Why is it so hard to bake a yellow cake?

[yellow cake away]

I'm not exactly a baker but I set out to do an experiment about a year ago. I wanted to bake my favorite cake perfectly (which is a yellow cake with chocolate frosting).

The only catch was that I would have to do things the old way by mixing with a spoon and not resort to an electric mixer (which I don't have). To keep from wasting too much, I decided to make all of my experimental cake recipes in "cupcakes" and each batch that I put together was very small. So far, I have tried somewhere over 100 experimental attempts to get the yellow cake right and have never been able to come up with a consistent recipe. I have tried practically everything.

The part that really bugs me is this....... I made a chocolate cake (using the recipe on the back of the Hershey's Chocolate Baking Powder box) and it has turned out PERFECT every time. No measurements or nothing and the cake is perfect every single time. I was shocked that the chocolate cake bakes so much better and so much easier than the dreaded yellow cake. Very shocked!!! How can that be? The chocolate cake recipe has boiling water in it, more sugar in it than flour, uses vegetable oil (and not butter or margarine), no creaming, no special flours or sifting etc., the batter is extremely thin before baking, yet it turns out perfect every time. Seriously folks--every time!! No measuring is even required with the chocolate cake recipe on the back of the Hershey's box. It will turn out with the perfect cake texture either way.

But the yellow cake......oh no way, it is a totally different beast.


What gives here? For the yellow cake, I have checked the internet over and over and I get things like "use cake flour", "cream eggs", "don't over mix", "room temperature this", etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. and I have tried pretty much every combination more than once. The frustrating catch here is that, every combination, on it's own, yielded good results at one point (like 1 out of 10 tries). I followed that combination up and got different results.

What really angers me is the fact that all-purpose flour works perfectly for a chocolate cake every time but I haven't been able to get consistent good results with the yellow cake using all-purpose flour.

I must ask the question. Is there anyone here that bakes a TRULY homemade yellow cake from scratch and gets good results every time? I have tried so many different experiments with the yellow cake I could ramble on forever. But first I would need to know if there are any bakers here that get good results with a homemade yellow cake recipe every time? The yellow cake has to be from complete scratch and not with any thing odd added like vanilla icecream or vanilla pudding mix!

The most consistent yellow cake preparation method that I have in my arsenal only works 50% of the time (which is much better than the other methods which almost never work). To make a decent yellow cake, I basically emulated the chocolate recipe on the back of the Hershey's box (without the chocolate) but did some additional things. I use melted butter to get as close as possible as to the vegetable oil in the chocolate recipe. Obviously there is no creaming to be done if you are using melted butter. I use that low protein (or wheat gluten) baking flour. I blend the sugar in a blender until it is almost the consistency of powdered sugar. And before I pour the yellow cake batter, I add boiling water (as in the chocolate recipe) making it very thin. When done right (or with luck), this method will yield perfect yellow cupcakes but this method doesn't work all of the time.

Who makes a yellow cake perfect every time? I am getting sick of throwing out sweet yellow cornbread-like stuff or rubbery gew with tunnels in it : )

Would greatly appreciate any help!

[Tudani]

ummmmm....well

I've always found that the weather effects my rl baking a lot. But I've never had the same problems you're describing with yellow cake. The recipie I use is from a friend of the family, and I've never had it turn out badly (although I do admit that I don't make it very often).
<blinks a couple more times>

mod might wanna move this to ooc forum...

[Morani]

A GOOD yellow cake is one of the hardest things to make. So much so that many food critics use that as a first test to measure the worth of a baker. There are many things that can go wrong with it but without some examples of what is wrong it’s very hard to give suggestions that are more than generalized. With as many attempts as you’ve made, I think you’re likely to have tried many of them.

