Terrible Texture, What Did I Do Wrong?!

Baking By Tellis12 Updated 21 Jun 2008 , 4:10am by thecakebox

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Tellis12 Posted 16 Jun 2008 , 6:55pm
post #1 of 8

I use cake mixes when I bake but I'd really like to switch to making scratch cakes. My problem is that the times I've made a cake from scratch it ends up having the texture of cornbread! It's awful. What am I doing wrong? I haven't tried using Cake Flour and was wondering if this might be the problem, but I was reading the other thread people have going and a lot of people use AP flour with no problem except that it isn't as light as with cake flour.

Help, what do I need to change?!

7 replies
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JoAnnB Posted 16 Jun 2008 , 7:09pm
post #2 of 8

Scratch cakes are a bit heavier than box mixes. they also have better flavor.

You may have to try a few recipes, and white cake is particularly difficult. You should use the kind of flour specified in the recipe. Follow the directions very carefully.

There are many recipes written with lots of very specific instructions, like how long to cream the sugar/butter, and how long to mix other ingredients. that is the one you are looking for.

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Tellis12 Posted 16 Jun 2008 , 7:16pm
post #3 of 8

So just keep trying? Is this a common problem?

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steplite Posted 18 Jun 2008 , 3:48am
post #4 of 8

If you use AP flour for baking you should omit two Tablespoons per cup. Cake flour is always best to use but I've found that White lily AP flour works just like cake flour. It's the only AP flour I would use for baking.

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thecakebox Posted 19 Jun 2008 , 8:26am
post #5 of 8

I don't know if you are doing this already, but it is extremely important for all your ingredients to be at room temp (eggs, milk, etc) you can curdle the cake batter by adding cold milk in certain recipes, HTH.

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JanH Posted 19 Jun 2008 , 9:35pm
post #6 of 8

Here's a great website for learning to bake from scratch:

www.joyofbaking.com

Over or incorrect mixing is probably the #1 cause of scratch cake failures. icon_sad.gif

Cake troubleshooting chart:

http://tinyurl.com/2p5bdu

The WASC cake recipe is a doctored cake mix that you might wish to try:
(Reliability of a mix, but more homemade taste.)

http://tinyurl.com/2cu8s4

HTH

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Tellis12 Posted 21 Jun 2008 , 2:07am
post #7 of 8

Thanks JanH for those sites. What does Curdling do to the batter?

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thecakebox Posted 21 Jun 2008 , 4:10am
post #8 of 8

basically when your batter curdles it means your ingredients are not emulsified properly so that can definitely affect the texture of the finished product, hth.

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