(A Simple Butter Cake)

From time to time readers ask me why their cake sank in the middle when baking. They always say something along the lines of: "I followed the recipe perfectly, but it still sank. What did I do?!" While it's impossible for me to know exactly what happened in any specific occasion without my actually being there, and I can't pretend to be an expert baker myself, these are the top 5 things you should look out for which may help to keep your cake from sinking the next time you bake:

1. Old Baking Powder:   Baking powder may only account for a tiny percentage of your entire cake ingredients, but it can ruin the whole thing if you're not careful! Remember that baking powder only stays fresh for about 6 months to a year, so date them when you buy them, and toss and replace any containers that have been hanging around too long.

Not sure if yours is still good? Take 5 seconds to test it before you start baking by placing a teaspoon of baking powder in about a 1/2 cup of hot water. If still good, it should start to bubble rapidly. If nothing (or barely nothing) happens, it's time to head to the store.

2. Too Much Leavening:  As counter-intuitive as it might sound, adding too much baking powder, baking soda, or yeast to a cake will cause it to sink as the amount of air that is created within the cake will be more than the structure can support and the whole thing will come crashing down.

Never add additional baking powder or other leaveners to self-raising flour or cake mixes (they already have it mixed in), and always be sure to read a recipe clearly and measure carefully.

When in doubt, remember that the average ratio for baking powder to flour is 1 to 1.5 teaspoons per cup of AP flour; so if you read a recipe that calls for something way above that, it's probably an error.


3. Overbeating:   this is probably one of the most common reasons why cakes sink. I'm not sure what it is, but we all seem to have a natural tendency towards overbeating cake batter until it is smooth and creamy. This is even easier to do when we rely on the trusty old Kitchen Aid or food processor to do our mixing for us. But beating in too much air into the batter once the dry and wet ingredients are combined will only cause the batter sink.

Go ahead and work the air in when creaming the butter, sugar, and eggs, but as soon as you add the flour mixture, remember that it's ALL about the light hand. Fold the dry ingredients through the wet only until they are just combined, then delicately divide and pour into your cake pans. If adding anything at the end (food coloring, chocolate chips, nuts, etc.), continue to work the addition through the batter as gently as possible in a flowing folding motion.



4. Oven Temperature: an oven that isn't properly calibrated and runs either too hot or too cold, could easily make for a falling cake. If possible, spring for an external oven thermometer (you can find them in the $15-$30 range at stores like Bed, Bath, and Beyond) to make sure that when it says 350 on the dial, it's really 350 inside the oven.

Also, don't be tempted to peek inside that oven for at least the first 80% of the suggested baking time. Remember that each time you open the oven door, the temperature inside can drop as many as 10 degrees. These tiny fluctuations in temperature can affect the even rising of the cake. 

5. Timing:  Unless a recipe specifically calls for it, don't let a finished batter sit for very long before baking. 20-25 minutes while the first batch bakes is fine; a few hours while you run out to pick up the kids and finish some errands is not. I always strive to have my cakes in the oven as soon as I have finished mixing them, unless of course I have been otherwise instructed in a recipe.

Remember that the minute the wet and dry ingredients meet, a chemical reaction starts to take place (like those baking soda volcanoes we all made in 7th grade science class). To get a light, fluffy, and beautifully raised cake, you want that chemical reaction to take place inside the oven as the cake bakes so that the air that is created gets sealed into the baking cake. If your batter is sitting on the counter or on the fridge, the air created inside will just escape into the room, and come time for baking, there will be less to lift the cake up.
  

 
(Irish Apple Cake)

And... a few bonus tips!

Preheating IS important. Depending on your oven, it can take as long as 30 minutes for it to reach the optimal baking temperature. Always be sure to do that first before getting on with your recipe or you'll end up with an uneven, lumpy cake.

Baking Powder and Baking Soda are NOT interchangeable. Though baking powder contains baking soda, it also has other components that act as a catalyst for all that good air-creating cake-rising action, and is used in recipes that don't have acidic elements. Baking soda usually works along with an acid (lemon juice, buttermilk, yogurt, chocolate, etc.). Some recipes call for both, but that doesn't mean that you can skip one or the other; if it calls for both, be sure to use both.   



(A Lemon and Pistachio Cake)

Center your oven rack. Unless otherwise told, position your oven rack in the center and place the cake pans right in the middle of the rack. If baking two cake layers at once, place them on the same rack side-by-side; don't put one on top of the other; they won't bake evenly that way.

