Real Baking with Rose Levy Beranbaum: Cakes Archives

Cakes

You Gotta See This!

Kate Coldrick just posted the most fanciful unicorn cake ever on her blog
http://amerrierworld.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/rainbow-cake-and-unicorns/

What little girl wouldn't be delighted by a cake like this!

From the kitchen of Rose on 06.22.09 at 4:12 PM in Cakes

I first met fellow author and baking sister Marcy Goldman in Montreal during the IACP (International Association of Culinary Professionals) annual conference. She had invited me out to her home for a visit along with two other bakers and it was an enchanting experience to be in her kitchen tasting the cakes she made for us as we all talked baking. She also presented me with a beautiful rolling pin of her design which I used yesterday to roll out the bubka from her new book A Passion for Baking. I am sitting here (having already eaten a piece for breakfast and I don’t usually eat breakfast, trying to fight off the impulse to defrost a slice I stashed in the freezer to make just such a temptation less convenient.

One of our fellow bloggers asked me what I thought of Marcy’s bubka compared to the babka I had described in a previous posting. So of course I had to find out first hand even though I knew it was going to be wonderful—all the more so!

Continue reading "Bubka Bliss" »

From the kitchen of Rose on 02.23.08 at 10:43 AM in Bread

Getting Ready to Bake a Cake

in french it's called mis en place and refers also to "putting things in place" for cooking. everything works more smoothly when one is well-prepared. with cakes, if key ingredients aren't at the proper temperature, it will adversely effect the texture of the baked cake.

the five most essential things in cake baking to get ready are:

softening the butter if used
the butter needs to be between 65 to 75°F/18 to 23°C. cold from the refrigerator it will take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to reach this temperature depending on how cold the frig and how warm the room. to speed softening slice the butter in 1 inch/25 mm pieces. it is amazing how quickly butter comes to temperature when more surface area is exposed. you can also cover the pieces with plastic wrap and as they start to soften, press them flat.

combining cocoa and boiling water if used
be sure to cover the mixture so that there is no evaporation and allow it to cool until it is no longer warm to the touch.

preheating the oven
most cakes bake at 350°F/175°C. and close to the center of the oven. set the oven rack just below the center and start preheating the oven a minimum of 20 minutes before baking.

warming the eggs
eggs need to be at room temperature but this is easy to accomplish if you forget to take them out ahead of time. place them still in their unbroken shells in a bowl of hot from the tap water and allow them to sit for 10 minutes.

preparing the cake pan
except when a recipe such as angel food or chiffon cake requires that the cake pan be left uncoated it is necessary to grease and flour the pan. i prefer using a baking spray which contains flour, especially for fluted tube pans. if there is any clumping of the spray brush it away with a silicone or bristle pastry brush to avoid holes in the top crust.
if the pan has a non-stick coating it isn't necessary to line the bottom with parchment.
for the most even cake layers that are not over-baked or dry at the edges use a cake strip.

(if you use rose's heavenly cake strips there is no preparation of the strip--just slide it around the cake pan.if you are using cloth strips you need to wet them first and attach them with a pin unles they have velcro closures.)

From the kitchen of Rose on 12.29.07 at 2:01 PM in Cakes

Quick: Get this Babka Out of the House!!!

...because i can't stop eating it! when i saw the article by my friend and esteemed colleague joan nathan in last wednesday's new york times, the texture and swirl of the crumb just drew me right in. i grew up on 95th street and central park west and my parents each went to eclair on a regular basis (eclair was mentioned in the article), my mother during the week to pick up my favorite whipped cream filled eclair and my father on sundays to pick up a babka.

in my bread book i have recipes for brioche and for kugelhopf, both of which are similar to babka but not the same thing. babka is somewhere between a rich coffee cake and a brioche. compared to my brioche it has about half the egg, two-thirds the butter, and about 1/3 cup more liquid. All this conspires to make a softer and lighter cake/bread.

i am a great fan of ann amernick whose new book "the art of the dessert"(john wiley 2007) contains this recipe. you can also get the recipe by going to www.nytimes.com and putting babka in the search box. you will find several choices of filling and topping. i used the cinnamon-raisin filling adapted from katja goldman, but soaked the raisins in rum as adapted from mrs. london's, saratoga springs, n.y. and i used ann's streusel topping with the cinnamon.

here are a few of my baking notes:

i like ann's use of part cake flour as it makes a more tender cake-like crumb but it also makes the dough fragile and prone to tearing so lift it carefully when placing it in the pan and if it tears as mine did, just pinch it together. it actually looks most attractive with some of the raisins and sugar spilling out and carmelizing on the crust. but i wouldn't try twisting it as indicated when placing it in the pan unless you use all ubleached all-purpose flour or you want it to break open.

those of you who prefer weight to volume, the all-purpose flour (be sure to use unbleached or the dough will fall apart completely) is 10 ounces/285 grams and the cake flour 3 ounces/85 grams. alternatively use a total of 13 ounces/369 grams unbleached all-purpose flour.

if you use instant yeast you can add it directly to the flour. use only 2 teaspoons and add the 1 tablespoon of water to the milk (which by the way i prefer to scald and then bring to room temperature before using).

