All-New Cake Mix Doctor - Anne Byrn [10]
CUPCAKES OR MUFFINS: Use a less heavy recipe, and scatter the add-ins or topping over the top before baking. You can also spread the addins or topping in the bottom of the pan before pouring in the batter to create an upside-down cake. Bake the cake 35 to 45 minutes at 350°F.
Racks: Just as you invest in nice pans, you should also choose stainless steel racks that will not rust. I like two sizes of racks—one large enough for two cake layers to cool on it and a smaller one for flipping the layers. If you are baking a 12-inch round layer cake (see my Wedding Cake on page 149), you’ll need a 19 by 13–inch rack.
Spoons and spatulas: My brownie recipes can be stirred together with a wooden spoon. Make sure you’ve got an assortment of long-handled wooden spoons for stirring batters and cooked frostings. Rubber spatulas are essential for scraping down the side of a mixing bowl and for scraping the last bit of batter or frosting out of the bowl. Heat resistant silicone spatulas are handy for blending ingredients on the stove. Set aside a few small rubber spatulas and a few larger ones, including cupped spoonlike spatulas for thick batters.
Metal icing spatulas are incredibly handy, not only for frosting cakes but for lifting cakes out of a pan. Offset spatulas have a bend in them and allow you to frost a sheet cake while it’s still in the pan. And small metal spatulas are perfect for frosting cupcakes.
Other Handy Things
• A vegetable oil mister makes prepping pans for baking an easy task. I like to use a nonaerosol sprayer into which I pour my own vegetable oil. You pump the container twelve to fifteen times to build up pressure and then spray. You can also buy the oil in nonaerosol containers in the supermarket, and they are handy as well. I do not like vegetable oil sprays with propellants because they make a dark and heavy crust on the cake that looks dreadful when sliced.
• A stainless steel shaker filled with flour makes the job of dusting pans a lot simpler. The same shakers filled with confectioners’ sugar are handy for dusting the top of a baked cake. Be sure to mark which shaker contains flour and which sugar—I have accidentally dusted a cake with flour!
• I love a serrated knife for slicing layers in half horizontally to make more layers.
• A wooden skewer is useful for poking holes in a cake so a glaze can seep down into it.
• Filling a plastic squirt bottle with glaze makes it easy to drizzle the glaze onto Bundt cakes and cookies.
• Don’t forget a Microplane grater for zesting citrus.
• A pastry bag is nice but not essential for decorating cakes. In a pinch, create your own pastry bag by placing the frosting in a gallon-size resealable plastic bag and snipping off one corner.
• A sharp vegetable peeler makes nice chocolate curls if you drag it across the surface of a room-temperature bar of chocolate.
The Cake Baker’s Storage
You’ve undoubtedly got a drawer dedicated to aluminum foil, plastic wrap, and waxed or parchment paper. They all have a place in cake storage. Aluminum foil is the best freezer wrap, especially heavy-duty foil. But when wrapping cakes containing acidic ingredients, such as lemon, wrap the cake first in waxed paper or plastic and then in foil. Foil covers cake pans well, too, for storing on the counter or in the refrigerator. Plastic wrap is an all-purpose covering good for an unfrosted Bundt cake or slices of cake laid out on a platter. It works best in cool weather, when the frosting on a cake is not sticky. And waxed paper is great to lay on top of a cake frosted with cream cheese frosting that needs to be refrigerated in order for the frosting to set up for longer storage. I use waxed paper or parchment paper to line plastic storage containers before filling them with bars and cookies. You can use waxed paper or parchment paper to line baking pans before pouring in the batter. Lightly mist the pan first so the paper will stick to it.
After baking pans, cake savers are one of the great essentials when you