Weight your ingredients, do not use volume measurements. Temperature and (more importantly) humidity has a VERY big impact on cakes and breads. By measuring your ingredients, you do a better job of countering that effect. Baking is about chemistry in your kitchen. I.E. the colder the water is the more dense it is and the more molecules you have in a liquid ounce, therefore, the more water you have (boiling the water is another way to assist with that because you have made sure the water is at a set temp before you measure it). You might not like it, but if you are serious about it, use a metric scale for finer control.

Cake flour is the best thing to use for a more delicate cake. It has less protein (an average of 8 grams rather than 10-12 per cup) than all-purpose flour. Protein is what makes gluten and gluten toughens baked goods. By using a low protein flour you can help to ensure that your cake is softer, fluffier, and spongier. Cake flour is also more finely ground so that means more surface area for the chemistry to happen on and quicker absorption of the liquids (the later means less mixing is needed to incorporate all your ingredients and thus you’ll know it’s true consistency sooner). All-purpose flour is almost always bleached and that is BAD for a yellow cake. Bleaching means chlorine remains in the flour and that makes the flour slightly acidic (the acid reacts to the proteins in the flour when wet and the eggs when they are added and toughens them). Lastly, there is more starch in cake flour and that means a more stable cake when cooked.

Any but not all yellow cakes are a form of butter cake and a derivative of the pound cake (named so for the list of ingredients; 1 pound flour, 1 pound butter, 1 pound sugar, etc). That means everything is in ratio in the mix so pay attention to that. Sugar and flour should be close to the same weight (adjusted for you own sweet tooth) and butter/shortening and eggs should be close too. Some thing important to know when using substituting butter for shortening or visa-versa: butter is 20% water. That means 240 grams of butter is equal to 200 grams of shortening AND 40 grams of water; make sure to adjust both. I personally don’t like using oil in a cake as the quality and age can ruin the flavor if you are not careful (not a big deal when adding a strong flavor like chocolate).

Room temperature ingredients are easier to work with and more pleasant BUT you have to be careful that the butter is not too soft or it will melt when you are mixing it and that makes a flat cake.

Cream your sugar and butter/shortening WELL!!! (and separate from everything else) Don’t skimp on this part or your cake will suffer the most. The coarseness of the sugar adds air to the fat (thus the color change) and that air becomes bubbles that make your cake light and fluffy.

When adding eggs; don’t dump them all in at once or you’ll loose some of the bubbles trapped in the creamed shortening/butter.

You’ve probably heard the advice of not adding all the dry ingredients at once. This is for more than just mess factor; it also helps to prevent lumps of unmixed batter. By adding half and mixing then adding the other half, the moisture can be mixed evenly though it.

Lastly; if you make a layered cake, you want to make sure the layers are as close to the same size as possible (not because it looks nice but because you want to pull them out of the oven without one or the other being over/under cooked. So, weigh them when you pour the batter.

Ok, so it wasn’t last… LASTLY (for real), EXPERIMENT. Stop looking for more good recipes and stick to the one you like the best. HOWEVER, it’s time for you to move on to taking chances and start tweaking the recipe for better results. It’s not sweet enough, add more sugar, it’s too dry, add more liquid (just a little), etc. Here’s another suggestion; INTENTIONALLY ruin some cakes. Go though each major ingredient one at a time and intentionally add too much or too little and see what happens. Keep track of it and after a mere dozen more mixes you’ll have the best working knowledge of what results from what mistakes. You’re obviously past the stage of looking for a basic cake and want something special. The only way to do that is to start tailoring each batch. As Tudani put it, weather can make a difference so each cake will need a little extra attention to correct it, a touch more flour or water to get JUST the right consistency is usually what is needed for that though.

I hope that helps.

BTW, this REALLY should be moved to the OOC forum.

[Lilosh]

Try skilling up on chocolate chip cookies for a while, and send the results to me.


Then try a cake (And also send it to me)

-Lilosh

[Idana Phoenixfyre]

ROFL these are probably the most entertaining posts I've ever read on this board and of course I have to print it out for the cake advice. Lol thanks guys!

