Freezing Cakes: Hot, Warm or Room Temperature ???

It seems like an accepted fact that freezing a cake will not harm it; both professional and home bakers agree. In fact some say that the act of freezing (if done properly) may actually improve the taste, texture, and moisture level of said cake.

But controversy swirls around WHEN to freeze the cakes. Should they be frozen when the cakes are piping hot straight out of the oven? Should they be frozen when they are warm to the touch? Or should you wait till they are completely cool before freezing?

There are three divided camps on this issue…

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Some people (the NEVER HOT camp) say to NEVER put hot cakes in the freezer. Some of the reasons include:

1) Placing hot foods in the freeze will cause the temperature inside the freeze to rise and cause previously frozen foods to partially thaw. But other people counter and say that modern freezers with their sensors and more efficient motors can handle the temperature fluctuations and adjust the air temperature accordingly.

2) The Never Hot Camp says that freezing hot cakes will trap steam/water inside the cake.  The steam/water will turn into ice crystals which will accelerate freezer burn and cause the cake to have an "off" taste. But other people counter and say that freezer burn does not start to creep into food until they are frozen for 2-3 months.

3) Freezing hot cakes will trap steam in the cake which will change the texture of the cake; causing it to become dense, rubbery, and sometimes even soggy. Other people say that trapping the steam and moisture inside the cake will actually make it moister.

4) By wrapping the hot cakes prior to freezing you are trapping heat inside the cake and allowing the cooking process to continue. Even after it is placed in the freezer it will continue “cooking” until the freeze can lower the core temperature below 140 degrees.

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Some people (the WARMER camp) say to let the cakes cool 10-15 minutes and then wrap and freeze.

The WARMER camp is a little wishy-washy and don't really have a list of reasons.

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The third and largest camp (the ALWAYS COOL camp) says to freeze the cakes once they are completely cool. The biggest reason why is:

1) Steam should be allowed to escape the cake prior to wrapping and freezing. Cake recipes are tested and tweaked under the assumption that a cake will be cooled to room temperature. The amount of liquid/moisture that goes into the cake/recipe also depends on that assumption. If you wrap a hot cake and freeze it immediately you are therefore trapping moisture/steam into the cake that wasn’t designed to be there. This added moisture might make the cake too moist and in some cases downright soggy.

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So who is right? When should cakes be frozen? Hot, Warm, or Room Temperature?

To answer the question for myself I did a little test...

I baked my standard 3-layer white cake (shortening based with no butter) and I wrapped and froze one layer immediately after it came out of the oven. The second layer I de-panned and allowed to cool for 15 minutes before I wrapped and placed it in the freezer. The third layer I allowed to cool for 1-1/2 hours before it was wrapped and placed in the freezer.

The cakes stayed frozen for a week, then I placed them on the counter, and stilled wrapped in plastic wrap and aluminum foil I allowed them to defrost.

First thing I noticed on unwrapping was that the surface of the HOT frozen and WARM frozen cakes were a little sticky. Nothing really bad, but noticeable.

Next I staked the cake, but I didn’t add frosting because I didn’t want the frosting to influence the texture or taste of the cake. I wanted to test them in their naked, unadorned state. The bottom layer is the HOT layer, the center is the WARM layer, and the top is the COOL/Room Temperature layer.

Next I sliced. ( Notice I stuck a toothpick in the bottom/HOT layer?  I had to do this so I could tell which was which! )

Then I tasted.

 Hummmmm...

Surprisingly they looked and tasted EXACTLY the same. The HOT cake might have been a smidgen denser, with a slightly tighter crumb, but nothing too noticeable. And again – they all tasted exactly the same. I had four people sample the individual cake layers and no one noticed a difference.

I was really surprised at the findings, I thought for sure that the HOT frozen cake would taste moister – but not so.

So I guess for this particular cake at least – the timing of when it is frozen does not matter. The bottom line is freeze the cake when it is most convenient to you.


Happy Baking,

Carol

White Cake Taste Test

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A few members on Cake Central recently kicked off a Great Scratch Off - White Cake Taste Test. Yeah, White Cake! I’ve been on the hunt for the "perfect" white cake recipe so I joined the fun. Eight recipes were selected for the comparison (see list below). I would have liked to try them all, but I was pressed for time so I selected four to sample: one made with shortening, one with buttermilk, one with just butter, and one with sour cream.



Here are links to the eight recipes that Cake Central selected for the comparison:

1. King Arthur Flour - Tender While Cake recipe - I would have liked to try this recipe. It is the standard "butter" recipe, but it also give the option of using vanilla yogurt or whole milk. I've always wondered how yogurt would impact the taste/texture of a cake, but I didn't have any King Arthur Flour so I had to scratch this one from my "to bake" list.



