mkfradin

Hey Wendy--This was a problem for me too when I first started making this cake. In case you want to make it again, here's what I do (sorry for not including it in the recipe, but it's all in my head): 1) use a whip to mix the cake, not the paddle; 2) add the liquid ingredients very slowly and scrape down constantly. The danger zone for lumps is probably when 1/2-3/4 of the liquid ingredients are added. The batter goes from being nice and thick to thin, and if the lumps aren't gone by then, they never will be. Adding the liquid slowly at this point is crucial. It is a little freaky, and we've had cakes with white "freckles" of flour, which drives me crazy. But this cake comes together so quickly, is relatively inexpensive to make (no butter or chocolate), and people love it! Thanks for trying it. Marjorie (Edited by Forum Host to remove duplicated images)

Since I've never made Dede Wilson's white cake according to her recipe, I don't know what the difference is! Initially, I used RLB's high ratio mixing method, since it is easier than the creaming method (fewer dirty bowls), and now I've moved on to the method in my recipe, since it eliminates a further step by mixing all the wet ingredients together instead of mixing 1/4 of the liquid into the eggs and vanilla. I've always been so pleased with the results that there didn't seem to be a reason to try Wilson's recipe as it was written. I am also a big fan of hers--her flavors and textures are great, and she's not afraid to depart from convention if it creates a superior product. Marjorie

This is what we use. I'm a little embarrassed to post it here--it's the standard confectioners' sugar/butter combo--but it's so damn good that maybe someone else will enjoy it! I keep saying we could package it as a sex aid. This is what's burned in my brain; sorry abt. the large quantities, but just play with the proportions till it's at the right consistency and taste for you. Chocolate Fudge Frosting 3# butter, salted 9# 8 oz. confectioners' sugar 2# or a little more natural cocoa, like Hershey's (I use Blommer's) 32 oz. whole milk 4 oz. vanilla Beat butter till really soft and creamy. Add sugar, milk, and cocoa in whatever order works for you (cover mixing bowl till sugar and cocoa are incorporated or they will go all over the kitchen in a cloud of dust), and then add vanilla. The frosting will seem really really stiff, but beat it for 5-15 min, and it will soften up really well. If you add too much milk at the beginning, the frosting will be too soft. We had some trouble with sliding cakes till we brought the milk down to one quart from 40 oz. Enjoy! Marjorie

I'm barely a professional and have not worked in France, but it's my understanding that this type of cake--a butter cake as opposed to a foam or sponge cake (like a genoise)--is unique to America. I think most Europeans find our yellow cakes and pound cakes and chocolate layer cakes too sweet, dense and dry. They are used to genoise and sponges that are soaked in liqueurs and syrups and filled with (relatively) thick layers of filling. Admittedly, I haven't taken that many classes, but none of my European instructors ever had any comments to make on the standard American butter cake. I think they consider it an ugly stepsister! That being said, I think Rose Beranbaum has a white genoise in her Cake Bible, which I've never made, but which might give you some guidance as to a Europeanized version of the white cake. Marjorie

I can't take credit for the cake--the formula is Dede Wilson's from the Wedding Cake book, and I just changed her mixing method from creaming to high ratio. Ironically, I haven't had the best luck with this cake for the past week or so; it's been denser and heavier than usual, tho it did pair well with strawberry butter cream for Mother's Day. My pastry chef's been doing the baking, so maybe later this week, I'll try and see whether it's the recipe or the baker. Having all the ingredients at room temp. helps tremendously. I'm not sure about the color of the top of the cakes--it could be a function of the oven temp. or time/length of baking. I don't remember what happens with mine. We slice the tops off anyway! marjorie

Sorry about not giving the number--I think I'd give it a 4 or 4.25. I really really like this cake a lot--loved the fact that it wasn't too sweet and loved its fine texture without its being overly moist. I did have a few problems with it... First, it's a high maintenance cake, and when we're in production, making 32 cakes at a time, I don't see how we could be turning out cakes and wrapping them in plastic within five minutes of their coming out of the oven. It's all we can do to get the cakes out of the oven and out of their pans before the next batch is done! Plus, think of all the plastic wrap we'd be using $$$$ Even if it worked out logistically, I was the only one who really liked this one! I know that when it comes to chocolate cake, my taste is different from "everyman's" and earlier this spring, we did a taste test with three cakes that I liked. My favorite was the least popular (most popular was the one I posted). So for this test, I used Wendy's cake, Margaret Braun's blackout cake (another favorite and crowd pleaser), and my usual cake, and once again, the very wet, very dense usual cake beat out the other two contenders. I think people confuse a tender crumb for a dry cake and overlook the subtleties in a fine butter cake in favor of the punch of the oil cake. So when it's my birthday, I'll make Wendy's cake for myself, but when it comes to selling, it's my million dollar cake all the way--fast, easy and cheap. Marjorie

