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Thread Number: 66866
/ Tag: Recipes, Cooking Accessories
Reverse Creaming |
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Post# 895581 8/24/2016 at 22:14 (2,791 days old) by ea56  (Cotati, Calif.) |
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Over the past several months I have noticed on the PBS cooking shows, Cooks Illustrated and Cooks Country they have been baking cakes using the reverse creaming method. This method basically is mixing the dry ingredients together in a bowl first, then adding the softened butter or shortening and mixing it into the dry ingredients much like you would do if making a pie crust only you mix it in more thoroughly, until it resembles wet sand. Next mix the eggs and liquid ingredients together and add at once to the dry mixture, mix on low for 30 secs. then switch speed to med. and continue mixing for 2 mins., much like you would do with a cake mix. Bake just as you normally would. I have made my last 5 cakes this way and they really come out much better than using the traditional creaming method. It's really easy, almost as easy as a cake mix. I haven't even bothered to drag down the big Kitchen Aid stand mixer, I just us my Kitchen Aid hand mixer. Here is the basic yellow cake recipe I devised, I have adapted it to make Chocolate, Burnt Sugar and Spice Cake as well.
2/3 cup butter, not unsalted, softened 2 cups AP flour 1 Tbs. baking powder 1/2 tsp. salt 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar 3 large eggs, room temp.(this really makes a difference) 1 cup whole milk, room temp 1 tsp. vanilla I bake this batter in 2 - 8" cake pans ( I have WIlton pans, they are a littlle deeper). I spray the pans with cooking spray, line the bottoms with wax paper and spray again, Bake at 350 F for approx. 30-33 mins. Cool in pans on a rack for 10 mins. then turn out of pans and cool thoroughly before frosting. For enough batter to make 2 - 9" layers or 3 - 8" layers just increase butter to 1 cup, flour to 3 cups, sugar to 2 cups, baking powder to 4 tsp., salt to 3/4/ tsp., 4 eggs instead of 3, milk tp 1 1/3 cups, and vanilla to 1 1/2 tsp. I always make my own butter cream frosting using the basic recipe on the powdwered sugar bag, I don't measure, but I do increase the amounts to 1 1/2 lbs powdered sugar and butter to 3/4 cup and I use 1/2&1/2 instead of milk, I eyeball the amount of liquid until its the right consitancy. Of course I also add vanilla or another flavoring. This gives a generous amount of frosting. For chocolate frosting add approx. 1/3 cup cocoa ( or more to taste ) I have attached some picures below. Eddie This post was last edited 08/25/2016 at 00:02 | ||
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| Post# 895589 , Reply# 1 8/24/2016 at 23:33 (2,791 days old) by ilovewindex (Tualitan OR) | ||
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Post# 895597 , Reply# 3 8/25/2016 at 00:51 (2,791 days old) by ea56 (Cotati, Calif.) |
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Lawrence
for a Burnt Sugar cake caramelize 1 cup granulated sugar over med heat, when it reaches a dark golden brown add 1 cup boiling water, reduce heat and boil for 10 mins to reduce to a syrup like consistency. For the Burnt Sugar cake use 1/2 cup of the Burnt Sugar syrup and 1/2 cup milk. Use the remainder for all or part of the liquid when making the frosting. This is a delicious old time cake. My husband David loves this cake.
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Post# 895626 , Reply# 4 8/25/2016 at 08:45 (2,791 days old) by Tomturbomatic (Beltsville, MD) |
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This is basically like what a cake mix is: dry ingredients combined then the liquid ingredients are added. I used to use this method when making pound cakes in my Cuisinart. It worked very well, but I had to add a little baking powder because not as much air was incorporated into the batter. | ||
| Post# 895648 , Reply# 5 8/25/2016 at 10:49 (2,791 days old) by vacerator (Macomb, Michigan) | ||
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MMMMMMMM!!!!! Both look delicious! I make Ina Gartin's "Beaty's" chocolate cake. It's excellent, with a little coffee in it. | ||
| Post# 895687 , Reply# 6 8/25/2016 at 13:36 (2,790 days old) by Artcurus (Odessa) | ||
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tyring to cut back on sugar. Down to one soft drink a day and cut out snacking and desserts. Life without dessert sucks, I will say that. | ||
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Post# 895695 , Reply# 8 8/25/2016 at 14:10 (2,790 days old) by ea56 (Cotati, Calif.) |
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I whole heartedly agree with Mike. Moderation is really the answer to long term success with weight control. Also realizing that maybe being a little overweight is better than yo-yo dieting up and down. I have fought my weight since I was 10 yrs old and over the course of my lifetime I've easliy lost and gained the equivalent of maybe 4 adults. I finally gave up dieting per say 3 yrs ago. But I've cut my portion sizes back, no second helpings, no sugar based sodas (but 3 diet ginger ales on the weekend). I eat whatever I want, but less and cook with less fat. On our 3 weekend days I splurge and have dessert, but sensible size portions. During the week I eat lighter and have fruit for dessert. Over the past 3 yrs I've gone from a high of 215 to 170 and I know that this will finally be a permanent weight loss. So I say unless you are diabetic or have other major health concerns just cut back, eat the things you like, just less of them and less often. You may be pleasantly surprised that you'll stop binge eating and feel better and slowly lose your extra weight. I'm 65 now, I know that its unrealistic for me to ever weigh 130 again and have a 30 inch waist. But I can be perfectly happy at 160-165 with a 34 inch waist at 5"6". It may be slightly overweight, but a darn sight better that better than 215 with a 40+ inch waist and XL shirts. That's why I make good homemade desserts, so when I do splurge its on something that I'll enjoy. Then on Monday its back to fruit for dessert. My doctor agrees with my plan and it's been successful. BTW, I do weigh myself daily, at the same time with the same amount of clothing. If I'm up a lb. I cut back that day and its all good.
