How to Make Cake from Scratch | Global Sugar Art

[Music] hi i'm chef alan tetra with global sugar art we've had a lot of requests to do so a series of youtube videos on basic cake decorating and basic techniques so today's video is going to start the program and today we're going to work on basic techniques of baking a cake i'm going to be showing you how to bake a cake from scratch and also the best way to use mixes to get the best cake you possibly can out of a prepared mix this is just the first in a series we'll go on in the next video to work on icings and different types of icings i'll teach you how to make those and then we'll go on from there on basic piping techniques so i hope to show you a lot of the basic skills that everyone needs to become a great baker and a great decorator let's get started the most important part of baking any cake always starts with your oven most people don't realize that you can calibrate your oven on the dials on the top of your oven one of them usually comes off and there's a mechanism there that can calibrate your oven so to do that you need to start with an oven thermometer and i always put an oven thermometer in my oven i set my temperature and then i check to make sure it's reached the proper temperature you'd be surprised how many ovens are inaccurate and baked maybe 10 or 15 degrees hot or cool and that makes all the difference in the world on your final cake so buy yourself a good oven thermometer and just hang it from one of the racks and leave it in the oven all the time so you know that your temperature is going to be accurate the other problem with ovens is they're not always level so buy yourself a little level and set it right in the oven when the oven is cold and check to make sure that your oven is perfectly level and put it going across in a couple directions and that way you'll ensure that your cakes rise very evenly the placement of your cakes in the oven is also very important most ovens have about five shelves that you can adjust the racks on for a regular round two inch cake you usually want it on the second one up you want it between the middle of the oven and just below the middle of the oven for a sheet cake you always want it just below the middle never ever bake your cakes higher than the middle level on a standard oven because as you know heat rises so as the top of that oven gets hotter the top of the cake will bake too fast it forms a crust and then as the rest of the cake rises that crust will split and it'll it'll be almost like a little volcano the the batter sort of erupts over the baked crust and it really ends up being a mess so always be sure that you place the cake properly in the oven now many people today use a convection oven where there's actually a fan in the back the elements are behind the oven and the fan pushes the warm air through on most of the convection ovens today there's a setting for baking cakes and what that does is it lowers the fan speed so that it just creates enough circulation in the oven to keep an even heating without blowing the batter out of the pans so be sure if you're using a convection oven that you put it on the setting for baking a cake the temperature of your oven is also critical for a regular cake pan a regular aluminum cake pan that is not anodized you want to set your oven at 350 degrees now that would be for an inch and a half or a two inch pan if you're using an anodized pan and you will know if it's anodized because when you buy the pan this happens to be a fat daddios it'll say right on the pan that it is anodized the anodizing process molecularly changes the metal and it conducts heat much better if you're using an anodized pan make sure that you lower your temperature in the oven by 20 to 25 degrees so today we're going to be baking at 325 because i will be using anodized pans also if you're using a dark metal pan whether it's anodized or not you want to lower your temperature 25 degrees if you're using a glass pan to make a sheet cake or any sort of cake glass always bakes at a lower temperature as well lower the temperature 25 degrees and lastly if you're baking a deep cake if you're doing a three or four inch cake you always want to lower your temperature down to about 325 so the only ones that really bake at 350 are your classic aluminum pans that are not anodized and that are an inch and a half to two inches high everything else needs to be in a little bit cooler oven that's the basics of baking with the cake now let's get going and we'll make a cake from scratch now that our oven is ready to go and it's preheating i want to show you how to prepare our cake pans for today's class i'm going to be teaching you how to make a scratch yellow cake and i'm also going to be teaching you how to use a cake mix and get the best results out of a cake mix so for the scratch yellow cake that we're making i'm going to be using two nine inch pans these are nine inch round by two inches deep and these are anodized aluminum these happen to be fat dadios pans now when you're baking a homemade cake and you're using butter that cake will stick in a pan far more than any other cake mix on the market because the cake mixes use oil or a different sort of fat in them butter caramelizes with the sugar in the flour inside the the cake and it just sticks like glue on your cake pans so if you're used to using a spray that you can buy in the grocery store to just spray your pans it probably won't work for this you can use the spray but you still have to dust the pan with flour or even better use a piece of parchment and that's what we're going to do so i took a piece of regular kitchen parchment i folded it in half place your pan on there and then just use a pen and go right around if you don't have parchment paper you can use regular waxed paper it works very well and just cut the circle out okay now most of the parchment paper that you buy today will have a silicone finish on it and that will help release the cake but not all of them have it so to be sure the cake comes off the paper we're also going to grease this paper so i'm going to use a brush and today i'm just going to use a little bit of crisco or you can use a pan grease that's available from global sugar art or you can use your spray shortening that you can buy in a grocery store any one of them will work do the sides of the pan whoops and then just put a little bit on the bottom and then lay your paper in there and now we're going to grease the paper as well so just hold down one side and then you can just grease the paper a little bit all right now to make sure that the cake rises properly if you've greased the sides of the pan you have to flour it otherwise as that cake starts to rise the grease from the side of the pan just makes the cake fall down it doesn't get that strength that it needs as it's baking along the sides of the cake to continue rising and hold it up there so if you grease the sides of a pan make sure that you flour them i'm just going to take a little pan of flour and just put a little bit of flour in the pan you can dust right over the paper that you've greased it doesn't matter at all but i do want to make sure that the whole pan especially the sides have some flour on it now i'm ready to make my cake and deposit the batter in here so i'm going to go ahead and prepare the other one we'll come right back and we'll start mixing the cake okay the oven is set and the pans are prepared we're ready to start really making cake now i'm going to go through the ingredients and what they do