As much as possible have all your ingredients at room temperature. I know it is very tempting to want to be in a rush and to think that it can't possibly hurt if all of your ingredients are at different temps.  When it comes to the science of baking however, this variance in temperature between ingredients can make a really big difference when it comes to the end result. Bake a cake with frigid butter and eggs and you may end up with something resembling a pancake. That’s why some recipes call for “room temperature” ingredients, a frustratingly general concept, especially from a scientific point of view.  Baking with room temperature butter helps to create "fluffiness."  Too warm or too cold butter can result in either too few air bubbles, or air bubbles with don't hold their shape and flatten quickly. 

Eggs are also crucial in giving loft to baked goods. The white of the egg is 90 percent water and 10 percent protein; when you beat an egg, it’s the protein that traps the air bubbles, and when incorporated into baked goods, these bubbles expand in the heat of the oven. Egg whites can be whipped up to eight times their volume, but this maximum air-trapping happens only when the eggs are warm; in warm eggs, the whites and yolks are looser, so it’s easier to incorporate air into them (which is the whole point).

Warmer eggs are also better when you’re mixing batter for cakes and cookies, because if you introduce cold eggs to a warmer butter-sugar mixture, the fat in the butter could harden. That would impede integration of the butter and eggs, which is why you’re creaming them to begin with.

But you do want your eggs to be cold if you need to separate the whites and yolks. Cold eggs are easier to separate, so if your recipe calls for the yolks and whites to be separated, do it before warming the eggs. 



So now that I have told you all that I can about the science of baking and shared all of my wisdom in great cake bakery, I think it's only fair that I share my absolute favourite cake recipe with you.



 It's a deliciously buttery sponge, filled with fresh raspberries and baked into two moist layers. Sandwiched together with a lovely vanilla butter cream icing and some seedless raspberry jam, and then drizzled with more sweetness. This is one very moreishly scrummy cake.



 *Raspberry Celebration Cake*
Cuts into 12 scrummy slices
Printable Recipe

This is the cake I always bake for summer birthdays.  A light moist sponge, filled with lovely raspberries, butter cream icing and seedless raspberry preserves.  Top with a sweet glaze and serve with more raspberries.

For the Cake:
175g of caster sugar (3/4 plus 1/8 cup)
175g of butter, softened (13 TBS)
4 large free range eggs, separated
100g self raising flour (a scant 3/4 cup)
1 tsp baking powder
100g ground almonds (1 scan't cup)
a few drops of almond extract
125g of fresh raspberries (a heaped cup)

For the buttercream:
75g of butter, softened (1/4 cup approx.)
125g icing sugar, sifted (about 3/4 cup)
few drops vanilla

For the glaze:
100ml icing sugar sifted (1/3 cup approx.)
water to thin 

 

Also about 4 heaped dessertspoons of seedless raspberry jam

Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/Gas mark 4.  Butter two 8 inch sandwich cake tins.  Line the bottoms with parchment paper.  Set aside.

Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.  Beat in the egg yolks.  Sift the flour and baking powder over the creamed mixture and then fold in using a metal spoon.   Fold in the ground almonds and exract.  Fold only until all traces of the flour have disappeared.

Beat the egg whites until they just hold their shape.  Fold them in gently, by thirds, being careful not to overmix and lose the lightness of the whites.  Lightly fold in the berries.  Divide between the two prepared cake tins and level off carefully.

Bake in the heated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, just until they test done.  A toothpick inserted in the centre should come out clean and they should spring back when lightly touched on top.

Remove from the oven.  Let cool in the tins for five minutes, then tip out onto wire racks, peel off the baking paper and allow to cool completely.

Make the buttercream by beating together all the ingredients until smooth and creamy.

Place one cake, bottom side up on a cake plate.  Spread completely with all the buttercream.  Spread the raspberry jam over top of the buttercream and then top with the other cake layer, placing it right side up.  Whisk together the icing sugar for the glaze and enough water to make a smooth drizzable mixture.  Drizzle decoratively over the top of the cake.  Allow to set, then dust with more icing sugar if desired.

Have a great weekend!

 


Right about the time this gets posted today, the Toddster and I will be heading on down to Sommerset to the Yeo Valley Farm for a day which we hope will be informative and fun.  So . . . I'm not really here at the moment.  I'm probably somewhere in the middle of the UK on a train in transit.

One of my favourite things about blogging is having the opportunity to try out new things.  I was recently sent some gluten free products from Orgran to try.  I was quite excited to do this.   We have some friends with a son who is gluten intolerant and I know how much they struggle in trying to conform to his diet.  It's not been very easy for them.

