The Science of Cooking
A great saying penned by Ernestine Ulmer talking about life's indulgences. With this inspired quote, my very first post on this blog is dessert. More specifically, cake. Welcome to Pop Cuisine.
A great saying penned by Ernestine Ulmer talking about life's indulgences. With this inspired quote, my very first post on this blog is dessert. More specifically, cake. Welcome to Pop Cuisine.The History
Cake started in ancient times simply as sweetened bread. These breads were sweetened with dried fruits or honey and were usually only baked on special occasions, such as religious holidays.
In the late 1400s (namely after 1492), it was discovered that sugarcane grew pretty easily in the Caribbean Islands
Cake is widely used to celebrate special occasions: holidays, birthdays, new jobs, Wednesdays. Then of course the cake takes center stage at weddings, second only to the bride and groom.
Wedding cakes used to be a harder piece of bread that was broken over the bride’s head. Thankfully that tradition has not lived on. In the middle ages, guests brought small cakes and piled them on top of each other and the bride and groom had to kiss over the pile. This will eventually lead to the stacked cake we’re familiar with today.
The Science
There are a lot of factors that make a cake. And even though putting one together is a piece of……cake, I like to think there’s a little science that goes into it as well.
Cake is made of thousands of tiny bubbles to make them spongy while the flour holds it all together in a tasty little package. These bubbles are created by the leavening which is usually in the form of baking powder and/or baking soda. Baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate is an alkali. With the addition of water and an acid, a chemical reaction occurs and releases a gas. The common experiment in 5th grade science class is the model volcano. Mixing baking soda and vinegar with a little food coloring creates the eruption. If there isn’t enough acid in your recipe, baking powder is a good leavener. Acid is added to baking soda in the form of a powder so that when moisture is added, the chemical reaction occurs.
When a wheat kernel is broken down, you’ll find that it is made of starches, fats and proteins. To put a more specific name to these proteins, they are glutenin and gliadin. When water is added and mixed around these combine to form gluten. The more gluten you have, the chewier your end product is. A nice hearty bread is a good example of using high gluten flour (bread flour to be more exact). On the other hand, one typically wants their cake to be nice and spongy, so a lower gluten flour is better to use (cake flour is such a flour…..go figure). It’s nice that your run of the mill grocery store has these types of flours. On the other hand, All Purpose flour is more common in your baking aisle. It’s about halfway between bread flour and cake flour and will work nicely.
Fats and sugars make the cake taste great. But that’s not their only function. Sugar is hydroscopic, meaning it absorbs water. This absorption of water is what slows the cake from staling and adds tenderness to the cake. Sugar also browns when heated, caramelizes, so sugar adds color as well. Fats add moistness and richness and help hinder gluten formation (or shorten gluten strands, thus the name shortening). When the two superpowers combine they shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine. Okay maybe not. Quite often a recipe calls for creaming the butter with the sugar. Since sugar is a crystal, it “cuts” into the butter making air pockets, contributing to the bubbles in the cake.
On the other hand, some recipes call for oil instead of butter. Shirley Corriher says, “Oil coats flour proteins well and prevents them from absorbing liquid from the batter to make gluten. Cakes made with oil can be not only tender but very moist, too.” Oils are said to sometimes shorten the gluten too much, so they might be good in recipes that call for all purpose flour instead of cake flour.
Then there are the eggs. Eggs are to the baking world as donuts are to Homer Simpson when he says “Donuts. Is there anything they can’t do?” Eggs bring so much to the table in cakes. They provide structure by protein. They are a natural emulsifier, meaning they have the ability to combine two unlike substances into one. They provide moisture and flavor. When whipped they can be the leavening in a cake (for example an angel food cake or genoise where the adding of whipped egg whites act as the bubbles). All I can say is “The incredible, edible egg” is truth in advertising. There’s just so much to talk about when eggs are concerned. Like Alton Brown says “That’s another show.”
The Cake
Okay now to the good part. For today’s recipe, I chose “That Chocolate Cake” It comes from a cookbook all about chocolate! The Essence of Chocolate, Recipes for Baking and Cooking with Fine Chocolate
Mmmmm Chocolate. We now pause to wipe off the drool….
This recipe uses all purpose flour as well as oil instead of butter. The oil makes this cake nice and moist. A good quality cocoa powder also makes this cake.
I wanted to alter the recipe to go a little into my roots. By adding chili powder, cayenne pepper powder and cinnamon, this cake becomes a Mexican Chocolate Cake. My friend Mary and I tried different ratios of these pungent spices and finally came to a conclusion of a recipe that deserves to be repeated. The chili powder adds a nice smokiness to the cake while the cayenne brightens it a little. For the filling we chose a butter cream mixed with cinnamon and a dark chocolate ganache flavored with the same spice mixture of peppers and cinnamon. We also decided to cover this cake with the very same ganache. (Okay stomach stop rumbling.)
Just a quick note one can achieve better precision by using weight instead of volume. In fact in some professional baking books, recipes are actually called formulas. The following recipes are mostly given in weight quantities. I’ve done my best to convert to volume measurements.
The Recipes
That Chocolate Cake (modified to That Mexican Chocolate Cake by Michael Lee and Mary Foster)
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Method:
Preheat the oven to 350F
Spray the pan with grease and line the bottom with parchment
Combine the sugar, flour, cocoa, salt, baking powder, soda and spices on low speed.
Mix in the eggs, oil and milk
Increase to moderate speed and mix for 2 minutes
Reduce the speed and add the water.
Bake 30 to 35 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
Cool 10 minutes and then depan.
Preheat the oven to 350F
Spray the pan with grease and line the bottom with parchment
Combine the sugar, flour, cocoa, salt, baking powder, soda and spices on low speed.
Mix in the eggs, oil and milk
Increase to moderate speed and mix for 2 minutes
Reduce the speed and add the water.
Bake 30 to 35 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
Cool 10 minutes and then depan.
Ganache
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Method:
Heat the cream and pour over the chopped chocolate constantly stirring so it melts evenly. Add spice mixture to taste.
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Method:
Whisk egg whites and sugar over a double boiler until it reaches 140 °F and/or sugar
dissolves.
Pour into room temperature mixing bowl and whip until it doubles in volume.
While whipping, cut butter into small pieces. Butter should be room temperature on
the outside while still hard on the inside.
Start adding butter in four parts mixing thoroughly so the butter combines before adding
the next division.
Continue mixing until it looks light and fluffy. Add the flavor and mix on low for
about 45 seconds more.
dissolves.
Pour into room temperature mixing bowl and whip until it doubles in volume.
While whipping, cut butter into small pieces. Butter should be room temperature on
the outside while still hard on the inside.
Start adding butter in four parts mixing thoroughly so the butter combines before adding
the next division.
Continue mixing until it looks light and fluffy. Add the flavor and mix on low for
about 45 seconds more.
Further Reading/Bibliography
- Barham, Peter The Science of Cooking
- Corriher, Shirley O. Cookwise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Cooking
- Gisslen,
- http://www.foodmuseum.com/excake2.html
- http://www.cakechannel.com/history-of-wedding-cakes.html
There's nothing like a good Homer Simpson quote...or a good cake. Nice job!!!
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