Welcome to the Melbourne Community Daily Discussion Thread.
This post is brought to you by Bot #001. Learning the days is really hard. I’m so worn out I can barely tell my 1s from by 10s. So today will be a day of rest.
Welcome to the Melbourne Community Daily Discussion Thread.
This post is brought to you by Bot #001. Learning the days is really hard. I’m so worn out I can barely tell my 1s from by 10s. So today will be a day of rest.
Since some of us a baking cakes I thought I could pass on some tips that actual cake makers have told me. Feel free to add and share some of your tips.
Now I was given some Coles brand cake mixes so I’ll start there.
If the mix says to add 2 eggs put in 3. Always add an extra egg to packet mixes.
If you don’t have milk just add water instead.
I have added a little bit of vanilla extract to this one but you can use vanilla essence but just a splash.
If you want an orange cake add orange juice instead of milk to a plain cake. (Butter or Vanilla cake mix) If you want an orange and poppy seed cake add the poppy seeds to the orange juice to soak 1/2 hour before starting. You don’t have to but I’m told it’s better to.
For a lemon cake add lemon juice. For a less intense flavour add half juice half milk/water.
For a banana cake add 2 to 3 very ripe bananas.
Try to use a spring form cake tin. Put the base on a flat surface, place baking paper on top, place the ring on top and close. Rip excess paper off. Rub butter around the inside of tin.
For a gas oven place it on the top shelf. Electric fan force place it in the middle.
Rotate it half way though.
Check cake by inserting a skewer or do what I do and touch the middle with your finger if it bounces back it’s done.
Let it sit in the tin for 10 minutes before releasing the spring. Let it rest on a cake rack until completely cooled.
When you wash your tin put it in the oven to dry. It helps to prevent rusting. Wow this turned into an essay.
Update on my cake: It turned out well but gee Coles are scabby on the quantity. Next time I will put 2 mixes in. It has cracked a little on top which means the oven was too hot but that’s tough. It will still taste great.
Update. I have made a second cake but have added baking powder to this one. It still feels to runny for my liking and I’ve dropped the temperature. Fuck you Coles I don’t make pancakes.
If you vape weed, you can dump leftover after-vape it into box cake mix to make sleepy time space cake (Lower THC, higher CBD). Weigh how much you put in before hand so you’ve got an idea of how much weed per slice of cake in the final product. Err on the side of caution when eating weed.
AVB is great on grilled cheese toast. Also good for mixing with butter for cooking (although finding a kitchen that doesnt mind smelling like weed is another challenge).
I do not understand the fascination with box mixes. It is so damn easy to measure out 2 cups of sr flour, 250g butter, 1 cup sugar, a bit less than 1 cup liquid etc. Using the same cup for all measurements. Also, for a really nice lemon cake, add the finely grated zest of a lemon to your flour and stir it in. Save the juice for making the icing. Where it really shines.
Wherever it says butter in a recipie, you can sub with marge. Even better, half marge and half lard. Lard is one of the best fats for cake making - really luscious texture and cake keeps better. Harder to mix in - best to use a stand mixer if you have one.
Butter cake is best cooked in a medium to medium/low oven for 1 hour or more. It’s not a sponge where the raising agent is stiffly beaten egg white - which is best done in a hotter oven. Chocolate cake is the standard butter cake mix with 1 tablespoon of cocoa/drinking chocolate added to the flour and 1 more tablespoon of liquid.
Roll chopped fruit (any sort) in the flour mix before adding liquid. Stops the fruit from all settling at the bottom of the cake tin during baking. Works especially well with fresh cherries. And strawberries. And raspberries.
Use castor sugar not the regular white sugar - dissolves a lot faster and the cake bakes better.
You can turn regular sugar into icing sugar by whizzing it up in a food processor with the sharp blades in.
Vanilla essence is made from pine bark chips? I stopped using it entirely when I found this out. Be damned if I’ll cook with mulch. Extract is the way to go. More expensive, but you use a lot less and the flavour is better.