Orgran is known to be a Pioneer in the Gluten Free Industry, offering products that are not only gluten free, but also healthy and nutritional.  Not only are their products gluten free, but they are also wheat free, dairy free, GMO free, egg free, yeast free and vegan.

I was sent a package of their Buckwheat Pasta Spirals to trial and a package of their Buckwheat Pancake Mix.

I have to say upfront, I don't like buckwheat pancakes.  At least not the kind that used to come in the Aunt Jemima packet back home.  It had a funny flavour, which I wasn't all that fond of and I was a bit skeptical when it came to these things, but I was willing to give it a go.

My sister is very pro-raw-healthy-gluten-sugar-GMO-etc free.  She made me some buckwheat grawnola clusters when I was home in April and I loved them.  I loved them so much that when I came home to the UK I sourced and found myself a bag of buckwheat to sprout.   (Haven't done it yet sis, but it's in the planning stages!!)

I love pasta as you know and so the first thing I tried was the pasta.  I developed a tasty sauce to have with it.  This sauce would be tasty on any kind of pasta and I am happy to say that it tasted really good on the buckwheat pasta.

The pasta cooked up nicely, was perfectly al dente in the time on the package directions,  and other than it being a tiny bit darker than normal pasta, it pretty much tasted the same as any pasta.  In fact if you didn't know it was made from buckwheat you could never know the difference.  It was really good.

 

 

One thing I really miss at this time of year is fresh corn on the cob.  They call it Sweet corn here . . . not sure why that is, only that it is.  You can get corn on the cob here in the shops . . . but it really isn't very good.  They don't seem to understand that corn begins to turn starchy as soon as it's picked . . . or that you shouldn't completely husk it.



The  shelves in the grocery shops have sweet corn, already husked, or partially husked . . . been sitting there for days.  It's not good.  Having eaten corn right off the waggon and fresh out of the fields for most of my life, I am spoilt as far as corn goes. 



We tried to grow our own one year.  Peaches and cream.  You would think that would have been relatively easy enough . . . just plant the seeds, but . . . it just didn't work.  We got only a few cobs . . . and they were very small.  Tasty, but hardly worth the effort.



I keep saying that some year I am going to go home to visit during corn season . . . so that I can enjoy a good feed of it, and one year  I will. It's a promise I have made to myself.  Back home you know your corn is ready to pick as soon as the raccoons help themselves . . . that's one things raccoons know well . . . perfectly ripe corn.



Here I make do with tinned sweet corn.  It's better than any you can buy fresh, or perhaps I should say any that you can buy in the shops fresh.  I have never seen it for sale at the side of the road like we do back home.  It might be different if they did.  Perhaps it would taste just as good, fresh picked as the stuff I am used to.



I fear I will never find out.  In any case this casserole today is a beautiful side dish which makes good use of tinned sweet corn, two varieties . . . and cheese.   The pasta cooks in the corn, soaking up all of it's flavour.  that makes for one mighty tasty casserole.  Your family will eat this one up.  I promise!   If they like corn, they'll love this.



finely crushed buttered cracker crumbs

Place the potatoes in a pot of lightly salted water to cover.  Bring to the boil.  Cook until tender, drain, and then mash.  Whilst the potatoes are cooking, melt one TBS of the butter in a large frying pan.  Add the chopped onions.  Saute, stirring occasionally, over medium heat until the onions soften and begin to caramelize.  Once you have the potatoes mashed, whisk in the hot milk, remaining TBS of butter and the caramelized onions, along with some salt and white pepper.   Serve hot.

 

I love late summer when the garden begins to share it's bounty with us . . . that is the time of year when all the hard work begins to pay off . . . the fruit ripens, vegetables are ready to be picked . . . and there is nothing tastier on earth than things you have grown yourself.



I have always loved tomatoes.  As a girl we ate ripe tomatoes at the end of the summer out of hand like apples.  It was not unsual to sit down to a complete meal of nothing but sliced ripe tomatoes, sliced ripe cucumbers . . . scattered with salt and pepper and served with buttered bread.



Or a feed of nothing but sweet corn on the cob with lots of butter and salt.  We never felt deprived when this happened.   It was a real treat.  It still is.



I took some of our ripe tomatoes today and used them to make a delicious tomato tart.  Tomato tarts can be as complicated or as simple as you want them to be.  This one is very simple and very rustic.



It's just a matter of rolling out the pastry into a nice round and then sprinkling it with some rich and creamy soft Goat's cheese.   You then layer that up with sliced tomatoes and chopped olives . . . you could add a few capers as well, if you are fond of them.  I am, but today I didn't have any to use . . .



