How to Bake a Cake from Scratch
A box cake might be easy, but nothing tastes better and makes you feel more proud than discovering how to bake a cake from scratch.There are a couple things to keep in mind when making a homemade cake. First, make sure all your ingredients are ready to go. Check that your baking powder and baking soda aren't too old (it can impact whether the cake rises); bring the butter and eggs to room temperature before cooking begins (cold ingredients can effect the cake's texture).
It is important not to over-mix the flour--doing so could develop the gluten to a point where the cake could lose its volume (and, in the case of other baked goods, makes them tough). Stop mixing when you no longer see streaks of flour in the bowl.
During baking, keep the oven closed as much as possible--opening and closing the door lowers the oven temperature and increases cooking time. When finished baking, cool the cake on a wire rack, allowing air to circulate completely around the cake. After 10 minutes, turn the cake out of the pan and onto the rack to cool completely.
Transcript
-Hey, everybody, it's Chef Lovely, and I definitely have a
sweet tooth today. So, we are gonna make a beautiful
White Cake. Here are the ingredients: 4 egg whites; 2
cups of all-purpose flour; 1 teaspoon of baking powder; 1/2
teaspoon of baking soda; 1/2 teaspoon of salt; 1/2 cup
of butter of shortening that has been softened; 1-3/4 cups
of sugar; 1 teaspoon of vanilla; and 1-1/3 cups of
buttermilk or sour milk. Okay everybody, let's get started. So,
firs things first, I want you to go ahead and
preheat your oven to 350 degrees and I also want
you to lightly spray your baking pan as you're gonna
be using. You can use a round dish. You can
use a rectangular dish. It's solely up to you, but
I want you to spray with a nonstick cooking spray
first, and then lightly flour it as you can see
what I've done here. This way, our cake comes out
perfect and it's not gonna stick to our pan. Okay,
now, that's out of the way, let's move on to
these ingredients. So, in 1 bowl, we're gonna mix together
all of our dry ingredients. So, we have our flour.
We have our salt baking powder and baking soda. Now,
those are you leavening agents that's what gonna make our
cake rise, get nice and fluffy and beautiful. Okay and
I'm gonna take a whisk here or you can use
a fork and just give this a nice toss. Mix
it up really well so that everything is evenly distributed
within our flour here, okay. This is gonna be the
easiest cake. You're gonna use it every time. You absolutely
gonna love it. Alright, so there we go. Okay, now
we have our dry ingredients. So, let's get our wet
ingredients together. So, first things first, we're gonna take our
butter. We're gonna put it in our bowl here and
I'm gonna give it a mix with my hand mixer
just to loosen it up and kind of get it
going to get it ready for our other ingredients. So,
here we go, okay. Okay, now, what's making this process
go so quickly is that my butter is at room
temperature. It's nice and soft and it's ready to go.
So, next, we're gonna add in some sugar. We have
to sweeten up the deal, okay, and we're also gonna
add in some vanilla beautiful fragrance vanilla, and we're gonna
go back in. We're gonna give it a mix until
it's nice and creamy. So here we go. Okay, now
here's the chef lovely tip. In between, I want you
to go in with your spatula and I want you
to clean down the sides of the bowl so that
we can make sure that we're getting all of those
ingredients in our butter mixture here. So, I'm gonna go
back in, and give that one more beat just that
we can really cream this 3 ingredients together. Okay, fantastic,
now, we're gonna move over to our egg white. This
is gonna give our white cake nice buddy and height.
So, I have them already in my bowl here, but
we're not gonna put them all in at the same
time. We're gonna pour in egg white at a time,
and incorporate it. So, here we go, I'm gonna add
a little bit in, and I'm gonna mix it. Okay,
now that we have our egg white, incorporate it into
our butter and sugar mixture here. We're gonna go in
alternating with our dry ingredients and our buttermilk. So, here
we go. I'm gonna do half my dry, give it
a mix, and then half of our buttermilk. Now, let's
add our remaining parts of our dry ingredients. Woo, flour
sour. Okay and before I add in my remaining buttermilk,
I wanna go ahead and give my bowl a nice
wipe down here making sure that we're incorporating of these
ingredients just like that. Okay, so let's go in with
our remaining buttermilk. We're gonna beat it for about 30
more seconds, and then I'm gonna show you how we're
gonna get it in our pan. Okay, there we go.
