Baking a Cake: Third Time Lucky

Hello People. After the disaster last time with trying my hand at baking, about which I have written here,I tried two more times. And I found success on my third try. I can't tell you how relieved I am that it finally worked. If it hadn't worked this time too, I would have had to abandon the project. My wife had put me on notice that if the project "bake a cake" had not tasted good this time, I will have to do the dishes and be solely responsible for changing my 18 month old son's diapers for rest of the year. Anyway, this is how I managed to save my neck. 

After the failure of my first attempt I was told that "tsp" in the recipe is actually "teaspoon" and not "tablespoon". That explains the overflowing batter and the bitter taste. Also I was told not to mix the batter too much. Looks like trying to get things too perfect isn't always a good thing, after all. I made these adjustments to the recipe and tried a second time. This time it took forever to turn brown. Even then it wasn't cooked at the core. Disappointed, I left the cake in the oven and switched it off. When I took out the cake pan to throw it away, the cake was about 70% done. So, it turns out that the temperature of my oven is not what its supposed to be. 

So, my third attempt, I did everything just the same way as the second time but increased the oven temperature to the maximum possible setting. In about 20 minutes, the cake had become brown, puffed up and separated from the edges. And it was yummy, my son is the main taster. So, here is the recipe that worked for me. 

Materials and Methods:

• 11/2 cups of "cake and pastry" flour.
• 1 cup of sugar (I used a little less that 1 cup).
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder 
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

All the above were mixed in a mixing bowl, lets call it "fluor mix". Then, I made a hole in the middle of the fluor mix and added the following:

• 8oz yogurt
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• few raisins

This was stirred just enough to have everything mixed. Watch out, the batter should be thick, not watery. I poured the mix into a 9" baking bowl and added on top some pecans and sliced almonds. This is how it looked before going into the oven. 

The oven should be pre-heated to 340F. Since the thermostat in my oven seems to be broken, I set mine to the maximum possible. In about 15 minutes the cake had started turning brown and had puffed. I let it stay in the oven for another 10 minutes before taking it out. 

Results:

This is how the cake looked when I took it out of the oven.

I hope you can make out that it is in a convex-like shape. Also notice that the edges of the cake had moved away from the sides of the baking dish. This is how it looks inside.

And it tastes great. Now that I have shown her some positive results from my initial experiments, my wife has reconsidered my grant application and extended support for my culinary project for some more time. The cake tastes double good because it has happened at a time when an experiment that I had been working on for the last couple of weeks, and had looked very exciting at the beginning, has turned out a dud. 

Next time, another new experiment. Till then, don't give up on your watery cakes. 

Trying To Bake A Cake - The Freshman Attempt

Introduction:

I have finally decided to take the first step towards indulging in my newly acquired hobby - cooking. I have a reason behind developing this hobby that is linked to my professional life. You see, as a researcher working in a biology lab, life can sometimes seem pretty bleak. Experiments don't work, the projects will hit roadblocks that would seem just impossible to get over and there is a constant pressure to get data for the next publication. And if you are a postdoc then there are the little issues related to career progression and trying to settle down in a more secure job position. As you can imagine life can easily get pretty depressing. In such a scenario, it is important to have those little victories that can cheer you up and help in relaxing the life just that little bit. And for that reason, I feel every researcher should have an extracurricular interest that they can lavish their attention on from time to time. For me, apart from writing these blog, that arena for easier victories is the kitchen. Moreover, learning new recipes is not all that different from doing experiments in the lab. In fact, I think kitchen was probably the first laboratory which humans might have developed.

Now, coming to my first attempt at baking. I got a simple recipe from a lab colleague (Thank you, Theresa) to bake a cake without much effort. She claims that even those who have been utter failures in their previous attempts at baking have been able to master this recipe successfully. We'll see in just a bit if that is for real. Anyway, this is what happened.  

Materials and Methods:

• 11/2 cups of "cake and pastry" fluor.
• 1 cup of sugar.
• 2 "tablespoons" of baking powder (now I did'nt know how big a tablespoon was. Google told me it could hold 15ml. So, I used a spoon that I thought could hold 15ml. You will soon see how that turned out)
• 1/2 tablespoon salt (again, I have no idea how much that is)

All the above were mixed in a mixing bowl, lets call it "fluor mix". Then, I made a hole in the middle of the fluor mix and added the following:

• 8oz yogurt
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs (pre-beaten)
• few raisins

This was stirred well. Just to be sure that there were no clumps, I stirred it some more. Then, a little more. And more. I poured the mix into a 9" baking bowl and added on top some cut strawberries, pecans and sliced almonds. This is how it looked before going into the oven.

  

OK, now I had forgotten to switch on the oven for preheating before I started. I switched it on to 340F while I was stirring the batter. That was the first mistake I realized with the procedure. The baking dish, with the batter, was kept in the oven (that was preheated for maybe 5 minutes) for 40 minutes. By this time, the cake (that's what I thought the thing in the oven was) has started turning brown on one half while the other half was still whitish. So, I turned the dish around so the other side too can get the heat. After about 5 minutes, the area that was earlier white had turned a little brown but the other area started to turned a very dark (going towards black) brown. I panicked at this stage for the safety of my creating and took it out of oven. I touched the cake and it was spongy. So, I thought the cake was ready to eat (mmmmm.........). A bit of the batter had overflown when the cake rose and was sticking out of the dish. The surface of the cake looked flat instead of the curved that one would expect. 

Results:

This is how the cake looked when it came out of the oven. 

All the strawberries had sunken inside while a few of the nuts stayed afloat. After things cooled down, I tasted a bit of the cake that was sticking out from the dish. It was salty and bitter. I thought this as well as the overflowing of the batter was probably because of too much baking powder and salt. I stuck a knife (seen in the above picture) into the cake to make sure it is done. It came out wet with some batter sticking to it. It looked like the inside was still raw while the top was done. On cutting, there was a small layer just beneath the top that was done below which was gooey. 

A little looking around the google informed me that this could be because the oven was not prewarmed or the temperature was not what it said. 

Lessons for future:

1. use less baking powder. 
2. less or no salt (is salt required in a cake?).
3. buy the measuring spoons.
4. prewarm the oven.    
5. maybe pour less batter in the baking dish. 
6. check the oven temperature.

OK, next time with my second attempt with an improved protocol for this cake. Till then, ciao.