All-New Cake Mix Doctor - Anne Byrn [12]
6. Use an electric mixer for beating cake batters. A hand-held mixer is perfect, as you don’t need to beat the batter for long. When using a stand mixer make sure you beat at a low to medium-low speed for only as long as the recipe suggests. A wooden spoon is fine for mixing brownies, bars, and cookies, stirring between forty and fifty strokes until the batter is smooth.
7. Prep cake pans with vegetable oil or shortening, then dust them with flour to make cakes easier to remove. Pour the batter into the pan, smoothing the top with a rubber spatula.
8. Use your senses when testing a cake for doneness. Light-colored cakes are done when they are golden brown, begin to pull away from the side of the pan, and spring back when touched lightly in the center. Chocolate cakes are done when they smell done, begin to pull away from the side of the pan, and spring back when touched lightly in the center.
9. Let the cake cool in the pan set on a rack before turning the cake out. Layers need five to ten minutes, Bundts and pound cakes require about fifteen minutes, and cupcakes can be removed as soon as they are cool enough to handle, after three to four minutes. Run a knife around the edge of a cake to loosen it. Give the pan a gentle shake to help loosen the cake. Then, invert Bundts onto a rack to cool. Invert cake layers and pound cakes from a tube pan twice so they cool right side up.
10. As a rule, spoon glaze over warm cake if you want it to soak into and flavor the cake. Poke holes in the cake with a wooden skewer or even a fork before slowly spooning on the glaze. Spoon glaze over cooled cakes if you want the glaze to show and have decorative drips.
Where the rack is positioned in the oven affects how your cake bakes. My recipes suggest it be in the centermost position—and I know with some oven models it seems one rack is slightly above center and one is slightly lower than center. Do the best you can to find the middle. For recipes with three layers you may need to use two racks—no problem if you have two ovens. If not, you’ll need to place two cake pans on the center rack and one in the center of the top rack. Just make sure the pans are far enough apart that air can circulate. The cake on the top rack will brown and bake more quickly than those in the center, so rotate the layers if needed so that they bake evenly. And always when baking, if the cake browns on top before it has cooked through, lightly tent the top with aluminum foil to shield it.
One last word about oven temperature has to do with the pans you use. Glass pans and those metal pans with a dark finish bake better at a lower temperature, say 325°F, to prevent the edges from overbrowning. When baking layers larger than nine inches, for a wedding cake for example, you need to bake at 325°F; the layers will bake more evenly, producing flat tops that will stack well.
Prepping the Pans
Oh, to grease or not to grease—that is the question! In the beginning I greased pans with solid vegetable shortening and dusted them with flour. Then I got lazy and misted with oil and dusted with flour. Then I tried only greasing and flouring the bottom and leaving the sides untouched. Then I placed parchment or waxed paper in the bottom and didn’t prep the pan at all. So, I’ve tried it all. And my advice is that how you prep a pan for baking depends on the pan.
For layers: These are the most adaptable cakes. They’re happy if you take the time to brush the pans with solid vegetable shortening and dust them with flour. The pastry brush is an effortless way to coat the bottom and side with shortening. This method creates a nice crust and makes the cake easy to remove from the pan and easy to frost, with no crumbs messing up the frosting. But layer cake pans will also be content with a misting of vegetable oil spray and a dusting of flour. The crust will be a little softer,