Yellow and white cakes

[JanKK]

Trish... In the Snow White Cake recipe, you typed 250 degrees ....is that correct??

[TrishCT]

Trish... In the Snow White Cake recipe, you typed 250 degrees ....is that correct??

Oops! Should be 350 degrees! Good catch!

[JanKK]

Thanks, Trish ....that's pretty much what I thought, but you never can tell. But just in case, I was wrong, I reduced the temp a tidge to 325 ;) I may have to make this again though ---I liked the flavor, but one kindof fell in the middle. I think I may have filled one pan fuller than the other and not baked it quite long enough.

[Wendy DeBord]

Did anyone else get a chance to bake any of these white cakes?

[kthull]

Since Trish's cake has been tested once so far, I'll be testing mkfradin's cake tonight. I'll also freeze some of what I make tonight and save it for later comparisons.

[kthull]

Ok, so tonight I made both mkfradin and my recipes. I also took detailed pictures that I'll probably post tomorrow since it's getting too late tonight. mkfradin's is definitely whiter, seems like a tighter crumb, but the cakes were still a bit warm when I cut into them. I'll see how they are tomorrow. And neither tasted all that great...it's been a while since I've had white cake. Give me chocolate any day!

[Tepee]

Don't laugh...here's my mkfradin's cake, warts and all. The one time I forget to knock out the air bubbles, I get one the size of an observatory! Sliced a bit out to test and taste. I like this cake. I'll give an overall taste of 4.7 (keeping in mind it's a white cake) and a TMC rating of 5. It behaved very well on cutting and was very moist.

[kthull]

After chilling the cakes, both were much improved, though mkfradin's definitely beat out my recipe. Taste was comparable, the pudding version was a bit dryer and was more crumbly. mkfraddin's recipe baked up lighter in color both inside and out.

Here are the two side by side exteriors (kthull pudding recipe left, mkfradin recipe right):

And here are closeups of slices (again, kthull left, mkfradin, right):

Neither cake was very moist. Neither made me say, "Man, that's some damn good cake!"

My ratings:

kthull - 3.5

mkfradin - 4

It will be a while before I can test more...freezer's getting full of cakes. But I definitely have samples for future comparisons.

[JustKay]

Hi guys ... I'm new to the forum. I hope you don't mind if I jump right in.

I just baked mkfradin's cake but with the addition of chopped oreos in one and crushed oreos in the other pan.

(My daughter just helped herself to her 3rd piece! )

Anyways, mine did not come out as white as TPs. But rather like kthull's - all golden on the outside and whiter inside.

However, the outer crisp is rather chewy and more prominent than other cakes. There's a definite 'skin' all around (pardon my descriptive terms as I am only a home baker ). Could it be my oven? I baked it for 28 minutes. But this would definitely be a plus point if frosting - no crumbs.

It cuts pretty well though and the texture is fine and light. I think the moistness level is just right. It also does not dome out - I had a nice almost even top.

And since I added the Oreos, I cut down the sugar (I use caster sugar) to only 300gms and it *is* sweet.

It is indeed a very easy cake to make. Virtually hassle-free.

I'd give both the taste and TMC 4.5.

I think I'll give the Snow White cake a try next and compare to this.

Edited May 7, 2004 by kew (log)

[Wendy DeBord]

You guys, the photos really add alot to this discusion, thanks so much!

Theres a noticeable difference in the exterior color between TP's cake and Kthulls. Mcfradin can you comment on this?

Kew, welcome! I hope you enjoy this site. I would like to reccomend to you that you follow the recipes exactly for now. Variations do throw off the experiments. The impact of oreos and decreasing the sugar will definately effect your final product making it an orea cake not a white cake. You could split your batter and play with one half while keeping the other "pure".

[JustKay]

Thank you Sinclair. I am enjoying the site much.

I do find the recipes from the US too sweet if I use the sugar as stated in the recipes, hence I usually reduce it some. I'm not sure but perhaps because we use cane sugar here as opposed to corn sugar in the US? (I've read somewhere that even our Coke here tastes better due to the different sugar ).

