whisking butter into cake batter

[prasantrin]

I'm trying to make the Chocolate Pound Cake from the French Farmhouse Cookbook. The recipe calls for beating egg yolks with sugar, then adding the dry ingredients. Then, you whisk in some butter in three parts and finally fold in egg whites.

To add the butter, the recipe says

Add the butter in thirds, whisking continuously. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and whisk the batter once more, forcefully, so all is combined. Finally, gently stir the batter several times in a folding motion, as a last assurance that all is mixed together.

However, the recipe calls for butter at room temperature. How can one whisk room-temperature butter into a cake batter? Won't I end up with clumps of butter in my batter? I thought perhaps it should have been melted butter, but there's no instruction to melt the butter in the recipe. And I assume the recipe should be fine as is, no?

[miladyinsanity]

However, the recipe calls for butter at room temperature.  How can one whisk room-temperature butter into a cake batter?  Won't I end up with clumps of butter in my batter?  I thought perhaps it should have been melted butter, but there's no instruction to melt the butter in the recipe.  And I assume the recipe should be fine as is, no?

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Whisk means wirewhisk, right?

I was making scrambled eggs the other day, and absently dropped in cream cheese and tried to whisk that. It got caught between the whisk and I had hardly any cheese in my eggs.

I imagine it'd be the same for cake batter, right?

[prasantrin]

Whisk means wirewhisk, right?

I would think so. It says you can use the whisk attachment of an electric mixer if you have one, or just to whisk it.

I was making scrambled eggs the other day, and absently dropped in cream cheese and tried to whisk that. It got caught between the whisk and I had hardly any cheese in my eggs.

I imagine it'd be the same for cake batter, right?

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That's what I would think, unless the butter were either melted or very very soft. But the recipe specifically states "room temperature".

I think I'm going to have to try it as written (whisking by hand, since I don't have a stand mixer), and then if the butter stays in huge clumps, I'm going to take my electric mixer (with no whisk attachment) and just beat the butter into the batter.

[prasantrin]

This recipe is...potentially a disaster! I followed it to the letter, and the pre-butter batter was like seized-up ganache. The butter lightened it up a bit, but the not-quite-soft-peak egg whites were a b**** to fold in. I resorted to using my hand mixer to mix in the egg whites.

I've just taken it out of the oven, and it's not very pretty, but it did seem to rise a little. I must wait a bit before cutting into it, but I'm hoping it will at least taste good! (Judging from the batter, it will!)

[kaneel]

I know i am a lot too late but what about creaming the butter in a seperate bowl until smooth and then adding it to the cake batter in portions.

I 've never made a cake with that type of instructions...

[Blair P. Houghton]

This recipe is...potentially a disaster!

Where is your room?

A room in France will be warmer than a room in Scotland, for instance.

And it sounds like the "almost-seized ganache" was light on liquid, and was almost seized. Though butter brings a little water, so maybe it's intended to un-seize it.

What's the recipe? And where was it developed?

[McDuff]

I first learned to make genoise using "picnic table soft" butter. If I were confronted with those directions, I would use very very soft butter, beat some of the batter into that to disperse the butter, then beat that into the rest of the batter in the manner called for. Or you could melt it and do the same thing, but handle it a little more tenderly. If you mix some of the batter into the melted butter it has less of a tendency to sink to the bottom of the batter.

eta--that recipe is unneccesarily complicated with the separating of eggs and beating of whites. Make a whole egg foam with the 4 eggs and all the sugar. Warm the eggs and sugar over hot water till warmish, then beat till ribbon stage. Fold in the sifted dry ingredients in thirds, add some of the batter to the melted butter, then fold all together. Cocoa is a drying agent and also has fat in it which will cause an egg white, or whole egg, foam to collapse if not handled carefully. If this kind of batter is overfolded, it will fall before you even get it into the oven. So make sure your flour/cocoa mixture is well sifted, and fold like a delicate demon. You ought to be able to make a cake like this, with practice, in about ten minutes.

