All-New Cake Mix Doctor - Anne Byrn [13]
With no prep—oil, shortening, butter, flour, nothing—on the pan side, you may see a taller layer after baking than if you had prepped the side. I tried this with a number of the layer cakes in this book and I found that when I wanted the tallest cake it was best to grease and flour only the bottom of the pans. Or, to place rounds of parchment or waxed paper in the pan bottoms (you can oil the bottoms of the pans to secure the paper). As with angel food cakes, the batter seems to cling to the bare side of the pans and work its way up, making taller layers.
For Bundts: It only takes one time for a Bundt cake to stick to the pan and you will gladly prep it with vegetable shortening and flour the next time. I learned this the hard way when I was trying to turn out a fancy Bundt cake while promoting my first book on TV. The camera wasn’t rolling but I could not get the top of that cake out of the pan. Fortunately, with many years of repair work under my belt, I spooned the top in pieces and placed them back on the cake, pressing them together gently with my fingers. I then poured a glaze on top to cover up the blemishes and the cake looked like a dream for the camera. But I was a wreck! Now, especially when making decorative Bundts with all those grooves and crevices, I paint the pan with shortening, using a small pastry brush, and I dust it well with flour. For me, it is worth it to know the cake will release from the pan. And it does every time!
For tube pans: Angel food cakes don’t need a greased pan. Love them! But if you bake a pound cake or any Bundt cake recipe in a tube pan, you’ll need to prep it. Fortunately the sides of a tube pan are flat, so a misting of vegetable oil and dusting of flour is sufficient.
For sheet pans: A light misting of vegetable oil spray and a dusting of flour is all you need for cakes baked in sheet pans.
For brownies and bars, I often mist and don’t flour. And in some recipes where there is a high proportion of butter in the crust, just line the pan with parchment paper before baking. Remove the bars from the pan by lifting up the paper.
For cupcakes and muffins: If you are using paper liners, just place them in the wells of the cupcake pan—no prepping needed. But baked without liners, cupcakes and muffins take on a more homemade taste and appearance. I love the crunch you get when a muffin is baked without a liner. Just mist the pans with vegetable oil spray and dust them with flour if you like. For a more crumbly crust, rub the wells with soft butter and dust them with flour.
Mix It Up
The real beauty of baking cakes that begin with a mix is that it takes just a few simple steps to whip up a batter.
1. Dump the mix and other recipe ingredients in the bowl. The temperature of ingredients like eggs or milk doesn’t matter—they can come straight from the refrigerator. The exception is cream cheese, which needs to be soft when added.
2. Beat the batter with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds. Then, increase the speed to medium and beat the batter until it is smooth and thickened, 1 to 1½ minutes longer.
3. Fold in any add-ins, such as chocolate chips, nuts, or dried fruit, then pop the cake pan in the oven.
That’s it! You may want to scrape down the side of the bowl as you mix and stir the batter on the bottom of the bowl once or twice as you scrape the side. With the exception of baking at high altitudes, where you should beat the batter a total of three minutes, you really don’t need to beat a cake mix cake any longer than two minutes.
Tests for Doneness
Come in my kitchen on baking day and the light in the oven will be on. I like to peek at things as they bake just to make sure I don’t overbake them. And there are other signs of doneness that