This post is about a proof of concept experiment. The results were magnificent.
All cakes are not created equally. In fact, most bakers differentiate their cakes based on inequality: different ratios of basic ingredients and different techniques used to mix them. Angel food cakes don’t include any butter or egg yolks or chemical leavening – they are mostly sugar and egg whites and a little flour – the lift comes from air trapped in a foam of egg whites and sugar. Chiffon cakes use oil instead of butter and include egg yolks and some chemical leavening but still rely on whipped egg whites for additional lift.
But I won’t be concerning myself with egg foams in this post. Instead, I want to take a look at the technique traditionally tied to butter cakes.
Butter cake recipes are usually creaming method recipes – you start by creaming butter and sugar – where whipping egg whites traps air using the structure of the egg whites, creaming traps air using the structure of the butter and sugar. After creaming the sugar and butter, eggs are added one at a time, then the remaining dry and liquid ingredients are alternated into the batter.
The fruitcakes I made in my last post were butter cakes made this way. I started out creaming dark brown sugar into butter. The pounds of fruits and nuts I folded into the batter before baking were merely a heavy garnish – the underlying cake was a creaming method butter cake.
So, traditionally, butter cakes are creaming method cakes.
But the creaming method has a kissing cousin that lives uptown – called the “two-stage method.” In cooking school, this two-stage technique was tied to a specific class of cakes that were made with more sugar (by weight) than flour – called high-ratio cakes. Briefly, instead of creaming the fat and sugar, the fat and a little bit of liquid are creamed into the combined sugar and dry ingredients first – then the eggs and liquid ingredients are added in two stages. These high-ratio cakes require a special emulsified shortening to adequately handle all the sugar and must be mixed in stages to insure all the ingredients incorporate properly.
But more and more in my reading I am finding that professional bakers recommend using the two-stage method for butter cakes as well – insisting that it produces a moister cake with a much more tender crumb. It’s just a matter of taking a cake designed to be mixed one way and mixing it another way. Same ingredients – different technique. Old dog – new trick.
The conventional wisdom as to why the two-stage method produces a superior texture is tied to the fat coating the flour as it is creamed with the sugar – the fat interferes with the formation of gluten when the remainder of the liquid is added thus producing a more tender cake. Sounds legit’.
Enter the new love of my life: Rose Levy Beranbaum, author of The Baking Bible. I have been reading this newly published book of hers and I must admit that I think her cult-like following is well deserved. It was her longstanding faith in using the two-stage mixing method for all things butter cake that was my tipping point.
Always the skeptic, though, I decided I needed to prove the point for myself. Perhaps I also needed to prove myself worthy of her great writing. So this is the story of how I took a recipe designed for creaming butter and sugar, and converted it to the two-stage method. Same ingredients – different technique.
For my ingredients, I started with a recipe from a trusted source: Cook’s Country – their recipe from December/January 2012 for a Classic Rum Bundt Cake. I still have a bunch of liquor around from my foray into fruitcakes and fully intend to use the booze in my baking endeavors for a while. OK? Their recipe outlines the construction of a classic creaming method butter cake (with rum) – baked in a bundt pan. I made a few minor alterations to their ingredients: (1) I used my aged rum rather than dark rum, (2) I used a vanilla bean paste and some ground vanilla bean powder rather than vanilla extract, & (3) I used a little more lemon juice than the recipe called for (2 Tbsp. rather than 1 Tbsp.).
Sugar and Dry Ingredients:
Flour – 15 oz.
Sugar – 14 oz.
Salt – 1 tsp.
Baking Powder – 1 tsp.
Baking Soda – 1/2 tsp.
Fat (and a little liquid):
Unsalted Butter – 9 oz. (18 Tbsp. = 2 1/4 sticks)
Buttermilk – 1/4 cup
Eggs and Remaining Liquid:
Large Eggs – 3 whole + 1 yolk
Buttermilk – 1/4 cup
Rum – 1/4 cup
Vanilla Bean Paste – 1 Tbsp.
Ground Vanilla Bean Powder – 1/4 tsp.
Lemon Juice – 2 Tbsp.
Note – I have grouped the ingredients according to how they are used in the two-stage mixing method. The fat and some liquid are creamed into the sugar and dry ingredients first. Then the remaining liquid and eggs are added to the creamed mixture in two stages. The butter, eggs, and buttermilk need to be at room temperature.
In Cook’s Country’s original recipe, the sugar was creamed with the butter first, then the eggs were added in stages, then the remaining dry ingredients were alternated with the remaining wet ingredients.
I used the following two-stage mixing technique:
Instructions (abbreviated):
(1) Preheat your oven to 350 °F and set the rack on the lower-middle level. Generously grease and flour a bundt pan. Make sure the butter, buttermilk, and eggs are at room temperature.
(2) Measure all the sugar and dry ingredients into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and whisk vigorously to combine.
(3) Add the butter/buttermilk (fat) all at once and mix on low speed until the ingredients are combined. Then increase the speed of the stand mixer to medium-high and mix for about 2 minutes. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl.