Edited May 14, 2006 by McDuff (log)

[Swisskaese]

The Quatre Quarts recipe I have from the Art of Cake begins with creaming the softened butter, beating in the sugar and beating it for five minutes. Then you add the eggs one at a time and then the flour and potato starch.

Her recipe sounds unnecessarily complicated for a Quatre Quarts.

There is also a Lemon Pound Cake recipe in the same cookbook that calls for melted butter, which is added after the flour has been incorporated into the batter.

Edited May 14, 2006 by Swisskaese (log)

[prasantrin]

Is what it looked like. The picture was taken with my cell phone, so the quality isn't the best. I'm just off to morning assembly, so I'll add comments in a bit, and address all your helpful comments above!

I know i am a lot too late but what about creaming the butter in a seperate bowl until smooth and then adding it to the cake batter in portions.

That's what I was thinking of doing, since I have a souffle cheesecake recipe that does that, and it works out fine. But I thought I should follow the instructions, at least the first time I made it!

Where is your room?

A room in France will be warmer than a room in Scotland, for instance.

And it sounds like the "almost-seized ganache" was light on liquid, and was almost seized. Though butter brings a little water, so maybe it's intended to un-seize it.

What's the recipe? And where was it developed?

My room is in Japan, and it has been a bit warm lately so the butter was pretty soft by the time I got around to making the cake. I got the recipe off Leite's Culinaria website, but it was from the French Farmhouse Cookbook by Susan Herrmann Loomis. I assume the recipe was developed for the US kitchen, though, since the measurements were by volume rather than weight.

The butter did help a little, but the batter was still too think to properly fold in the egg whites.

eta--that recipe is unneccesarily complicated with the separating of eggs and beating of whites. Make a whole egg foam with the 4 eggs and all the sugar. Warm the eggs and sugar over hot water till warmish, then beat till ribbon stage. Fold in the sifted dry ingredients in thirds, add some of the batter to the melted butter, then fold all together. Cocoa is a drying agent and also has fat in it which will cause an egg white, or whole egg, foam to collapse if not handled carefully. If this kind of batter is overfolded, it will fall before you even get it into the oven. So make sure your flour/cocoa mixture is well sifted, and fold like a delicate demon. You ought to be able to make a cake like this, with practice, in about ten minutes.

Isn't that more like a genoise? I vaguely remember making cakes in that manner in my baking class, and I think it was a genoise.

I think what confused me was that this cake is called "Chocolate Pound Cake" but it's not very pound cake-like at all. The final result, even with all my problems, is really quite light. It's buttery in flavour, but the texture isn't at all what I consider to be a pound cake.

If I make this cake again, I'm going to make it as Swisskaese suggests. It's the manner in which I would have made this type of cake (if I were not following the directions). And I won't bother whipping the egg whites (that was another almost-disaster--it's just too warm right now for the egg whites to stay "just this side of soft peaks"). The final result was fine (except the big holes), but the cake wasn't as strong in chocolate flavour as I would have liked. The Sour Cream Chocolate Pound Cake (found somewhere else in the pastry forum) was much more chocolatey, but this one did have quite a nice texture--very fine and moist.

The people at work appreciated it, anyway!

Edited May 15, 2006 by prasantrin (log)

[David Leite]

Everyone,

We're removing the recipe from the site. If you guys had trouble with it, then others will, too. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Best,

David

[Abra]

That's a great service, David, because I use a lot of recipes from your site and like to be able to rely on them. I haven't tried this one but I've had trouble with a couple of her other recipes in the past. They sound good, but I've never thought they turned out well. I don't even try her stuff anymore. It's weird, because she's acclaimed.

[David Leite]

Abra,

Whenever we get a certain percentage of complaint about a recipe, it gets yanked—regardless of whose it is. So in effect, the site is self-editing. The more people chime in, the better it gets.

David