This cake is absolutely gorgeous. I always thought white cakes were insipid and too sweet till I tasted this one. Everyone who's tasted it loves it too, and my babysitter almost swooned when she had the cookies and cream version. It throws together really easily, and the only problem was what to do with the yolks (before i learned pastry cream). White Cake 12 ¼ oz. / 350 g. cake flour 1 T plus 1 tsp. baking powder 6 large egg whites (6 ½ oz/ 180 g.) 12 oz. whole milk 8 oz. salted butter, softened 14 oz./ 400 g. sugar 1 T vanilla Combine flour, baking powder, sugar in bowl. Mix briefly to combine. Add butter and mix on 1 till butter is broken up and looks like small peas. Add 9 oz. of the milk, increase speed to 2, and beat 1 ½ min. Combine remaining milk, egg whites, and vanilla, and add to the batter in three separate additions, mixing 15 seconds at 2 between each addition. Pour into 9” cake pans and bake at 350 till test done. For Cookies and Cream cake, fold 1 c. crushed oreos into batter after mixing. Marjorie

I haven't had a chance to try the Wooley cake either--maybe tomorrow--but here's the cake that won the customers' taste test here (as I said, not my favorite, but it's easy, cheap, fast, moist, and popular). Please note that we're using a convection oven and if you have a radiant or conventional oven, bake at 350. Cake Batter Ingredients: 2 ¼ oz Dutched cocoa powder 1 cup boiling water 7.5 oz. AP flour 14 oz white sugar 1/2 tsp baking soda 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp salt ¼ c. buttermilk powder (1.25 oz) 2 large eggs 1/2 cup Vegetable Oil 1 cup black coffee 1 tsp vanilla extract Dissolve cocoa in hot water. Mix flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt and buttermilk powder in a mixing bowl. Mix eggs, oil, cocoa mixture, coffee and vanilla in another bowl. Beat into dry ingredients gradually, beating between additions to minimize lumping. Beat with an electric mixer set at medium speed for 3 minutes. Pour batter into greased 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan or 2 9” round pans. Bake in pre-heated 325°F oven for 40 minutes or until the cake tests done. Marjorie

I've been working with a cake that sounds a little like the Woolley cake--it's an oil based cocoa cake with buttermilk and coffee (or water) for the liquid. It is NOT my favorite cake--I don't think the oil brings out the chocolate flavor as much as butter would, but it was a decisive favorite among my customers. It's a very very moist, sweet cake, and it always domes up!! It's not a problem to frost--just slice off the domes--but the waste drives me crazy! I don't have the recipe right here, but I think I got it on epicurious in the recipe swap. It's called the Million Dollar Chocolate Cake. I did tweak it a little (it had way too much baking soda in it, even for using natural cocoa, and I make it with Dutch process anyway). If anyone wants my recipe, let me know and I'll post. For the record, the winner of my personal contest for best chocolate cake is Lauren Chattman's recipe in Mom's Book of Baking for the Devil's Food Cake. In a side-by-side tasting against Purdy's Buttermilk Cake, it wins, hands down. I also love the mixing method--the high-ratio method--that makes it so easy to throw together. Unfortunately, many people perceive the finer crumb and lighter texture as dry, so I'm pretty much resigned to offering the oil based cake in the near future. At least it's more cost effective! Wendy, I'd be really interested to hear what your favorite banana and carrot cakes are. I made a carrot cake today that I wasn't thrilled with, and am curious about yours. I'm not trying to change the subject (I could talk about chocolate cake all day!), but if your's is so amazing, it will be hard for me to wait! Marjorie

Wendy--Anytime you want to talk, just stop by! Sweet Memories 1852 First Street HP At the very least, I'll get the face to go with the name! Marjorie

You can come over and play with my oven some time (in your spare time, ha ha), since I don't think you're too far from me (I'm in Highland Park)--if you ever decide you want to use steam.

THanks everyone for the suggestions. I'm feeling a little better this morning, since I just took the cake out of the oven (275, totally dry), and it didn't have any cracks in it, the top was pale and set, and best of all--no bubbles! Keep your fingers crossed for me! I'm looking forward to going back and really reading the suggestions (morning is crunch time, so I'm just skimming here). When you're talking about a pan of water, Sinclair and I think Irwin, Im assuming it's a pan of water below the cake, not the bain marie, right? Also, since my oven has steam, should I be using that periodically? (I have to keep pressing the button if I do). I love the oven in general, bu your' right, there's a learning curve and my scones and muffins were coming out dry and burned on top and undercooked till I learned to set the thermometer for 50-75 degrees less, and now they're perfect. The only problem I ever had was lemon bars; the tops were rubbery and definitely not edible. My standards for lemon bars are low (I love them!), so you know these were really bad! I'll post later and let you know how the cake came out. I think we're having it for dessert at lunch in the kitchen. Marjorie