2. Rebecca Sutterby's (developer of the WASC recipe) - White Velvet Cake recipe - Buttermilk recipe with vanilla bean paste. I didn't have any vanilla bean paste, so this one got scratched also.



3. Cook Book Maniac's adaptation of Rose Levy Beranbaum's: The Cake Bible - White Velvet Cake recipe - This is a butter recipe which also uses heavy cream. Sounds delicious, rich, and oh-so-fattening. I really wanted to include this one and make a five layer cake, but I was confused by some of Cook Book Maniac's instructions. In particular the instruction of cook at 175 degrees (no mention of Celsius or Fahrenheit) and only use one 9x2" pan. I could make the assumption that the temperature was Celsius, but the one pan had me stumped. Seemed like too much batter for one pan. I also had a run-in last year with the Rose Levy Beranbaum's folks when I included her Red Velvet Cake in one of my taste test. I didn't want a repeat of that drama, so I dropped this cake from my lineup.



4. Cook's Illustrated - White Layer Cake recipe (note, you need a subscription to see the actual Cook's Illustrated recipe, but the link given goes to a blog that posted the CI recipe and directions)- This is a Butter recipe with lots of egg whites. I included this recipe in my taste test. Here is what the finished cake looked like:



5. Elisa Strauss The Confetti Cakes - Vanilla Cake recipe (note: scroll down through this long post.  The recipe is near the bottom of  Post #1)  - This is another Butter recipe with lots of egg whites very similar to the Cook's Illustrated recipe.



6. K8Memphis' version of Sylvia Weinstock's yellow cake from  Sylvia Weinstock's Sensational Cakes  - Sylvia's famous Sour Cream Yellow Cake recipe was modified (reduced the egg yolks) by K8 to make the baked cake look less yellow. Here is what it looked like.



7. GroupRecipes' Delicate White Cake recipe - This is a Shortening based recipe with no butter. Here is what it looked like. Very snowy isn't it? No butter in the batter makes the cake very white.



8. Rebecca Rather's from the book The Pastry Queen - White on White Buttermilk Cake recipe - Lots of butter and buttermilk in this recipe. Not intended for anyone worried about their cholesterol.

So here are all the cakes stacked and waiting to get iced.



For this taste test I had 11 lab rats (oops, I mean family members). They were told to evaluate just the cake and not the cake/icing combination. Each taster was given a slice of cake and I interview each and made notes of their comments. They were asked to rank the cakes from 1-4. #1 being their favorite and #4 being their least favorite.

And based on the ranking of my lab rats,

The WINNER of my White Cake Taste Test IS ...........

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With an overall score of 1.6 .............

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The pure BUTTER recipe from Cook's Illustrated White Layer Cake recipe

Yeah, Three Cheers for Cook's Illustrated White Layer Cake !!!!
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The score board is as follows (note: the lower the number the better the score):

#1 - First Place went to Cook's Illustrated Butter cake with a score of 1.6,
#2 - Second Place went to Rebecca Rather's (The Pastry Queen) Buttermilk cake with a score of 2.4,
#3 - Third Place went to Group Recipes' Shortening cake with a score of 2.5,
#4 - Fourth Place went to K8Memphis' Sour Cream Cake with a score of 3.4



Under the guidelines of the Cake Central Great Scratch Off - White Cake Taste Test the
Judging Criteria included:
1. Flavor
2. Texture/Crumb
3. Moistness
3. Ease of Recipe
4. Cost of Recipe
5. Ability to convert into cupcakes

So here are my remarks on each cake:


* The Sour Cream Cake (left most cake in picture, 4th Place Winner) K8Memphis'  version of Sylvia Weinstock's Yellow Cake from the book Sylvia Weinstock's Sensational Cakes 

1. Flavor - Nice flavor when eating, but leaves a strong after-taste in your mouth. Most of the lab rats described the cake as having a strong, unidentifiable flavor.
2. Texture/Crumb - Very dense but you can still see the crumb.
3. Moistness - Very moist almost to the point of wetness.

* The Butter Cake (second from left in picture, 1st Place Winner) Cook's Illustrated White Layer Cake recipe

1. Flavor - Rich, buttery flavor. Very nice smell.
2. Texture/Crumb - Medium crumb. Not as fluffy as the shortening cake but not as dense as the buttermilk or sour cream cakes. Crumbs visible when you cut into the cake. Nice, fluffy, moist feel in mouth.
3. Moistness - Perfect moistness. Not dry and not too wet looking or tasting.

