Hello Everyone,
I am trying to learn how to create recipes. I want to be able to make cupcakes and cakes from scratch. I am struggling with the recipes. I made a batch from scratch but it came out doughy, caulky and they collapsed when I took them out of the oven. Any suggestions on how I can produce a great tasting batter that will had its form?
Most homemade (from scratch) recipes seem to be heavy. What I do is mix a homemade recipe with a box mix of the same flavor. The box mix seems to lighten it up a bit and they always rise beautifully. When a cake sinks in the middle I usually add more flour before putting it in the pan. A thicker batter usually rises better. The doughiness is just plain undercooked.
It kinda depends on the recipe and your oven I guess, but I cook my cupcakes (in muffin size liners) for 21 minutes @150C and they come out fine. Check online for some basic recipes you like the sound of, and then try a few to see what ones you like. Make sure your oven is at the right temp before you put the cakes in, and check with a skewer or cocktail stick to make sure it is cooked before you remove it from the oven. (it should come out cleanish, ie no wet mix on it) Don't keep opening the door either, coz they can sink.
Hope this helps. I think a lot is trial and error at first!
Hello Everyone,
I am trying to learn how to create recipes. I want to be able to make cupcakes and cakes from scratch. I am struggling with the recipes. I made a batch from scratch but it came out doughy, caulky and they collapsed when I took them out of the oven. Any suggestions on how I can produce a great tasting batter that will had its form?
Hello Barbara!
Scratch baking is a science... it's not a matter of getting a random recipe online, adding a little more/less of this/that and it'll turn out. Especially if you say you want to learn to "create" a recipe for cake - I'm pretty cocky with my pastry skills and am a very committed scratch baker, but I can honestly say there isn't a cake recipe I have in my kitchen that I "created". They all came from somewhere else, then I spend a good year testing, making, taste-testing, throwing away, remaking, tweaking, learning, reading, researching etc. to refine my results to be what I wanted them to be and put my unique twist to them.
My advise to you if you want to learn to scratch bake, start with The Cake Bible by Rose Levi Beranbaum. It explains more of the science of baking to help give you an over-all understanding of why you use ingredients and how they effect your recipe. Rose's recipes have launched many a caking career (mine included) and are of a professional grade. In the meantime, good basic recipes you could try are the Better Scratch White Cake as found here on CC in the most saved recipe list (there is a massive thread dedicated to tips for that one recipe alone, so a search for "Finally a Scratch WASC), or get Martha Stewart's Cupcakes book, there are some great recipes in there for chocolate, red velvet, carrot, etc. I also think Martha Stweart's Cooking School has a decent baking chapter, Alton Brown has a baking book that many on here love, and I've heard great things about a book written by Sylvia Weinstock.
The most important thing is that it takes time, patience, and dedication to really make a scratch cake well, especially white cake, so don't give up! There are also a ton of threads on here with lots of tips on how to make scratch cakes.
Best of luck,
Jen
Most homemade (from scratch) recipes seem to be heavy. What I do is mix a homemade recipe with a box mix of the same flavor. The box mix seems to lighten it up a bit and they always rise beautifully. When a cake sinks in the middle I usually add more flour before putting it in the pan. A thicker batter usually rises better. The doughiness is just plain undercooked.
I hope you don't think I'm picking on you, I just really want to encourage you to read my other post on this thread to get a little more educated about how to scratch bake! Everyone can do it!
I applaud your effort Denise, but woah is this not how to scratch bake. 
Your cake is heavy because you are adding more flour then the recipe calls for. They sink in the middle because you have improperly measured your ingredients, over or under mixed it, did not cream properly, have stale baking powder/soda, you underbaked/overbaked, your oven is at improper temperature, it's over leavened since you added cake mix, or maybe you just have a crap scratch recipe - it could be any number of things. A thicker batter does not necessarily it'll rise better - butter cakes using conventional creaming methods tend to have medium thick batters, butter cakes using reverse creaming have very thick batters, oil-based cakes have runny batters... yet each one will have the same texture once baked.
Anyway, I hope you take this as encouragment, lots of people dismiss scratch cakes because they have not actually had one made properly... but I swear once you do you'll see what I am talkin about 
Good luck,
Jen
I make all my cakes from scratch. TBH, until I came on here, I hadn't realised how many people actually used cake mix! Nothing wrong with it - I just hadn't thought about it.
Barbara, perhaps if you posted on the recipe you used, and how long/what temp you cooked it at, maybe some of the more experienced bakers here could make suggestions?
i found my favorite scratch wasc and yellow sour cream recipes on this website. the yellow is similar to sylvia weinstock's.
these basic cakes are delicious and light in texture.
my method is putsy but works well for me.
i cream the butter for about 5 minutes so that it is really light. i separate the eggs and beat each yolk until it's completely incorporated. i mix the dry and wet ingredients by hand to avoid overbeating the flour.
i beat the egg whites to soft peak and fold them in last.
i like to tweak the flavor by experimenting, e.g. toasting nuts with various seasoning, mascerating fruit with a variety of things, etc.
so the finished product feels like my own even though i didn't come up with the first base recipe.
Try this one
YUMMY and EASY PEASY
1 cup white sugar
½ cup butter ( 250 gms)
2 eggs
1 ½ tsp Vanilla extract (i used almost 2)
1 ½ cups Plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ cup milk ( I used butter milk)
160 degrees fan forced oven (350 i think in US)
Cream butter, sugar and egg until fluffy, add vanilla
Sift all dry ingredients, add ½ dry ingredients to mixture, mix until just combined, add milk
Then add rest of ingredients.
Cook until just dry 15 mins then watch
It was almost like a doughy biscuit mix, i was worried, but they were fabulous! I even kept in fridge for a day and once 'room temp' they were still very very moist and delicious
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