This week I received a bunch more baking questions from readers. Great questions but I’m not much of a baker so again I asked my friend Chef Jenni for help. Readers want to know about pre-making tarts, white sugar substitutes, baking soda questions and more. Here are a few of the questions I received and Jenni’s responses.

Making Tartlets Ahead of Time

Judy asked, I’m going to make your key lime tartlet for a bridal shower on June 25ht, 2011. I just wanted to know how far ahead can I make the tartlets? Thank you, Judy

Jenni says, You can make the tart shells and freeze them, uncooked, for up to a month.  Since your party is on the 25th, this won’t be a problem for you.  If you want, bake them the day before filling them, and keep them at room temperature.  I wouldn’t make the filling more than 2 days ahead.  Freshest is always best, and you don’t want your tarts picking up any stray refrigerator smells.

Substituting Raw Sugar for White

Kimberly asks, Can I substitute raw sugar for white in cordial an jam recipes?

Jenni says, Yes, you can certainly substitute raw sugar for white.  Since it contains more impurities (mainly molasses, which is never a bad thing in my book), the color might not be as vibrant.  As long as you’re fine with that, go for it.

Substituting Baking Soda with Baking Powder

Jeanie Koch asks, I have a recipe for bran muffins and it calls for 3 tablespoons of baking soda, it also uses buttermilk, what I would like to know is if I can use half baking soda and half baking powder. Thank you.

Jenni says, It’s hard to know how to answer your question without seeing the recipe.  I will say that 3 tablespoons of baking powder is a heck of a lot.  Generally speaking, it takes 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda to properly leaven 1 cup of flour.  Most likely, the bulk of the baking soda is there to offset the acid in the vinegar.

When you start talking about swapping out baking soda for baking powder (or vice versa, for that matter) you’re really talking about altering the pH of the batter.  Vinegar makes a batter acidic, and baking soda makes it more alkaline.  Baking powder is neutral, since it contains ingredients that balance, pH-wise.

If you mess with the pH of your batter, you run the risk of its not setting up–too alkaline (basic), and it won’t set at all and you’ll end up with pudding.  If you have used the recipe before and liked it, I’d just stick with it.  If you’d like to send me the recipe, I’ll take a look at it and see if it’s possible to make some substitutions without altering what it is you like about that bran muffin recipe in the first place.

Yeast in Bread

Ron asks, Can you please tell me how much fresh yeast I should use for a 2 pound loaf made in a bread maker? I have tried with 12 grams but it nearly took the lid off the bread maker. I am using 560 grams of flour, brown sugar, vegetable oil, skimmed milk, salt, plus 3 x 60 gram vitamin “C” tablets crushed. I would really like a reply as all the bread I am making at the moment is soggy at the top and has to be cut off and wasted.

Jenni says, You can do one of two things (or both):

1. Cut down to 8-9g fresh yeast  and/or
2. Cut down or eliminate the amount of Vitamin C you’re using.  Maybe just go w/1 - 60g Vitamin C tab instead of 3.

Now that I think of it, you might also make the dough in your bread machine and then take it out, let it rise and bake in your oven at 375F.  That way, your bread won’t be constrained by the lid of your bread machine and some of the moisture will be able to escape into the oven, keeping your bread from getting soggy.

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Yet another baking problem requiring an answer. I’m not much of a baker (yet) although my 13 year old daughter loves to bake and her mom (my wife) is a very good baker. In fact she made an Apple Pear Cake recipe given to her from our friend Geoff, another incredible home baker. She made the cake this past weekend and it was scrumptious. My wife was delighted her apple pear cake turned out as well as it did and was so well received. That’s what I love about cooking!

This post is about a problem Stella was having with her pound cake. Here is what Stella asked me:

After baking pound cake, the top and sides are crusty to the point where I can actually peel this off instead of being buttery and soft. What am I doing wrong? I sifted the cake flour and really creamed the cream cheese, butter and sugar well.

I immediately sent Stella’s dilemma to my friend Pastry Chef Jenni Field who knows everything there is to know about baking. She replied:

Hmm.  Is the “crust” crunchy or just detached?

The number one reason that you can get a crunchy, detached layer on the top of cakes and brownies is that you whipped the eggs too much once they were in the batter, in essence making a “stealthy meringue.”  When you put the batter in the pan, the bubble matrix you created by whipping the eggs sort of magically rises to the top and detaches itself.

To test to see if this is the case (and it’s really not much of a hardship to have to eat pound cake, right?!) *just* mix in the eggs, one at a time, on low speed, until they are completely incorporated.  Sounds like you did all the other steps well, and the creaming is the most important way to get bubbles.  Over beating the eggs just gives you too much of a good thing.