I've just started baking with a commercial convection oven and have had mostly good luck with most of my standard recipes, but cheesecake is giving me a horrible time! I think the problem is the temperature--the first time I made the cake, I could see the batter boiling in the oven (this at about 225 degrees), and the second time, altho I didn't see any active boiling, there was a suspicious looking bulge in one side that looked like an incipient bubble. This would all be an academic question, except I've put cheesecake on my holiday menu, and several people have ordered it, and now I have to figure out a way to get a great product out to them fast (yes, I've learned my lesson this time, I think...). I've never been crazy about bain maries for cheesecakes; I prefer the dried, heavy texture of a NY style cheesecake, as did my tasters when I sampled cheesecakes last fall. What do I do? Suck it up and use my radiant oven, which would limit my production capability, or use the bain marie and tell my customers that it's better this way? Is there an alternative? Help me before I run out of cream cheese or go broke buying eggs!

How about a bear claw filling, with chocolate cake crumbs, a little bit of glucose, and an egg to hold it together? It can be very chocolatey without burning like real chocolate would. Mazel Tov!

Thanks for the help--I'll try everyone's suggestions and let you know how it goes. Alanamoana--I'm in Chicago, which is also very dry in the winter (and incredibly humid in the summer, a la NYC), which I thought might make practicing with the sugar easier (and maybe the suggestions of corn syrup or glucose will help with the brittleness). And Steve, I do have a stash of isomalt in the basement (aging?), which I will crack out and start using. I'm always conflicted when I put it on food, since I find it so unpalatable, but if my cakes are going to stand for hours, I don't think sugar would be a workable alternative. MKF

I've been trying to master spun sugar for a while now, and am having soming trouble with it. Does anyone make it frequently? Are there any "tricks" to it that I don't know? I'm cooking the sugar to a medium caramel (I'm not measuring temperature, but it starts out medium and ends up amber by the time I'm done) with some cream of tarter to make the threads a little more flexible, and then I'm dipping the fork in and waving it back and forth. I get a few little threads and then the sugar starts to harden on the fork and eventually turns into a huge lump of hard candy while I'm collecting 3 threads at a time. Needless to say, I'm not getting nearly enough for what I want to do, which is wrap a cake (actually, to do the cake, I will use isomalt, but I don't want to practice with it--too expensive!) in spun sugar. Do I wrap it as I go along? I saw Ewald Notter make a huge pile of spun sugar a few years ago, and naturally he made it look so easy that I figured I could do it too, and didn't write anything down! Oops.

I don't remember snowballs as having chocolate in them--more of a sponge cake with a raspberry coconut coating so they were pink and fuzzy looking. Am I confusing them with Red Zingers? They always used to advertise them using Peanuts characters. But I digress... I made a bar cookie last year with a rich shortbread base that used only the yolks of the eggs. The crust was baked, and then a layer of raspberry preserves was spread across the cookie. I topped it with a meringue made out of the egg whites and sugar, blended with some coconut, and sprinkled additional coconut on top, and baked again. The taste brought back a lot of the old memeories! If you don't mind losing the chew of the marshmallow, a meringue might do the trick. If you're really feeling nostaglic, you can tint the meringue and coconut pink! I didn't.

I love the one in Betty Rosbottom's book "new american favorites" (I think?). It's not a traditional pot pie, but much lighter, with a nice winey gravy, leeks and prosciutto, and no potatoes!! It freezes really well, both topped with the crust and without it.

And in my chocolate course, the instructor used a tiny bit (maybe a teaspoon or two) of lecithin to delay crystallization in his caramels. You can find it in a natural foods store.

I've also cooked frozen bread dough with good results. One caveat00make sure the bread is fully defrosted before you cook it; otherwise you'll wind up with a gummy interior and dried outside. Also, I was taught that if you're making a laminated dough (e.g. croissant or Danish), use 25% more yeast than you would if you were making it fresh. I love Peter Reinhart's books so much that I feel like they completely changed my life--or at least the way I look at bread! Yesterday, I made some plain white loaves to go with dinner, and because the kitchen was so warm, the rise was shorter than it should have been. Everyone else liked the bread, but I felt it wasn't as good as it should have been because of the rapid rise. Enjoy the recipes and definitely try the sourdough ones--I've made some awesome rye breads and Pain Poilanes from the book.

I've done gingerbread decorating parties with my kids in their classes ever since they were 2 (yes, 2), and no one has ever complained about the cookies being gingerbread. I think it helps that I give them all the garbage to put on top of them--it's a hoot seeing the younger kids trying to pile an inch-high pile of sprinkles, colored sugar and M&M's on a 3" round cookie--but they also enjoy eating their creations. Last year, my son's second grade class literatlly demolished their gingerbread houses a week after they decorated them with candy. Yes, it's a lot of work, but it's always one of the most memorable events of the year, according to the kids and the teachers. Another plus--gingerbread keeps for so long that I can always make the dough and the cookies well in advance of the party, and no one knows the difference. Good luck! Marjorie