The Sweet Chef

Are you looking for ways to increase your success at baking a cake? I want to share with you my top 5 ingredients to bake a better cake. I’ve been using these tips of the trade for over 20 years. Now it’s time you get the kudos you deserve. Let’s get started!

Cake Flour

I insist that you use cake flour for baking a cake. Cake flour comes from a different type of wheat than all purpose or bread flour. Cake flour is milled from soft winter wheat with a low protein content and it has soft velvety feel.

Cake flour needs to be sifted before adding it to your cake batter. Use a standard kitchen mesh strainer or a hand held flour sifter. In the bakery we use a large flat barrel sifter for sifting large batches of cake flour.

Unsalted Butter

Always use unsalted butter, sometimes referred to as sweet butter. Butter lends the best flavour to cakes and has good creaming qualities.

For long term storage keep your unsalted butter in the freezer. Take out only what you need for the week and store it in the fridge covered in plastic or wax wrap. Other flavours can easily transfer around the fridge to the butter so store the butter in the butter or cheese compartment of the fridge.

Bring butter to room temperature for best baking results.

Sea Salt

I recommend sea salt for baking as it will impart a pure taste to your cakes. Sea salt also has micro nutrients such as copper, magnesium, silicone, boron and iron that are removed during the refining process. Use sea salt as you would table salt.

Pure Vanilla Extract

You must use pure vanilla extract in your cakes for an intense flavour that can’t compare with the artificial kind. Pure vanilla is extracted from the seed pods (beans) of the vanilla variety of orchid that grows in humid tropical environments. The beans are macerated in an alcohol solution to extract the delicate and unmistakable flavour.

Eggs

Farm fresh eggs direct from the grower or from the grocery store offer the best results for baking cakes. Frozen eggs are a cheaper substitute but don’t offer the leavening power that fresh eggs do. Buy large size eggs for baking as they are a consistent 55 grams per egg, including the shell.  Shelled whole eggs are 50 grams. The egg white is 30 grams and the yolk 20 grams. Bring eggs to room temperature before adding to the cake batter.

Use these tried and true methods for baking your next cake and see the results for yourself.

I’d love to hear from you! Tell me how your next cake turns out. And if you like what you’ve read here please share this article on your social network.

Here’s to your success.

Happy baking!

Love April