Day 6: Cake basics and marbled cake tips.

Hello fork musketeers!

Today we learned about some cake-making basics.

Mmm delicious.

Cakes always start with four ingredients: butter, sugar, eggs and flour. Most recipes tend to say:

1. Cream butter and sugar until creamy.
2. Add eggs in small additions until well-combined.
3. Add flour in small additions until well-combined.
4. Add your favourite flavouring at the end.

However, one of the things our Chef has been teaching us is, "you must talk with your pastry." So he suggested:

1. Cream butter and sugar.
2. Add a bit of eggs OR flour.
3. If you added eggs first, continue adding sugar until all sugar is incorporated.
4. Alternate between the two until both are incorporated.
5. Add your favourite flavouring. (Exception: Chocolate powder should be sifted together with the flour)
6. Fold in cream. It gives the final product a softer texture though it can be omitted.

If you're familiar with the world of baking, you may have heard that bread and french macarons tend to be finicky with the weather. In practice, however, the environment always effects whatever you're making - including cakes.

For example, If you're creaming your butter and sugar together but it looks pretty dry and you can clearly see the sugar grains, it's probably a good idea to add one of your eggs. On the other hand, if it's looking pretty light and fluffy, you can add the flour first. Chef suggested to alternate between the two since you have a better way to gauge how wet or dry your batter is, although you could totally add all your eggs or flour according to the recipe. The important thing is to know which one should be added first and to fully incorporate your sugar before proceeding.

I've found adding the egg first makes emulsifying the batter easier. If you do this, make sure the butter and sugar are fully incorporated into the egg before you start adding flour. It helps prevent your batter from separating.

How to line your pan

So you've got your batter ready and it looks glorious. Now you just have to put it in your pan and done! You could put your batter into the pan without anything if it's a nonstick pan. However, if it's getting a little worn from use and you know you need to put something, here are a few things you can do.

Method #1: Butter and flour

Arguably, the easiest method is to butter and flour your pan. You can either use a paper towel or a pastry brush and rub the butter along the inside of your pan. Then put some flour and gently move the flour around to coat the butter.

I like how this method is simple and doesn't require anything too special. It can, however, make your pan a little messy with the additional flour.

Method #2: Parchment paper

This method requires parchment paper, butter and a bit of geometry.

First you'll need to butter your pan. Then take your pan and place your pan width-wise on one end of the paper.

Fold the bottom edge to the edge of the pan. Repeat with the other side and remember to rotate the pan 90˚. When you're done doing all the folds, cut it like so:

Then you can place it in your pan. Don't forget the corners!

Make sure the rectangular part stays inside and trim the parchment paper so it isn't flopping everywhere. Done!

I personally like this method since the pan stays relatively clean. You do, however, need parchment paper on hand. 

Whichever method you choose, make sure it's your preferred method!

Protip: Pipe a small line of butter in the middle of your loaf. This will help your loaf have a nice, cracked detail on the top, like the one on the left.

Marbled cake

There are a few ways to marble a marbled cake. The most common method I've seen is to put the chocolate batter on top of the plain batter and run a toothpick/knife through it. I think this works for more shallower cakes but it becomes harder to get a consistent marble in a thicker/wider product.

One method to marble a cake is to pour the plain batter into your pan and pipe two lines of chocolate; it will depend on the shape of your pan.

You'll continuously pipe over the lines until you run out of chocolate. Then you'll take a knife and circle around the chocolate lines. The knife will stay straight - so blade facing the ground - the entire time; don't rotate your knife like you're scraping a bowl with a spatula (which is what I did). You should get a nice marbled top.