So, let's take our spatula. Let's get one more good
wipe down in the sides of the bowl and here
is my dish, remember, it's already sprayed and floured, it
comes out easily, and let's go ahead and just put
that right in the center here, make sure that you
scrape and get all of that go batter right out,
okay. So, I'm gonna take the back of my spatula
here and I'm gonna push it out so that it
hits all the corners, all the sides, so as a
nice even cake just like that. Another trick you can
definitely pick up the pan and just kind stroll and
tap it around, but I'm just gonna use the back
of my spatula here. So, it's couple of seconds. It's
not tough to do just like that. There we go.
Get this little corner here, fantastic. It's nice and even,
which is what you want, okay. Here's little tip that
my mom taught me to get any air bubbles or
anything like that just give it a nice little hit
on your cutting board or your table just to make
sure. Okay, now that we have our batter here in
our pan, we're gonna put this in the oven for
about 30 to 35 minutes because of the size of
my pan. If you're using something little smaller or round
shape just probably gonna be about 20 to 25 minutes.
So, I'm gonna go and put this in the oven
and when we come back, I'm gonna show you beautiful
and fluffy this white cake is. Okay everybody, so as
you can see, we've taken our cake out and it
looks absolutely gorgeous. It's even. It's golden brown all the
way around. So, this is what you're looking for. Here
is the Chef Lovely tip, take a wooden toothpick, stick
directly in the center of the cake. If it comes
out clean with nothing on it, you know that it's
ready to go. If there is still a little bit
of batter on, you need to put it back in
the oven for about another 2 to 5 minutes, okay.
So, to decorate or garnish this cake, there are many
different things you can do. You can use frosting. You
can cover it ganache. You can add fresh fruit, powdered
sugar mint, whatever you like, but today I have decided
to take to take some orange marmalade right out of
the jar. I put in the microwave for about 10
seconds just to get it nice and loose and I'm
gonna show you how this is gonna go with our
cake. So, let's stop talking and let's cut in to
this cake here, okay. So, I'm gonna go down this
thinner just like that so I can get nice even
cut, and then cut it in half. So, let's go
in for a piece of cake, and you can see
it's nice and moist. It looks gorgeous, okay. So, what
I'm gonna do, I'm gonna take a little bit of
our warm marmalade here and I'm gonna put some just
right at the bottom of the plate, kind of make
a bed of our orange marmalade just like that, okay,
and then we're gonna take our cake, sit that right
on top, and then we're gonna go back in just
for a little bit more of this marmalade here, and
kind of just drag straight across just like that. Again,
have fun with it. You can decorate and garnish this
cake any way you like. Okay, so of course, we
have to go in for a taste. So, here we
go. It's the perfect cake as the few ingredients-- It's
moist. It's absolutely delicious. So, want you to make this
classic and delicious white cake.
What You'll Need
- 4 egg whites
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup butter or shortening, softened
- 1-3/4 cups sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1-1/3 cups buttermilk or sour milk
Step By Step
1
Allow egg whites to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, grease and lightly flour two 9x1-1/2-inch or 8x1-1/2-inch round cake pans or grease one 13x9x2-inch baking pan; set the pan(s) aside. In a medium bowl stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
2
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar and vanilla; beat until well combined. Add egg whites 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Alternately add flour mixture and buttermilk to butter mixture, beating on low speed after each addition just until combined. Spread batter into the prepared pan(s).
3
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes for 9-inch pans, 30 to 35 minutes for 8-inch pans or 13x9-inch pan, or until a wooden toothpick inserted near centers comes out clean. Cool cake layers in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes. Remove cake layers from pans. Cool thoroughly on racks. Or, place 13x9x2-inch cake in pan on a wire rack; cool thoroughly. Frost with desired frosting.
4
Makes 12 to 16 servings
5
Coconut White Cake: Prepare as above, except stir 3/4 cup toasted flaked coconut into batter.
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