Congratulations to reader Ellen M., who was the first to chime in with this correct — and succinct —response to the Joe Pastry “Spot the Difference” challenge: Most of the recipes for cakes that I have found call for creaming the butter and sugar till light, then adding dry and liquid ingredients alternately. This one […]
READ ONA few of you folks seemed to think I came down a little hard on the whole giant decorative cake concept (which I will henceforth call the “entertainment cake”) in my Friday post. I’ll dispute that, since what I think I was really doing was stating a preference. Some cakes are meant to be looked […]
READ ONFabulous cash and prizes (offer null and void on planet Earth) await the first non-professional baker who can tell me what the difference is between the below-posted (actually linked) yellow cake recipe and pretty much every other layer cake recipe they’ve ever seen. Ready….go!
READ ONThis recipe is based on Rose Levy Berenbaum’s excellent All Occasion Downy Yellow Butter Cake, adapted slightly to my own tastes and techniques. Yellow Butter Cake 6 large egg yolks 1 cup milk 2 teaspoons vanilla 13 1/2 ounces (3 cups) cake flour, sifted 10 1/2 ounces (1 1/2 cups) sugar 1 tablespoon plus 1 […]
READ ONThe Lady Baltimore might have been the Dubai Tower of its day, but it is of course nothing compared to the cakes one routinely sees being fashioned on Ace of Cakes. The average American wedding cake can be several feet in height nowadays, though even these giants are miniscule compared to some modern Japanese wedding […]
READ ONThat’s a good question — thanks very much to reader Steve T. (who’s really putting me on the spot here). It’s a good question because the names “torte” and “gâteau” are greatly abused in America. Too often one finds recipes in books or magazines for items that are really layer cakes, but because they have […]
READ ONThis blog is becoming increasingly international, which is good, but is making it increasingly hard for me to snow my audiences. Here’s what Thomas has to say from Vienna: Hi Joe, You hit the nail on the head with your post about baking powder vs. egg foam in the Old World…a good and fun read. […]
READ ONWhat was the biggest cake of the Classical Period of American cake baking? Doubtlessly, that distinction belonged to the giant Lady Baltimore, a three-layer, cherry-and-fig flavored, nut-covered behemoth that hailed from Charleston, South Carolina. Depending on how thick the buttercream was piled on, these cakes could be anything up to ten inches tall. Why didn’t […]
READ ONSo where was I? Oh yes, the middle of the nineteenth century. Ingredients are plentiful and leavening has been (mostly) perfected. The Industrial Revolution is in full swing, which means home ovens are being churned out by the freight car load, to say nothing of implements and pans. By 1870 the New World was primed […]
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