i also increased the salt from 1/8 teaspoon to 1/2 teaspoon.

i used my nordicware "Classic Anniversary Bundt" which is non-stick and 15 cup capacity but the standard 12 cup bundt that's called for will work as it didn't come up to the very top of the pan. but the extra height did serve to shield the streusel topping so if using the 12 cup bundt you may want to tent it loosely with foil after the first 30 minutes of baking. by the way, i did not line the pan with parchment, but coated it with cooking spray and it released beautifully--even the escaped caramel part.

my instant read thermometer registered 188 after 50 minutes of baking. i unmolded the babka onto a rack as soon as it came out of the oven. almost all of the streusel stayed on what was now the bottom. as it was 11:00 at night, and i didn't want to ruin the crisp crust and streusel by covering it, i stayed up to watch "kinsey" on othe late show and by the time it was over the babka was completely cool! so i covered it with an inverted plastic box and dove into it this morning.

when you see the photos i took you'll understand just why it provided such a temptation. by the way, the little brass doorstop in the photo is an antique punch and judy. i usually move it away from the best light location for photos but this time it seemed appropriate as babka means little old-lady. actually just old lady or grandmother but in my era they were always little (now we take calcium pills)! bubba, alta bubba, babcha--they're all yiddish and polish variations which sound as endearing, comforting, and lovable as this recipe.

p.s. except for one piece, the missing part in the photo was all consumed by me withint 10 minutes!

From the kitchen of Rose on 12.18.07 at 9:29 AM in Bread

My First and Worst Cake

I think I’ve told this story before but for those who may have missed it, here’s the background to this photo that I hope you will find inspiring, i.e. I hope you will see how much one can improve with practice and determination!

Elliott and I were not yet married so this was a little over 31 years ago. Elliott’s son Michael was celebrating his 13th birthday and had the good taste to request see ingthe Broadway play Dracula with Frank Langela. I offered to make the birthday cake. This was BG (before ganache) and I wanted a rich dark chocolate frosting if not for the cake itself at least for the decoration. So I kept adding brown food coloring, not realizing that it would darken on its own after several hours.

Continue reading "My First and Worst Cake" »

From the kitchen of Rose on 06.23.07 at 11:08 AM in Cakes

Making Larger Cakes

KIM QUESTION

I have a question about augmenting your White Chocolate Whisper Cake for use in my friend's wedding cake. Is there a rule of thumb I can go by when converting any of your cakes to larger or smaller sizes?
I hope to achieve the larger volume of the recipes you've designed in your wedding cake section of the Cake Bible. The tiers are slightly higher and more dramatic than the recipes from the butter cake chapter.

Thanks so much,
As always, your devoted fan,
Kim

ROSE REPLY

In my new book I plan to work on creating recipes for larger cakes based on favorite smaller ones. It can sometimes taken many tests to get it right. One of the cakes I've planned on is the white chocolate whisper cake! I think that's one that won't require much adjustment. You simply need to decrease the baking powder in proportion to the amount of flour as indicated in the charts in the wedding cake section.

Do let me know how it works for you so it will give me a leg up on my recipe testing!

From the kitchen of Rose on 03.01.06 at 4:30 PM in Cakes

Lumpy Buttercream

AMANDA QUESTION

I made my first chocolate buttercream icing for my son's 1st birthday. It was a disaster! The final product wasn't smooth or spreadable. It was clumpy. I practically lumped it on and patted it thin. Below were the called for ingredients:

3 sticks of softened, unsalted butter
3/4 c unsweetened cocoa powder
4 3/4 c sifted confectioners' sugar

I think the only mistake possible was I didn't sift the confectioners' sugar. Could that have been the problem?

Buttercream Help!
Amanda

ROSE REPLY

It's been years since I made confectioners sugar buttercream. I much prefer chocolate ganache which is even easier to make, especially if you use the food processor. I seem to remember that you need a bit of liquid for confectioners sugar buttercream. If you prefer making this kind of buttercream, and it's lumpy, try beating in a little milk, a teaspoon at a time until you reach the desired consistency. Sifting the confectioners sugar may not be necessary unless its lumpy, but sifting the cocoa is a good idea.

From the kitchen of Rose on 02.23.06 at 9:49 AM in Ingredients

Problem with Cake Mix

PEGGY QUESTION

I've made at least 500 rum cakes using a boxed cake mix, a fluted bundt pan and glaze. They are always turned out high, light and fluffy until recently. I have not changed oe thing.
Could it be my oven? Am I overbeating it or underbeating it? Thanks.

ROSE REPLY

Cake mixes are designed in order to have "tolerance".what this means is that you can add things to it, up to a point of course, under beat it slightly, overbeat it slightly, and it will still work. In all probability it is the cake mix that has changed. I encourage you to try baking from scratch. This gives you a lot more control over getting which you want in flavor and texture.

From the kitchen of Rose on 02.23.06 at 9:27 AM in Cake Questions

This scratch baking blog, featuring baker and cookbook author Rose Levy Beranbaum, is an online journal of Rose’s baking adventures, cooking tips, and scratch recipes. Her cookbooks include Bread Bible, Pie and Pastry Bible, Rose’s Christmas Cookies, Passion for Chocolate and The Cake Bible.

Cakes