I

[Maevenniia]

If brownie parts are needed to make chocolate cake, what parts would be used to make yellow cake?

[Gneiss Guy]

bixie parts!

[Cigarskunk]

It's very simple - cakes trivial in the 160s - your chocolate cake was obviously some kind of right click function that never fails - basically a vendor sold cake.

When I worked on baking in RL, here is the skill path which I took - worked very well for me too -

rice crispy treats (pan lost on failure)
pancakes from scratch
coffee cake from scratch
pizza/pretzle dough from scratch (seem to have same trivial)
brownies from scratch
cakes from scratch

[Heartsong_Steelsoul]

Since no one else has said it, for the benefit of the initial poster -

This board is for a skill for Baking in a computer game called Everquest. That's why it's been moved to the 'OOC' forum (Out of Character), since it doesn't have to do with the game.

So that's why some of the replies are a little... odd.

Heartsong Steelsoul

[Ilona]

The version of the "pound cake" that I have tried is what is called "quatre quarts" or "four quarters"

Take one egg, weigh it.
Take the same weight of flour, milk, sugar as there is egg.

Mix and bake.

I think that comes out more cream than yellow though - and to be honest, I can't remember if you're supposed to use normal flour or self-raising flour (I'm in the UK, not the US, so no idea what your equivalents are for those).

[Faymar]

Can you explain a bit better what you mean by yellow cake? I.e. what is the main flavouring/what's the consistancy (sponge cake maybe?)

If you want to make pound cake, I can highly recommend the lemon pound cake recipe on http://www.epicurious.com/run/recipe/view?id=105981

[Arakni Spellweaver]

Faymar,

I see from your email address you're probably in the UK - I think the original poster is from the US, so I'll try to explain what we mean by "yellow cake" over here.

If you've had chocolate cake - devil's food cake - something along those lines .. ok that's the consistency they're asking for.

The flavor is reminicent of pound cake. That's the closest that you can come taste wise I think.

So it's pound cake flavor but with chocolate cake consistency.

(Describing food is hard! ops: I hope that made sense)

OK - edited to show a picture - ok this isn't a real cake, it's a fake cake (I think to be used in displays) but maybe it will help? (I'm very sympathetic to the original poster, since this is my favorite kind of cake too! )

http://www.sell.com/29B8G

[Frabbens]

(pan lost on failure)

An ex-girlfriend once critical-failed a baked ham; she forgot to remove it from the plastic wrapping.

Man, did that smell.

[Morani]

That “Quatre Quarts” cake is actually the original Pound Cake recipe, which is pretty much a white cake. And that’s NOT self rising flour, though you can use it if you add a drizzle of vegetable oil to help keep the proteins in the egg from toughening and making a the cake too firm.

Cream the egg and sugar until it’s nearly white and you turn a pound cake into a standard cake.

Use only the egg yolks when creaming (don’t try to cream it until white ‘cause it won’t happen; in the “old days” they’d beat it by hand to a count of 500) and you get a distinct yellow look of a yellow cake. Typically, a teaspoon of vanilla is added (or better yet; use vanilla sugar in place of the normal stuff: Take one whole vanilla bean and cut into ~ 1 inch lengths and put in a food processor with 2 cups sugar and process for about 3 minutes or until the bean is granulated. It’s GREAT sprinkled on fresh fruit as is or thrown in a broiler to caramelize the sugar…)

You Limey’s might know it as standard sheet cake.

[Cigarskunk]

(pan lost on failure)

An ex-girlfriend once critical-failed a baked ham; she forgot to remove it from the plastic wrapping.

Man, did that smell.

Erf. Worse one I ever saw was when a buddy started up some boiling water (while playing EQ - surprise) forgot about it and boiled it all away - didn't realise there was a problem till the pot started burning - never thought I'd be able to say that I know someone who managed to burn water.