And with 300gm sugar total, like I said, it's sweet enough. I would rate it too sweet if I had added total 400gm.

Yeah, I should've stuck to the plain recipe but I couldn't resist adding the Oreos when I saw the suggestion at the end of the recipe. Anyways, the one which had chopped Oreos were big Oreo pieces and I don't think it messed the batter any - I kinda dropped them into the batter once poured into the pan.

The cake was still white with Oreo spots. Mine came out just like kthull's.

I guess I'm not a good 'tester' what with the difference in flour quality, sugar differences, humidity, substituting unavailable ingredients or whatever else.

Edited May 7, 2004 by kew (log)

[bleudauvergne]

Here are the two side by side exteriors (kthull pudding recipe left, mkfradin recipe right):

GREAT idea to make the cupcakes in addition to the round cake - solves my pan problem.

I bake tomorrow. I have taken on a translation job so I can be at home the day and make money at the same time...

-Lucy

[kthull]

Lucy, if it helps, the mkfradin cupcakes finished in 27 minutes and the 9x2 round in 43. I had the cupcakes on the upper rack and the round on the bottom until I took the cupcakes out. For my recipe, the cupcakes finished in 23 and the round in 43.

I needed cupcakes for my daughter's birthday party tonight. Perfect excuse to make two different recipes!

[bleudauvergne]

Well, the big French baking experiment is done.

The results of this experiment will unfortunately not be able to be taken into account for this recipe comparison, because my results for both of the cakes that I made were so bad.

I am pretty sure I am doing something wrong. I thought gram weight would solve the problem of my baking experiments all going awry, but I think it may be more complicated than that.

I used Francine supreme farine de ble premiere extraction, which promises that my creations will be toujours reussies. Which means always successful. NOT!

Don't get me wrong. They taste pretty good. But both cakes did not come out white inside, they were yellow, even though the only yellow ingredient I used was butter.

1. Samaki's cake: I bought unsalted butter and used it for this recipe. The cake sunk in the middle and remains rather puddingish in the center (edit: my husband says that it is not puddingish in the center, and that , it has a nice consistency) even though it had begun to shrink from the sides and took a rather roundish edge. The cupcakes did not rise much and fell back down soon after cooking thus are perfectly flat across the top. The cake developed a sort of crust, which had some tooth to it. The consistency of the cake was much like that of a chewy cornbread.

2. MKFradin's cake: I used buerre demi sel, which is the saltiest mainstream butter you can get here. Enchanted with the simplicity of the recipe, it went in, rose like a charm, cupcakes too. The batter looked a little like it was curdling, I think due to the fact that after using the softened butter, the room temp egg whites, etc. I added frigo cold milk - doh! The major problem with this cake was that it was really fragile coming out of the pan. Like it puffed up so far that it was like a sponge, but not strong enough to hold togetherreally well. I practically mangled it taking it out of the pan, and I know that it would fall apart if I tried to ice it.

There is a problem I have to solve with the flour.

We have to go now but I will put some thought into it and try and come up with some reasons why these two cakes came out so badly.

Edit: after coming home from a night out, we hit the cupcakes.

5 hours rest gave these cakes a new lease on life. Still ugly, but MKFradin's cake has really nice texture and taste! If I had just waited until it was fully cool to take it out it might have survived the removal from the pan. The texture is moist, just the right crumb, I'm even saying this is some damn good cake! I would give this recipe a 4.5 (because it scared me at the beginning).

Samakis recipe has taken on more of a resilient texture and now that it's cool, there is a predominant salty taste in the flavor. It's clear that this cake would hold up quite well to some serious decorating, and possibly be a very nice cake for a trifle, being so spongy and durable. I would rate this cake a 3.8 on the white cake scale, because it resembles more the French genoise we know and is missing some moistness and smoothness of crumb that the other cake has.

Both of these recipes need some tweaking to get the french flour proportions right. I'll post a photo of the wedges tomorrow. Note both seemed whiter after cooling. (on the inside, the crusts are both still brown.)