So:

1. Sift dry.
2. Cream butter/sugar/cream cheese very well until light and fluffy.
3. Add eggs, one at a time on low, mixing just enough to get them incorporated.
4. Just mix in dry on low (alternating w/any wet).  For pound cake, I usually do dry-wet-dry.
5. Finish mixing by hand, folding w/a large spatula

I hope this helps!

And I hope it answers your question too.

Pound Cake Recipe

Since we are talking about pound cake, I asked Chef Jenni for a favorite version of her own. Here’s what she sent me. I think you are going to like it.

This is an excellent, basic pound cake recipe that can be varied in many, many ways - add some cinnamon, use brown sugar instead of white sugar, use the zest of oranges or lemons, etc.  The 1/4 cup of softly whipped cream gives the cake a wonderful, velvety texture.  You don’t have to do this step if you don’t want to.  In that case, use a whole cup of milk rather than 3/4 cup.

Ingredients:

• 12 oz cool butter, (about 68F)
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt (just a pinch less if you use table salt)
• 2 and 1/2 teaspoons excellent-quality vanilla extract
• 20 oz. sugar (3 cups)
• 5 large eggs
• 13 oz. cake flour, sifted (3 cups)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 cup whole milk
• 1/4 cup heavy cream, very softly whipped (it should be thick but not hold peaks)

How to Prepare at Home

Set an oven rack in the bottom third of the oven.  Preheat oven to 350F.  Thoroughly spray a 12-cup Bundt pan with pan spray.  Add about 1/2 cup of flour and knock it around in the pan until the whole inside of the pan is coated with the flour.  Turn pan upside down and firmly tap out the excess flour.

If using the cream, place a metal or glass bowl and a whisk in the freezer.  You’ll come back to it later.

In a bowl, whisk flour and baking powder together very well.

In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter until smooth and creamy

Add the salt and vanilla and blend in.

With the mixer on medium speed, add the sugar, about 1/4 cup at a time, until it is all incorporated.  Increase the speed to medium-high and beat well for a minute or two until the mixture is light and fluffy.  Scrape bowl as necessary.

Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing on medium-low speed until each egg is just incorporated before adding the next.  Scrape bowl between each addition.

With the mixer off, spoon in about half of the flour.  Mix on low until barely incorporated.  If you can still see some dry flour, don’t worry about it.

Alternate adding half of the milk, half the remaining flour mixture, the rest of the milk and the rest of the dry ingredients, barely mixing between each addition.

Pour the 1/4 cup heavy or whipping cream, if using, into the cold bowl.  Whisk vigorously until the cream thickens to the consistency of a loose pudding. The cream will form low mounds when dropped back into the bowl but will not form peaks.  This should only take a minute or two, as you’re whipping such a small amount of cream.

Scrape the cream into the mixer bowl and, with a large spatula, fold in the cream and incorporate all the dry ingredients gently but thoroughly.

Scrape the batter evenly into the prepared pan and smooth the top.

Bake until deep golden brown, well risen and cracked in the center.  The sides will just start pulling away from the pan and a tester inserted into the cake halfway between the outer side and the inner tube will come out clean–an hour to one hour and 15 minutes.

Let cake cool in the pan on a rack for 15 minutes.  Turn out onto a rack and cool completely, about 2 hours.

To garnish, either sieve some powdered sugar evenly over the top of the cake or make a simple glaze with powdered sugar, a little milk and a splash of vanilla.

This is very good at room temperature with a cup of tea.  To really put it over the top, toast a slice in the toaster oven and serve with a pat of butter.  Heaven!

Related Topics

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The Art of Baking

As you know from previous posts, The Reluctant Gourmet receives lots of questions on various culinary topics including baking and pastry making. I am not a professional chef nor a baker but I try to answer what I can from personal experiences and when I can’t answer a question, I ask a professional for help.

I seem to be getting a lot of baking questions since I posted Baking Questions Answered and More Baking Questions Answered covering a range of topics as diverse as Cracks in Cakes to Can Kitchen Smells Get Into a Cake. My favorite go to professional baker is Chef Jenni Field and here are a few more great questions I referred to her.

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From Susanne: Forgot to Add Sugar to Fruit Cake - What Do I Do?

I have just made a rich 12″ fruit cake, and very stupidly I forgot to add the sugar, is there anything I can do, I really don’t want to throw this cake away.  Thanks I look forward to your reply.

Oh, Susanne.  The short answer is, “No.”  But don’t feel too stupid.  We’ve all been there.  Or, speaking for myself, I’ve been there.  I learned the hard way to taste the batter every step of the way.  Most of the time, it’s a pleasure, but occasionally I’ll catch a potentially Big Problem, such as no sugar, no butter or no salt.

