Baking Trial 003 03 February 2013

Pushing the boundaries of the Sweet Spot in cake formulations, I went to the brink and promptly fell over. The result was Baking Trial Formulation 003, a failure by all accounts. Shows what comes from making too many changes at once.

It is recommended that nobody else try this because it is rather awful:

Flour, cake      95 g
Flour, RS Rice   15 g
Baking Pdr.       5 g
Baking Soda       - g
Sugar, gran.     82 g
Oil, canola      35 g, melted with
Short., palm    3.6 g (1 tsp.)
Salt, kosher    1.7 g
Eggs, whites     70 g (from 2 large eggs)
Eggs, yolks      38 g (from 2 large eggs)
Whey, sour       52 g (drained from skim milk yogurt)
Honey            22 g
Raisin purée     36 g
Vanilla ext.     5 ml
Lemon extract    8 drops
Extract, Sunflower kernel +25 g (from 1.0M extraction)

Mise-en-place setup was modified chiffon-style:

1. Grind raisins, whey, and honey in blender. Filter, and combine with vanilla, lemon, sunflower extract.
2. Sift together cake flour, RS rice flour, baking powder, 40g. of the sugar, and salt.
3. Separate eggs, whites into meringue bowl with remaining 42g. sugar on the side; yolks into primary mixing bowl.
4. Melt oil with shortening, let cool on the side of egg white.
5. Preheat oven to 320°F; place pan of boiling water in rack under main rack.
6. Baking pans ungreased.

Make-up as follows:

1. Whisk egg yolks until ribbon stage;
2. Gradually drizzle oil-shortening into yolks while whisking, making emulsion.
3. Drizzle liquids mixture into yolk-sunflower mix, whisk until uniform.
4. Disengage beaters and manually sift in flour mixture, mixing gently until fully moistened and uniform.
5. With cleaned utensils, whip the egg whites until soft-peak is reached, then sift in sugar and whip until a medium-peak French meringue is formed.
6. Lighten flour-egg batter with ¼ the meringue, then fold this into the remaining meringue until uniform.

The batter was portioned into the pan using a ¼-cup measure to fill the cups halfway. Each pan portion weighed about 34.7g. Excess batter was divided into six cups of a standard cupcake pan, two paper-lined.

The Canoe shape was baked at 320°F for 18min. Cupcake shapes were baked in a separate oven, 13 min. at 325°F, also with water pan.

Depanning was with an inverted slap against a sturdy wooden surface.

Canoe cake average weight was about 28.6g, for a baking loss of 18%: still a little high. Noticeable decrease in rise and final cake volume.

Trial 003 resulted in a moist, somewhat greyish cake with open-cell surface structure.

Sensory evaluation:

• Fragile crumb, falls apart in mouth
• Sweet, but not too too sweet
• Noticeably heavy, chewy, and gummy
• Weird smell; unexpected
• Uneven sponge cell structure

Overall the consensus was Not Good. It is likely the un-neutralized acid of the raisins adversely affected the flavor. Excess RS rice flour and/or sunflower extract, and probably underbaking conspired to make a rather-less-than-fun experience.

Adjustment for next trial:

• Revert to 002 formula and technique as new baseline.
• Increase canoe baking time to 19-20min.

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Happily, five days after baking, the 002 cakes remain fresh-like and quite yummy, longing though they are for a Luscious Creamed Filling to complete their existence.

More trial results coming up...

Beekeeping for Poets

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