On 4/26/2021 at 11:39 AM, Lord_Pall said:Now here's the question(s) -
Baked a cake in it last night for my Son's birthday. 350, no steam, top and bottom. Cake cooked too fast. Rose super fast, and the edges were overcooked before the center finished. Still tasty though.
I know you can adapt a cake recipe to a steam oven. But what about a cake in sous vide mode? 210 until cooked, then bump temp to get a bit of crust if you want that? lower temp with steam? Combination of heat and steam?
Can you sous vide a cake? Can you sous vide a cake with no steam to avoid it being a steamed pudding?
I feel like there's some oddball cooking processes I could try out here that might make a better cake.
Hi, I'm new here, and noticed your post back in April. I thought you might be interested in an APO cake test that I did a while back, using boxed cake mix. My DH bought three box mixes, to lure me into experimenting.
Unfortunately I can't find any photos [edit: found photos, if anybody is interested], but here are my notes. I baked them to temperature, so I wouldn't need to keep letting the steam out to check with a toothpick. I started with a 9" cake pan, then switched to 8" because two 8" will fit on a singe APO rack. The "one large crack" mentioned in the notes was actually a rift that reached to the bottom of the pan, and was maybe 5" long; but hey, the cake was done in 14 minutes instead of 29!
The cake baked very nicely at 300°F/60% steam, with the 8" pan taking a couple minutes longer to bake than the 9" pan. It would be interesting to know how well this temperature and humidity setting does for other box mixes and homemade cakes.
Cake test notes:
cake is done at 200-210°F
Bake cakes at 300°F/60% steam
Duncan Hines Classic Yellow Cake Mix, 930 g when mixed, 465 g per cake
9” pan
212°F/100% steam 14 min:
pale, odd looking, one large crack, very homogenous texture; I think it was at 200°F
350°F/40% steam 10 min:
appeared done, but not 200°F, was raw in center 1.5” cylinder, golden brown, better taste than 212 cake where cooked
320°F/100% steam cracked 12 min:
pale, multiple large cracks, a bit dry even though took out at 200°F internal temp
300°F/60% steam 15 min: perfect; very lightly browned, moist, no cracks, even texture but in a somehow better way than the 212 cake.
8” pan
300°F/60% steam; 16-17 min, 205° doneness
Box instruction: 350°F/0% steam 29-33 min / 34-38