Sugar is a critical ingredient in baking.  Not only does it make baked goods taste sweet, it also keeps them moist, assists in browning and aids in tenderizing. Without sugar, baked goods are unappetizing because of the lack of sweetness, but they are also dry, pale and tough.

It’s too bad that this happened to a fruit cake, because the ingredients can be pretty expensive.  I suppose that you could try dousing the whole thing with a sugar syrup (bring equal parts, by weight, of sugar and water to a boil, stirring until all the sugar is dissolved.  Cool).

Barring that, I’d think outside of the box and consider using your unsweetened fruitcake as a base for stuffing or a bread pudding.  Think about it. You’ve probably got some sort of nuts and fruits in the cake, and the fact that it’s tougher than a “regular” cake would work in its favor in helping the cubes to keep their shape.

For stuffing, just crumble up the fruit cake and dry it out in a very low oven (maybe 180F-200F).  Mix together with chicken stock, sauteed mire poix (onion, carrot and celery), an egg, some poultry seasoning, salt, pepper and maybe some cooked and crumbled sausage.

For the bread pudding, you can introduce sweetness through the custard.  Mix up a basic sweet custard:  one egg and 2-3 tablespoons of sugar per cup of dairy (whole milk, half&half, cream, etc).  Cube your fruit cake, put in a buttered baking dish and pour the custard over.  Let it soak in for a good half hour to hour, and then bake at 325F until somewhat risen, golden brown, set on the edges and just a bit jiggly in the center.  Let cool for about half an hour, and then serve with some ice cream.  Good luck with it!

From Ellen:

 Cracked Chocolate Chip Cookies

Help!  We have a chocolate chip recipe that we have been making for years.  Recently the baked cookies have a different appearance - even from within the same batch.  Baked in the same oven, at the same time and even on the same pan - some cookies bake as usual and others look “cracked” or like they might even have oats in them.  We have had no ingredient substitutions, no change in mixing, climate, etc. Please share any insights as we are really stuck.  Thank you.

I’m going to assume that you’re talking about a “standard” creaming method chocolate chip cookie.  Given that, the only real thing I can think of is that your butter isn’t soft enough when you cream it together with the sugar.

Or maybe your eggs aren’t at room temperature and the batter curdles slightly as the butter seizes up when the cold eggs hits it.  That could definitely leave you with a bit of an “oatmealy” look to your batter.

If your recipe contains baking powder, make sure that it is fresh.  Old baking powder just takes up space and can affect the texture of your batter.

That’s all the insight I can give you since I don’t know your specific ingredient list or technique. I hope this helps, though.

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From Margaret: Altitude Adjustments for Angel Food Cake

I am having trouble with Betty Crocker angel food cake mixes.  I live at 5,280 feet and have a brand new stove.  I followed the high altitude adjustments to the basic mix (added 2 tbsp. corn starch to the dry mix), used a 10″ pan as called for, and baked at 350 degrees.  Three times I have tried this and each time, the cake overflows the pan while baking.  Then when I place it upside down to cool, it falls from the pan.  What can I do to resolve this?  Thanks for your time.

Have you used this mix before and had it turn out correctly?  Maybe with your old oven?

I just looked up the ingredients for this cake mix, and I’d like to take a quick second to suggest that you make angel food cake from scratch.  There’s sodium lauryl sulfate in the mix as a “whipping aid.”  That ingredient is also found in shampoos and is considered irritating.  Plus, it also contains artificial flavorings and BHT as a preservative.  I’d just make a standard angel food cake using real whites, vanilla, salt, cake flour and a little leavening.

If you really love the boxed mix, though, I’ll try to help.  The high altitude directions that I read called for adding 1/3 cup of corn starch, which is 5 tablespoons and 1 teaspoon of corn starch.  It also says to increase the water from 1 1/4 cup to 1 1/3 cup.  The additional dry ingredients will help to “weigh down” the leavening and keep it from overflowing your pan, even with the relatively low atmospheric pressure.  The wee bit of extra water will help it to blend in more evenly.

Make sure that you’re not greasing your pan.  Angel food cake needs to grab onto the sides of the pan to “climb.”  Baking in an ungreased pan also ensures that, when you turn it upside down to cool, it won’t fall out.
I hope that helps (and I really hope you try to make one from scratch)!

Thanks Jenni

So, that concludes this round-up of mostly baking-related questions.  Please note that Chef Jenni often asks to know the recipe - the exact ingredients and procedure you use to make your baked goods.  She says that this is because there are a lot of variables in baking and pastry, that there is a lot of chemistry involved and that knowing the ingredients and procedures can help to narrow down the problem and making it easier to come up with the correct answer.