* The ButterMilk Cake (third from left in picture, 2nd Place Winner) Rebecca Rather's (The Pastry Queen book) White on White Buttermilk Cake recipe

1. Flavor - Great flavor, rich and complex.
2. Texture/Crumb - Dense, but you can still see some crumbs.
3. Moistness - Very moist, a little wet looking, compacts in your mouth when you eat it.
4. Other Notes: Best flavor but did not like the texture as much as the shortening or butter cake. Cake was very rich and overpowered the normal vanilla buttercream icing. Tasted much better when paired with a rich, chocolate icing. Also did not work well as cupcakes: lots of collapsing and shrinkage.

* The Shortening Cake (right most cake in picture, 3rd Place Winner) Delicate White Cake recipe

1. Flavor - Sugary flavor, not enough extracts. Would add more vanilla and also some butter extract.
2. Texture/Crumb - Light, airy, fluffy. Loose crumb, lots of little crumb holes.
3. Moistness - A little dry. If more moisture (and butter flavor) could be added to the cake it would be perfect.
4. Other Note: Not enough batter, layer not thick enough. Baked for the suggested 20 minutes but next time I would only bake for 18 minutes.

So did this taste test help me to find that "perfect" white cake recipe? Well to be honest, No.

I loved the flavor of the Buttermilk cake, the texture of the Butter cake and the light, airiness of the Shortening cake. If only I could smash all the cakes together, I would have the perfect White Cake recipe.

Hummmm....

I wonder if I could start with the Shortening recipe, use buttermilk instead of milk, double the vanilla, add some almond and butter extracts..... I wonder what it would taste like? Any thoughts, any opinion?

Hummmmm......

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White on White Buttermilk Cake

This weekend I was able to kill the two provable birds with one stone. I tested my fifth Yellow Cake recipe from the Cake Central June "Scratch-Off" and I tried to recreate a wonderful looking Cookies n' Cream cupcake I had seen on a blog a few months back.

So this time I tried the White on White Buttermilk Cake recipe.

The recipe called for your standard mixing steps. 1) sift the dry ingredients together. I didn't have any fresh buttermilk in the fridge, so I used the powdered stuff. 2) Cream the butter and sugar. 3) Add the eggs and vanilla. 4) Mix in the dry ingredients in three stages alternating with the buttermilk. I mixed the last stage of dry ingredients by hand. 5) Add in the crushed Oreo cookies. I was lazy and didn't feel like getting out the food processor to crush the cookies. I chopped them up by hand, so the pieces ended up being a little large.


Here are the cupcakes all baked up.


Here are the insides. See how big the cookie chucks are. Don't they look good?


One without any Oreos.



The final product.


Overall the White on White Buttermilk Cake recipe was good, but not the best. I found it had a strong buttermilk tang that didn't appeal to all of my tasters (the kids especially). Maybe if I had used fresh buttermilk the flavor wouldn't have been as strong, but either way the buttermilk cake was not a good complement to the Oreo cookies.

I think this will be the last yellow cake recipe that I test from the June "Scratch-Off" challenge. It was a fun experiment, but I'm getting a little burned out on yellow cake. July's challenge will be cheesecake.

Come on July.....

Almost Swiss

If you have ever attended a wedding reception in New Orleans, chances are the cake came from Swiss Confectionary. Swiss makes, hands-down, the best white/almond wedding cake I have ever tasted. Their cakes are light and airy and give off a delicate scent of almonds. The texture is not super moist, not like a cake from a boxed mix, but it isn't dry either. It has a fine crumb and a soft mouth feel. It reminds me of white fluffy pillows and cool silk sheets. It is perfection, pure baked perfection. Wait …. I need to wipe the drool off my keyboard.

For years now I have tried to duplicate the super secret Swiss recipe, but I have never had any luck. Then just two short weeks ago the cake gods took pity on me and I stumbled across a recipe simply called "Wedding Cake". I baked it up right away and to my utter delight it was Almost Swiss. Wedding Cake Trial #1 was a little drier than Swiss and not nearly as almondy (sp) but the texture was right, the mouth feel was the same. I was so excited I ate the whole thing, except for the little piece I gave to my Chihuahua, Peanut. She liked it too.

The next weekend (Mother's Day) I baked up White Wedding Cake Trial #2. I substituted half & half for the whole milk, added a lot more almond extract and a few tablespoons of Karo syrup. I baked and decorated it for Mother's Day and I could hardly wait until after lunch to cut into it.

But alas, the cake gods were not pleased with me (probably because I made my Mom cook gumbo on Mother's Day see post below). The resulting cake was very UN-Swiss. It was dense, moist, and very rich. Don't get me wrong, it tasted good, very good according to by brother, but it was more like pound cake and less like white fluffy pillows. Sigh. I will try again next week.