Pregled posta

Marketing

Yellow butter cake. Recipe from Professional Baking, fifth edition, by Wayne Gisslen.

This is unlike any recipe source I have ever seen. It isn't really a cookbook, though it has recipes. It is a textbook for culinary students, but this edition has been revised to suit the needs of amateurs.

With this book, for the first time, I can adapt a cake recipe for whatever size pans I care to use. The recipes are broken into three components:

1. Procedure for mixing. This one uses the "creaming method."
2. Procedure for scaling and baking. This is a table that shows the baking temperature and time, depending on the pan size and type of cake.
3. Formula. This gives the ingredients in both ounces and grams.

The formula in the book was suitable for four 8- or 9-inch pans. With the metric system of weights, it is easy to scale down the recipe for the two, smaller 6-inch pans I wanted to use. And because I can weigh the ingredients, it is very easy to get the right amounts. This is much easier and more accurate than scaling volume measurements.

The mixing method called for surprisingly long mixing times.

The result was a very smooth, mild-flavored and delicious cake.

Butter 3 oz 90 g
Sugar 3.25 oz 98 g
Salt 1/6 tsp 1 g
Eggs 1 egg 56 g
Cake flour 3.75 oz 113 g
Baking powder scant tsp. 4.5 g
Milk 1/2 C 120 ml
Vanilla extract 1/2 tsp 2.5 mil

1. Butter two 6-inch cake pans. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees F (190 C)
2. Have all ingredients at room temperature/
3. Beat butter with paddle attachment till smooth and creamy.
4. Add the sugar, salt and vanilla. Cream the mixture at moderate speed until the mixture is light and fluffy, about 8-10 minutes.
5. Add the egg, and mix until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes, scraping the sides of the bowl.
6. Add 1/4 of the sifted flour and baking powder, then 1/3 of the milk. Repeat until all ingredients are used, scraping the sides of the bowl occasionally.
7. Distribute the batter into the two cake pans.
8. Bake 18 minutes till a toothpick inserted in the center comes out almost clean.
Chocolate frosting recipe came from Cooking for Two published by America's Test Kitchen.

Added April 3, 2010:

The formula for the diameter of a circle is Pi x radius squared.

3.14159 x 3 x 3 = 28.27 square inches, the area of the bottom of a 6" pan

The area of a 9-inch pan's bottom is 31.81 square inches.

So if you prepare the recipe for one 9-inch layer but cook it in two 6-inch layers, it will rise an extra 8th of an inch for each inch it rises in a 9-inch pan. This is a trivial difference.

This escalator cleaner decided to do a shortcut by placing a towel in each hand and just ride up the rail. I'm sure it's standard procedure but I never really thought about cleaning escalators before this shot was snapped.