. Susan

I'm certainly not an expert at scratch baking (though I do bake form scratch), but I use unbleached flour in almost all of my baking. I have read in the Cake Bible that bleached is the way to go, but I actually like the taste of baked goods and the performance of the unbleached flour.

My struggle remains with a good white and a good yellow cake, though... I keep thinking it's a recipe problem or I am miss-mixing or over-baking, but I wonder if the results would be different with the same recipe if I used bleached flour.... hmmm... something to think about, I guess.

Anna, for strawberry, I rely on a great extract, Fragoli, or a fine gourmet jam in whatever base recipe I want to use. I haven't tried icing fruits, but I plan to try them in the future. I reserve fresh strawberries for my buttercream with a backup of one of the three above to intensify the flavor.

It sounds like you have decent recipes, you just haven't found the flavors. I'm sure you have seen me post about Olive Nation extracts. They are pure fruit flavor. McCormick still has that candy flavor but these don't. I use fine top shelf liqueurs and reduce them to get flavor with the least liquid. If you read my descriptions, you will find how I make each cake.

My RV is Cakeman's with alterations (pm me).

Almond just needs a gourmet extract vs. McCormack. French vanilla, invest in vbp and homemade extract.

I have about 5 different chocolate recipes I use depending on the flavor I want. I use cocoa powder, chocolate, and a blend. I even have a great stout recipe. The chocolate ones can be tough. Even a 10% change in the chocolate number can cause the cakes to fail (found out the hard way).

I think it sounds like if you up the quality of your flavorings in the cakes you already like, you will get what you want. Hope this helps. Susan

Hero brand also make a great strawberry compound for flavoring cakes and everything else.

Take the recipes you already have and try making it with the chiffon method (if they aren't already). This means separating your eggs and whipping the whites with some of the sugar (about 1oz to 1 egg white), mix the rest of the ingredients separately, then fold the two together. Same makeup but a LOT more lovely air inside.