Edited May 8, 2004 by bleudauvergne (log)

[mkfradin]

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

[lorea]

Don't laugh...here's my mkfradin's cake, warts and all.

TP(M'sia)'s mkfradin's cake was cute!

Has anybody that tried these posted cakes also tried the white cake from The Best Recipe (Cook's Illustrated)? How does it compare? The reason why I'm asking is that that is my favorite white cake recipe (after trying a bunch for a while), but if one of these are better, I definitely want to try it! Heck, when I get some more time, I'm going to try these anyways, since I absolutely love white cake when it's done right.

[Tepee]

Bet you pros can't achieve that "cute" feature, huh? Cut it up for my flip-flop cake.

About the color...I don't know, but the few times I've tried making a white cake, it always turned out this white. I use an unsalted butter from Australia.

Edited May 12, 2004 by TP(M'sia) (log)

[lorea]

Yes, I was wondering about that extreme whiteness. It's perfect for a white cake when the white looks matter. Perhaps it's the flour that's available in Malaysia?

[kthull]

Lorea, the recipe I posted at the start of the thread is a tweaked version of the Cooks Illustrated recipe. While it's not exactly it, it's pretty close (minus the vanilla pudding mix). I do remember making it while testing last year and it wasn't as good as the version I posted.

HTH

[lorea]

Thanks for responding, Kevin. I think Cook's Illustrated has many versions, and have tweaked it over the years. The one that I really liked was from the Best Recipe book they published (1999?).

It's good to see they're continuing to test new recipes!

I was comparing the recipe you posted, and the one in the Best Recipe and The Best Recipe version has much less cake flour and no pudding, among other differences.

[Tepee]

Yes, I was wondering about that extreme whiteness.  It's perfect for a white cake when the white looks matter.  Perhaps it's the flour that's available in Malaysia?

Glad you appreciate the whiteness. The cake flour I used was bleached.

Edited May 12, 2004 by TP(M'sia) (log)

[JustKay]

The cake flour I used was bleached.

For the benefit of other Malaysians here, exactly what brand and type TP?

I use Blue Key mostly. Make my own cake flour and self-raising from it too. For breads I use Anchor hi-protein.

And the butter? Your butter must be quite white too, eh? I use either Fern (fr NZ) or Golden Churn (fr Aus) and KerryGold (fr Ireland) if making shortbreads or buttercakes (if I can find it - only certain places have this brand).

Thanks TP.

Edited May 12, 2004 by kew (log)

[Tepee]

(TP(M'sia) @ May 11 2004, 08:43 PM)

The cake flour I used was bleached. 

For the benefit of other Malaysians here, exactly what brand and type TP?

I use the re-packed cake flour from Bake with Yen whenever a recipe calls for cake flour. So far, I'm quite satisfied with the results. If plain flour or SRF is required, I use Tesco's organic unbleached flour; very fine and makes great cakes. Considering it's organic, it's not pricey. But you don't find it on the shelves all the time, so I buy in bulk and freeze them.

And the butter? Your butter must be quite white too, eh?

I almost exclusively use New Zealand's (pardon me, I said I used an Aussie butter in a previous post) Anchor unsalted/salted butter, bought at Bake with Yen for RM2.50 each. HTH.

[JustKay]

I almost exclusively use New Zealand's (pardon me, I said I used an Aussie butter in a previous post) Anchor unsalted/salted butter, bought at Bake with Yen for RM2.50 each. HTH.

Thanks for the info. I'll have to check out Tesco's organic flour. Their regular flour looks 'off color'.

And 2.50 is cheap for unsalted Anchor. I too buy Anchor for unsalted butter - 2.80 at Wilton's. Fern and Anchor are made by the same company. But come to think of it, Anchor butter does seem whiter, especially the unsalted.

[bleudauvergne]

Hi I'd like to post a question to the professionals who have worked in France about white cake. What is the French equivalent to this kind of cake? I want to try some French recipes and test them, but I can't find anything in my recipe searches that resembles white cake. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks - Lucy