Eddie | ||
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Post# 895715 , Reply# 11 8/25/2016 at 15:53 (2,790 days old) by ea56 (Cotati, Calif.) |
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Post# 895718 , Reply# 12 8/25/2016 at 15:59 (2,790 days old) by foraloysius (Leeuwarden, Friesland, the Netherlands) |
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Post# 895737 , Reply# 13 8/25/2016 at 19:48 (2,790 days old) by bendix5 (Central Point, Oregon) |
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Eddie, Your cake looks so good. I love home made cakes and spend time trying different recipes. I will try this one this weekend. I am eating less and mostly good quality food and things I want in moderation. I have lost 12 lbs in the past couple of months. My mother always said its not what you eat, but how much you eat. Like Louis it is calories in and calories out. I do feel better. I looked up the Beattys cake Mike and now have that in my file. I love a good chocolate cake with coffee in them. Thanks for sharing guys and have a good weekend. Dano
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Post# 895749 , Reply# 14 8/25/2016 at 20:21 (2,790 days old) by ea56 (Cotati, Calif.) |
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Dano | ||
| Post# 895784 , Reply# 15 8/26/2016 at 05:14 (2,790 days old) by arbilab (Ft Worth TX (Ridglea)) | ||
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| Post# 895821 , Reply# 19 8/26/2016 at 09:32 (2,790 days old) by washerboy (Little Rock Arkansas) | ||
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beauty Eddie: Your cake looks perfect...just like the ones seen in picture cookbooks...wow!!! I'm going to try this "new" method. thanks | ||
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Post# 895823 , Reply# 20 8/26/2016 at 09:57 (2,790 days old) by ea56 (Cotati, Calif.) |
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Since we got on to the track of health I also firmly believe that daily exercise is the key to weight management and good health. I have walked at least 1 hr. daily all my adult life. I also do 45 mins of excercises daily, I started this over 11 yrs ago when I had my left hip replaced. It has served me well as I had my right hip replaced on 6-21 this year and my recovery was way easier than it was after the first replacement at the end of the 3rd week after my operation I was walking without a cane. I was also able to walk up and down our stairs as needed when I returned home the day after my surgery(I did need to use the cane on the stairs for the first 3 wks) The doctor and nurses were amazed at how much I was easily able to do right after the surgery. This was all due to keeping my exercise schedule. If if miss my exercise I notice that I don't feel as well as I do normally.
Eddie | ||
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Post# 895836 , Reply# 21 8/26/2016 at 11:19 (2,790 days old) by bajaespuma (Connecticut) |
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 I'm surprised that Cook's magazine didn't properly identify this method, it is at least 3/4 of a century old. It is called "High-Ratio Cake" method or, alternately, "two-stage" mixing. "High-Ratio" refers to the ratio, by weight, of sugar to flour in a cake mix. When the weight of sugar is higher than the weight of the flour, the creaming method doesn't work as well as it should because the amount of sugar in the mix is too high to form a stable emulsion with the fats in the mix and there isn't sufficient structure from the gluten in the flour and the proteins in the eggs to hold the whole thing together well.
A short history to explain:
All of the "butter cakes" that we make here in the West are grand-kids of the English Pound Cake ( 1 pound butter, 1 pound sugar, 1 pound eggs, 1 pound flour). In the days before electric mixers, the easiest way to produce these batters by hand was the creaming method: cream soft butter with sugar until light and fluffy, cream in eggs one at a time and then stir in flour. When planetary and spiral mechanical mixers became standard in the industry, somebody figured out that this practice could be shortened into two stages by mixing all the dry ingredients with the fats for the first stage and then slacking the mix with the liquid ingredients for the second stage which called for beating the completed batter for a measured period of time to activate the gluten in the wheat flour just enough to hold the cake together without making it dense or tough. It can be a little more complicated than that but I did just exactly what I wrote above for more than 11 years for a German's Chocolate Cake formula I used at a restaurant in New Haven. I did it this way mostly because I could let the mixer go without supervision while I did two or three other things.
For anyone who is interested there's a wonderful book that was written by the great baker Rose Levy Berenbaum called The Cake Bible, where all of the cakes are made this way. Rose was one of the early proponents of this professional method and she introduced it to home bakers in a series of articles in various cooking magazines in the Eighties.
Tomturbomatic hit the nail on the head: High-ratio method was the beginning of the packaged cake mix when it was expanded from pancake mixes. 
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Post# 895854 , Reply# 22 8/26/2016 at 15:04 (2,789 days old) by ea56 (Cotati, Calif.) |
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Thanks Ken for the historical backround. To clarify, I got this method from watching the Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country shows on PBS as I stated in my original post. I also said the it was very much like a cake mix.
I have a first edition of the Betty Crocker Cookbook dated 1950. In the cake section they give instructions and recipes for all their butter/shortening based cakes both in the traditional creaming method and what they refer to as the Double Quick method. In the double quick method they instruct the baker to mix all the dry ingredients together, then add the butter/shortening and 1/2 of the liquid, beat for 2 mins., then add the remainder of the wet ingredients and beat for and additional 1-2 mins. I have used this method many times over the past 40 yrs, and the results are OK, but I have found the reverse creaming method to give a much better texture, crumb, and height as will as they seem to produce a more moist cake. Thats why I shared the recipe that I delveloped using trial and error. I wasn't aware of the Cake Bible and I'll have to look for it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and backround! Eddie | ||
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Post# 895886 , Reply# 23 8/26/2016 at 22:38 (2,789 days old) by bendix5 (Central Point, Oregon) |
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