A sprinkle of coarse pepper and salt and into the oven it goes . . . until the pastry gets crisp and golden brown . . . and the tomatoes are just beginning to caramlize . . . and the goats cheese lays all rich and creamy beneath them . . .




I like to use the dry cured olives because they have more flavour and are usually cured with some herbs.  I love them and a few can go a very long way because they are so very flavourful!




After that you only need drizzle the tart with a bit of really good extra virgin olive oil and a few strips of fresh basil before cutting it into wedges to serve.



Me . . . I always like to drizzle it with a bit of balsamic dressing as well, such as the house dressing in my sandwiches of yesterday.  (It's most delicious you know!)  All in all this makes for a delightfully toothsome and flavourful light lunch or supper.



1 TBS extra virgin olive oil

Preheat the oven to 190*C/375*F/ gas mark 4.  Line a baking sheet with baking paper.

Roll the pastry out to a 12 inch circle.  Place the pastry carefully onto the paper lined baking sheet.   Crumble the goats cheese in the middle., leaving a 2 inch border all round.    Remove and discards any seeds and excess juice from your tomatoes.   Arrange the tomatoes in an even layer over the goats cheese.   Grind some black pepper over top and a bit of salt and sprinkle the olives evenly over all.  Gently fold the edges of the pastry over top of the filling all the way around, crimping as need be.  You want to leave the centre open. 

Bake in the heated oven for 40 to 45 minutes until the pastry is crisp and golden and the filling is cooked.  The tomatoes will be lightly roasted.   Remove from the oven and allow stand for about 10 minutes. Drizzle with the olive oil and sprinkle with the basil strips.   Cut into wedges to serve.

 

I can remember being taught many years ago, I believe in Home Economics at school . . . how to make a good sandwich.  Or maybe I read it in a book, in any case I was just a young girl when I learned the following rules about sandwich making.



One -  always seal your bread, to the edge with butter, or marg, or something which is going to keep your bread from getting soggy from the filling.  Nobody wants a soggy sandwich, which is especially important when we are talking about fillings which are wet . . . like tomatoes or cucumbers . . . or in a sandwich which is going to have to sit overnight or longer.



Two -  Don't be stingy with your fillings.  There should be more filling than bread.   There is nothing worse than a sandwich that tastes like bread, but nothing else.  And spread it to the edges folks!  I have purchased far too many store sandwiches that have a pile of filling stuck in the middle and nothing on the outer edges, rendering the edges dry and inedible . . .  tasteless.



Three -  Air is your enemy.  If you aren't serving them right away, keep them well covered and chilled.  What I do is I dampen a white cloth with cold water and wring it almost dry and then I place it over the sandwiches and then cover with cling film making sure it's well sealed.  Or I place them back (uncut) into the empty breadbags and seal and put them in the fridge.



Four - Don't store different kinds of sandwiches together.  Nobody wants to eat an egg and cress sandwich which tastes like tuna or salmon, or vice versa. It just makes sense to me, but may not be something someone else has thought of.  I am a bit pedantic about this.



Five - Use the freshest, finest ingredients you can afford to use.  That can mean the difference between a sandwich and a . . . SANDWICH!



Having said all that I have one heck of a sandwich to share with you here today.  I think the BLT (Bacon Lettuce and Tomato) Sandwich has to be just about everyone's favourite sandwich.  That's pure diner food, and a popular choice when having lunch out.



This version here today is the absolute BEST BLT you will ever eat.  Seriously.  With a Basil Pesto Mayonnaise, crisp bacon, fresh ripe tomatoes, house dressing and lots of lively fresh rocket leaves . .  . and a sturdy baguette (I used an Olive Flute today) . . . this is a simple sandwich that is anything but simple. This is bound to become a firm favourite and much requested sandwich.

Trust me on this one.   Would I lie to YOU?  Never! 



Do try to use a good quality baguette and other ingredients for this sandwich.  It really makes the difference between a good sandwich and a GREAT sandwich!

Cream together the shortening and sugar until light and fluffy.   Beat in the egg and vanilla.   Whisk together the dry ingredients.   Add alternately to the creamed mixture with the milk, beginning and ending with dry ingredients.  Mix until smooth.  Stir in the blueberries.  Pour into the prepared baking pan.   Bake for 30 to 35 minutes until the top springs back when lightly touched and a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.

While the cake is baking make the sauce.

Whisk the sugar, flour and salt together in a saucepan.  Add the boiling water, whisking constantly.  Continue to whisk, cooking over low hear until thickened nicely.   Whisk in the butter and vanilla.   Serve warm and spooned over squares of the warm blueberry cake