Light fluffy cakes

[merstar]

frozen? It's happened many times and happened again a few nights ago when I made a "coffee cake," which was more like a 2 1/2 inch tall butter cake. (Chocolate Swirl Sour Cream Coffee Cake). The taste was great and the texture equally great, light and fluffy. I put two leftover wrapped slices on the counter, just to test the results, then froze the rest of the leftover slices, wrapped in plastic wrap, then in foil, then in ziplock bags. The slices left on the counter had definitely changed overnight - they became slightly denser, but were still good. I subsequently tried a thawed frozen slice, and there was a big difference, much denser. It's as if the air pockets in the cake had totally closed up and condensed.

I've noticed this a lot with "white" or "yellow" cakes, but it never seems to affect my chocolate cakes. They can be left on the counter overnight or frozen for a long time, and the texture is the same as the day I made them. Some are made with cocoa, some with dark chocolate, and some with both. I just don't understand this. Is there some mysterious property in cocoa/chocolate that keeps the texture as it originally was?

It's just a real drag to make a fantastic cake with a perfect texture, and then have it change overnight. I just want the cake to retain its original texture. Anyone have a clue to what's going on here?

[chiantiglace]

what happens to fat when you chill it? It tightens up and molecular structure binds closer. thats what happens to electrons when they slow down, the orbit closer to the nucleus.

So if you have a cake high in fat and freeze it all that fat is going to pull together. then when you thaw it and or heat it back up it wil expand but also atract moisture aiding to its density.

Not to mention the staleing of flour butter mixture over time making it stiff.

these are all things to consider.

[Char]

The starch in the flour is reverting back to its crystalline form...aka "Starch Retrogradation'". The worst thing that you can do to a cake---or any baked product---is put it in the fridge because the starch "crystallizes" most often at those temperatures. When you freeze and thaw cakes, they pass through that temperature zone twice, once while it's being frozen and again when it thaws.

You can refresh frozen pastries by covering them with foil and heating at 350 to 375 until it's "fresh". Be careful though, you can only get away with this once and it's best to eat to eat the "refreshed" slice immediately.

The moral of the story is: if you want to keep your cakes lasting longer, wrap well and store at room temperature.

[cathrynapple]

then why do so many cake makers swear by freezing their cakes first? is this just for convenience during the decorating process?

[andiesenji]

Actually, a cake left out at room temperature will become more dense the longer it sits. Freezing sort of speeds things up.

What happens is that the sugar in the cake will absorb moisture from the air. This is accelerated in a humid climate, probably the reason that dense cakes are popular in tropical areas, a light, fluffy cake is difficult to produce and maintain.

This is the same reason that cookies become chewy and pliable a few days after baking even though they were crisp when first baked.

Sugar will keep cakes and sweet breads "fresher" and will slow staling simply because it will retain moisture in the cake.

When you freeze a cake in a regular freezer, it drives much of the moisture out. As it thaws, unless you can keep it in a low-moisture enviornment, it will pull in a lot of moisture from the air, and in fact will seem to concentrate it on the bottom if on a solid or non porous surface, not so much if kept on a wire rack. Quick-freezing at a lower temperature has less effect.

When I freeze cakes, I thaw them in a dehydrator without heat, just the fan, and they seem to collect less moisture but still retain their freshness.

A convection oven, no heat, just the fan, works too.

I apply a very thin layer of frosting while they are still mostly frozen, (the crumb coat) then allow it to finish defrosting before finishing.

[Char]

then why do so many cake makers swear by freezing their cakes first? is this just for convenience during the decorating process?

←

I prefer to freeze or chill my cakes because:

1) they're firm and easy to slice in thin, level, even slices

2) they're slightly stale and absorb syrup (i.e. flavor). try applying a syrup to a fresh cake or a cake that hasn't been frozen and you'll see what I mean.

In most cases, I won't bake and serve a cake without adding a filling or syrup so freezing cakes works well for me.

And if you're looking for a cake that keeps well, in and out of the fridge, try a chiffon cake. They're flavorful, moist, and very resistant to staling. The Cake Bible has an easy, reliable recipe that you should try. I swear by this recipe.

[Sugarella]

I believe your chocolate cakes keep their texture after freezing and thawing because the cocoa powder is so alkaline/acidic. Try adding ingredients with similar properties to your white and yellow recipes and I'm sure you'll see similar results to your chocolate, as I have.

I freeze all of my cakes because .....how to explain this.... they just seem to develop a better "body." I don't know what chemical reaction causes this, but they do keep a good crumb for longer periods, keep their structure, and are able to retain their moisture for longer as well. After baking I cool them to room temp, freeze overnight just so they're solid, then bring back to a thawed state under refridgeration the next morning. I've done side-by-side comparisons of all my cakes having some fresh and some previously frozen, and after several days the previously frozen cake tatses much fresher than the fresh one does. And because I do weddings where cakes need to be worked on for days I do of course need them remain fresher for longer, so I never skip this step.

Pastry chefs do heartily believe that pastries and cakes should never be frozen, but this belief has roots in the days long before the invention of plastic wrap, and of course it would have been a no-no back then. But times change.

[Sarah Phillips]

Hi,

I was asked this question on my website, baking911.com, and came up with an answer. http://www.baking911.com/asksarahbb/viewtopic.php?t=1387 Perhaps you'd like to view it.....

[Samaki]

Hi Mer,

I've been thinking about this since you asked the same question on CooksTalk. In fact, I've got a test cake going right now, though in the fridge instead of the freezer. How did you warm the cake back up - wrapped or unwrapped?

Someone suggested that the freezer would be worse than the fridge, but my intuition, at least based on experience with frozen versus fridge-chilled bread, is the reverse.

[merstar]

Hello Samaki,

Although, most say to thaw cakes wrapped, I've thawed them both wrapped and unwrapped, and haven't noticed much of a difference. An important note: I'm referring to cake slices here, not a whole cake - there may be less of a texture loss if it's a whole cake, since there would be no exposed surfaces. Let me know your results.