I was watching an old episode of Alton Brown entitles, A Cake On Every Plate, about the science behind baking a yellow buttercake. On the show, he referred the more scientific explanations to Shirley O. Corriher, a popular author of CookWise and someone who is hired by Alton Born, Cook's Illustrated and a number of others to find out the how and whys of cooking.
By the way, if you are a big fan of hers, which I am, she is currently working on BakeWise, yeah!!! I don't always like her recipes, because in my opinion, using pure science behind a recipe to achieve your main objective does not always mean better tasting, but it does make for an interesting explanation.
Anyway, Alton and Shirley (from her book) disclosed some interesting, scientific, facts about making a cake and I thought I would share for those interested. Here are some of them;
A) In the typical creaming method (beating sugar and eggs, then alternating flour and wet ingredients), beating the sugar and eggs together in the beginning is the most important part of making a cake. Often, people do not beat long enough. You should beat them in the range of 4 to 6 minutes.
What this does is produce the bubbles in the batter which in turn the chemical leveners will extend to produce your fine, fluffy texture in cakes. If there are no bubbles, there is nothing to extend, ie dense cake.
B) Butter and bowl temperature are very important which is why most recipes say room temp, usually best is between 60 to 70 degrees. This again will help in aeration of the butter and sugar. If it is a hot day and your butter starts to melt while beating, then stop and freeze the bowl or dip in ice water for a bit.
C) Eggs at room temperature. Many people and recipes differ on this, but tests show that cold eggs in the recipe do show definite slight reduction in volume of the batter.
D) Shirley shows that sifting the leveners with the flour is very important and recommends one to three times in doing so. This is what produces a fine velvety texture. In not doing so properly, you get unsightly large holes. I have seen recipes and authors say that flour comes pre-sifted, so don't do it. Well here is the reason why you should.
E) This tip comes from Alton Brown and I, like he was on the show, was amazed at even suggesting it, but he replaces the butter in cakes with butter flavored shortening. Why? Because he says butter flavored shortening actually produces a more buttery taste than actual butter in the baked product. Butter by its makeup is 20% water, so to substitute all shortening (which has no water, pure fat) you need to increase your liquid portion of the recipe by the missing 20%, so more milk, buttermilk, water, or whatever.
I have also read that using the hi-ratio shortening (I suppose with butter flavor extract) produces an excellent airy, bubble producing mixture when creaming it with sugar because hi-ratio contains emulsifiers (i.e. more bubbles produced = better texture.)
F) This step, I have already discovered, as my favorite white and yellow cakes are made by using the other lesser popular, but second favorite mixing process in cake making, the pastry or two-stage method (mixing flour and butter together first, then adding liquid.) This method causes the flour to be protected by the fat, so when the liquid is added, gluten does not form (something you don't want to happen in cakes.) This is the best method because it produces the melt-in-your-mouth, literally fall-apart-tender cake with a velvet texture, the cakes dissolve in your mouth.
The drawback is that sometimes the cakes can be too tender and fall apart. I think a good recipe would solve the problem and Cook's Illustrated, in my opinion, has the very best for both white and yellow.
Other methods can be used such as the dump cake (everything dumped into the same bowl at once.) This method really only works well if you use the hi-ration shortening mentioned above to produce good aeration since you are omitting the creaming step. The advantage is speed, but not quality.
G) Oven temperature is the last item. There is a reason why, as Alton and Shirley explain that 350 degrees is best for most cakes. Cakes produced at much lower temperatures, down to 300 degrees, form larger air pockets/bubbles. These bubbles sometimes combine to form larger bubbles and thus big air holes that produce uneven texture occur. Baking at 375 produces finer and more even holes, but you risk getting the outside edges of the cake done before the middle, so a compromise of 350 degrees works best.
I usually bake mine at 325 because I believe it makes my cakes moister, and it does. Unfortunately, what it does not give me is the browning of the outside, the crust. According to Cook's Illustrated, this is where a lot of your flavor comes from, so I might be rethinking my oven temps.
The science is interesting and as you can see, there are a lot of things that can go wrong in baking a cake. Personally, I like having control in the baking process and ingredients. Scratch cakes will always be my preferred method.
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