(4) Mix the eggs and liquid ingredients in a container with a pouring spout. With the mixer on low, slowly pour half of the egg/liquid ingredients into the bowl. Allow the ingredients to continue mixing for 30 seconds to fully integrate the liquid. Stop the mixer and scrape down the bowl. With the mixer on low, slowly add the remaining half of the egg/liquid ingredients to the bowl and continue to mix for another 30 seconds or so to fully integrate that remaining liquid.
(5) Give the batter a few turns with a spatula by hand before pouring the batter into your prepared bundt pan. Bake at 350 °F until the interior of the cake registers just over 200 °F using an instant read digital thermometer (check in several places). Be sure to rotate the pan several times during baking. My cake took nearly 60 minutes to finish baking.
(6) Move the cake from the oven to a cooling rack and allow it to cool for about 30 minutes before inverting it onto the cooling rack. Allow the cake to cool for at least 2 more hours before slicing.
Note – I’m only giving an outline of my instructions because this was a proof of concept baking experiment – not intended to be a permanent recipe. All the basics should be there, but I made the steps as short as possible just to convey the idea.
Summary – Start with the sugar and all the dry ingredients – steal some of the liquid (in this case buttermilk) and cream that into the dry ingredients with the butter – add the remaining liquid ingredients and eggs in two stages.
What did I get out of this little experiment? The richest, moistest, tenderest butter cake I have ever tasted. Look out butter cake, there’s a new sheriff in town!
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Illustrations:
Oven preheated. Bundt pan liberally greased and floured.
Note – There are three groups of ingredients: (1) the sugar and dry ingrediets, (2) the butter (plus a little liquid), & (3) the eggs and remaining liquid.
All of the sugar and dry ingredients are measured into the bowl of the stand mixer.
The butter and some of the buttermilk – ready for the initial creaming into the sugar and dry ingredients.
And here are the eggs (and yolk), the rum, the remaining buttermilk, and some vanilla and lemon juice. Everything is mixed and ready to pour.
The sugar and dry ingredients should be whisked together to combine first.
Note – Using the stand mixer to mix the sugar and dry ingredients is NOT a good idea – unless you want to produce a mushroom cloud mess when the paddle flings the dry ingredients out of the bowl. Best to stick with a whisk and to whisk everything vigorously to make sure you have everything uniformly combined.
Add the butter and buttermilk all at once.
I used the splash guard on my mixer to keep as much in the bowl as I could.
Keep the mixer on low and mix until the butter and buttermilk are incorporated.
Note – After the butter and buttermilk are incorporated, increase the mixing speed to medium-high for about 2 minutes.
What I wound up with was a smooth mixture that resembled sugar cookie dough.
Note – Now the eggs and remaining liquid ingredients are added in two stages – the second stage being just like the first. Keep the mixer running and give the batter 30 seconds or so between additions for the eggs and liquids to fully incorporate.
Addition one. Pouring the egg and liquid mixture into the bowl of the stand mixer with the mixer running on the lowest speed.
After 30 seconds of mixing, I stopped the mixer to scrape down the sides.
With the mixer running again, I poured-in the remaining egg/liquid slowly and allowed it to mix for another 30 seconds to fully integrate the added egg/liquid.
The finished batter.
Transferred to the prepared bundt pan.
Note – I tapped the filled bundt pan several times on the counter to even-out the batter.
Baked at 350 °F until the internal temperature reached 200 °F in several places.
Inverted to remove the bundt pan and cool.
While the cake was still warm, I decided to brush it once with more rum for added rum flavor. I also decided that it needed some form of icing. My impromptu icing consisted of 4 oz. cream cheese (room temperature) mixed with 8 oz. confectioners sugar, a big splash of half-and-half, and a huge splash of rum – all whisked together. Ultimately, the icing was a little liquid-y so after I poured it over my cake, I sifted some additional confectioners sugar onto the top – the confectioners sugar absorbed into the glaze as the cake cooled and I wound up with a great tasting add-on. The icing was a last-minute decision – the cake would have probably tasted just fine with a dusting of confectioners sugar. But I’m on a rum kick right now.
Here is the cake with the icing (and added confectioners sugar).
A simple butter cake. But moister, richer, and with a far better texture than any butter cake I have ever made.
Unfortunately, you can’t taste a picture. A simple yellow butter cake fragrant with rum and lightly speckled with flecks from the vanilla bean paste and ground vanilla bean powder. It is simultaneously elegant and decadent in its simplicity. I cannot overstate the magnificence of the result.
While I can’t rightly say that this cake has made an honest man out of me, I definitely have been converted forever to a new paradigm of butter cake-ing. Out with the old, in with the new. My experiment was a proof of concept – an outrageously successful proof that this conceptual rethinking can work brilliantly.
Rose Levy Beranbaum (author of The Baking Bible) – I’m totally on your side now. I’m hardheaded and usually need to be won-over to new beliefs by my own experience. Thanks for the nudge that got me excited enough to get this out of my system.
Everyone else? Watch this space for future posts that will document baking projects taken from the beautiful offerings in my new favorite baking book.
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