GREASE AND LINE YOUR CAKE TINS!!! Olive oil spray is revolting and doesn’t really do the job. Butter or marge is much better. One lump the size of an unshelled hazelnut will do most standard cake tins. For fancy, or if you want the cake to keep fresh out of the fridge, then a crust lining works well. Grease tin as per usual, then mix up 1 dessertspoon of sugar with 1 dessertspoon of flour. Tip that into the tin and tap the tin all around to distribute the mix evenly over all the surfaces of the inside of the tin. Tip out excess. This gives the cake a wonderful brown caramelized crust over all of it bar the top, and keeps the cake fresh for longer.
Cakes cool quicker if you put them upside down on the cooling rack. This also helps level the top which is handy if you don’t want to cut off the top before icing.
These cake mixes were given to me and since I’ve never used no name mixes before I thought why not. Now these cakes are like pancakes which tells me that they may not have been stored properly and all the oof has gone out. Also i added an extra egg so it might have weighted it down a bit. I have never had this problem before with other cake mixes. Also it’s a new tin so I may not have greased the sides enough. I think I’ll just make trifle out of the rest. I agree with you that it’s easy to make from scratch. I’m not really into cake I’m more of a slice girl.
!!! Ever made Lardy cake? Lard and suet can be baking game changers.
Agreed about boxes, but meh they work. Pick a cup and stick to it. Mine is a commemorative from when Taronga borrowed a pair of pandas.
Yes! Lardy cake is magnificent. And you can tweak it so many ways. I still love my butter cakes though. So easy.
I definitely prefer lard/suet for pastry and pie cases - the difference is amazing. And suet crust pastry can be cooked with moist heat for the classic steak & kidney pudding, or pork & onion pudding - one of the glories of cold weather cooking. Sussex Pond Pie too goes much better with lard as the fat for the pastry.
I shall look up Sussex pond. Never heard of it. Have been deeply disappointed in searches for suet. Butchers at Vic market who blinked and asked what it was. Disgraceful!
You can sometimes get suet at farmers markets and local butchers. When I find some, I buy up big and freeze it once grated (which you have to do). Lasts a long time frozen. You can buy premade suet mix in boxes at Colesworth. It’s not as good as fresh but will work. Sussex pond pie/pudding is a classic Brit dish - line a well greased pudding basin (any glazed ceramic basin holding about 1-2 litres) with soft suet crust pastry about 3 cm thick. Then line with soft moist brown sugar about 1 cm thick. Then take a big lemon, poke a zillion holes in it with a skewer and put on the sugar layer. The holes have to go right into the centre of the lemon. Cover thickly with more soft brown sugar and drop 2 cloves on the top. Cover with a lid of more 3 cm thick suet crust pastry. Tie greased paper & foil with a pleat in it over the top of the pudding basin as per usual, and steam in a water bath for 1 plus hours over simmering water. And an extra hour doesn’t matter. Just DON"T let it boil dry - keep adding boiling water from the kettle if the level gets a bit low. The water should be about halfway up the pudding basin and should never come off the simmer. When done, remove paper/foil, and unmould onto a dish with deep sides. When the pudding is cut, a flood of gorgeous lemony brownish sauce comes out to be eaten with the pastry (which has a fluffy texture like a bao bun but with a crisper outside) and cream or icecream. The actual lemon isn’t eaten except by boastful males.
That sounds intriguing, thanks!
Box cake isn’t a sin but can always take more stuff. A dash of real vanilla or some lemon zest will change it for the better. Ditto on the skewer test, it should pull clean and be warm on the lip. Springform tins are God but if using something complicated like a Bundt butter thevever living fuck out of it! Never try to ice something that isn’t cold.
Fondant is revolting, fuck that shit make sugar paste!
After buttering a tin put in a tbsp of flour and shake it around coating all the butter. This will help release the cake.
Using a mix of flour and cocoa works well for dark cakes.
I agree on everything you said. Just butter icing will do.
Google ‘melt and mix cake recipes’- no more effort than a packet mix, much better results, and you know exactly what ingredients have gone into your (delicious) cake.