to a cake as well and how they affect it the recipe that i'm going to give you does allow for substitutions and i'll go through those substitutions as we go through so we're going to begin with two and a half cups of cake flour now i've pre-sifted this into the bowl and now i'm going to measure out two and a half cups into the sifter again so the proper way to do flour is to fill the cup and then use a knife for a straight edge and go right across the top so i want two and a half cups and then a half a cup it's just easier to sift all the flour ahead of time into a bowl and measure it from there all right if you don't have cake flour you can use two and a quarter cups of all-purpose flour and one-quarter cup of cornstarch and sift those together the cake will not be quite as light but it will still be much better than just using all-purpose flour to this i'm going to add three teaspoons of baking powder and one teaspoon of salt now the baking powder is your leavening agent that's what's going to cause the cake to rise and the salt is just going to give flavor to the cake and then just sift that together in a bowl [Music] sifting is an important part of baking it actually separates the flour molecules so that the fat whether using butter or oil or shortening can can envelope those little molecules of flour and coat them better and you get a better a better cake that's more tender and has better crumb today i'm going to be using a kitchenaid mixer if you don't have a kitchenaid mixer or some sort of a commercial mixer like this you can use a small handheld mixer but the speeds will be different when i refer to this being on medium speed you'll want to use a high speed on a hand mixer and when i'm talking about using a medium or low speed here you'll probably use about a medium speed on a hot on a hand mixer now the mixers today come with a regular beater blade and the newer ones uh come you can buy them that have a rubber edge on them and i believe that kitchenaid makes one called flex edge and this is actually a beater blade that fits this these are really nice because they actually scrape the bowl for you and you don't have to stop and keep scraping down the bowl so this is what i'm going to use today so we'll start with our flour in the bowl this is called a two-stage method this is not the creaming method this is a much easier way to make a cake my whole project today my my initiative my goal is to teach you how to make a cake the easiest way possible with the most accessible ingredients and to have the best success making the cake so the flour the salt and the baking powder are in the bowl and i'm going to add the sugar and there's one and three quarters cups of regular granulated sugar if you want to substitute use one and three quarters cups of super fine sugar and that is available in some grocery stores the finer the sugar the more tender the cake will be but don't use confectioners sugar because confectioners sugar or powdered sugar actually has corn starch in it and the fine fine sugar will actually make a gummy cake so super fine is okay or granulated and we're gonna put this on the mixer attach our blade we're just going to put this on low just for a few seconds to incorporate the ingredients and that's all it really takes now to this i'm going to add the butter and the crisco now you can use all butter if you'd like i'm using eight ounces or excuse me four ounces which is one stick of butter and i'm using a third of a cup of crisco you can use all butter or you can substitute the crisco with oil here's the difference if you use all butter the cake is going to be a little bit heavier and actually will be a little bit drier butter adds a wonderful flavor to your cake but it does dry them out a little bit just the addition a little bit of the of the crisco with no trans fats in it makes a big big difference in the final cake so we want to make sure that the butter is soft but not room temperature it should still be cold and i should just be able to cut through it easily and that works great if you're taking the butter right out of the refrigerator just place it on a plate and put it in the microwave for about five seconds that's all it takes and it will soften it enough so i'm going to add the butter to the flour as well as the crisco and i'm going to mix this on low for about maybe a minute maybe a little more what we're looking for is a sandy consistency we don't want it to gum up into a dough we just sort of want a nice sandy consistency so this is just about ready this has been mixing for about two minutes and i'm just going to turn this back on so you can see the consistency it's just sort of a sandy consistency you don't want to keep mixing that until it gums up into a really stiff dough that would be way too way too far now we're going to take one cup of whole milk now you can substitute skim milk or two percent but you'll get a better cake with whole milk it has a little bit richer fat content content the milk has protein that actually helps the structure of the cake it gives tenderness to the cake and it also gives color to the final cake make sure that all your ingredients except for your butter are at room temperature if you're uncomfortable leaving milk or eggs out until they're room temperature mix them all together and then put them in the microwave for 10 seconds at a time and stir them in between until they come up to at least 70 degrees but being room temperature is very important for a good quality cake bakeries commercial bakeries and and retail bakeries spend a lot of time making sure that all their cakes and their doughs and batters come out at the proper temperature and they actually take the temperature of every ingredient and then they can calculate how warm the water or the milk or the liquid has to be so that their batters and doughs come out the exact temperature and that's how you get real consistent results in making a cake so i have one cup of whole milk i'm going to add three whole eggs and i'm going to add three egg yolks and the egg yolks are gonna give it a richness and a color i'm also adding three teaspoons of vanilla and i'm using pure vanilla and i'm just going to blend that a little bit until the eggs are just broken up now i'm going to add half of the liquid to this mix while it's running on low speed okay the ingredients are incorporated now they're certainly not smooth but they're all incorporated if i wasn't using a blade with the with the rubber edge on it to scrape the bowl i would stop at this point and i would scrape down the bowl that's a very very important point always make sure that the bowl is continually scraped so that all your ingredients are mixed properly i'm now going to set my kitchen timer for two minutes and i'm gonna put this on on around a medium speed on the kitchenaid and that's about between three and four on a kitchenaid mixer on a hand mixer you can go right to high speed for 2 minutes [Music] okay our first two minutes are over now i'm going to put the mixer back on low speed and i'm going to gradually add the remaining egg and milk mixture with the vanilla in it and i'm adding this slowly so i don't get it back in my face all right that's just blended now once again if i did not use that beater blade i would put this down and i would scrape the bowl really well i'm gonna put this back up i'm gonna set one minute on my timer and this time i'm gonna put this on medium speed which is just between two and three on a handheld mixer you can put it right around your medium speed as well [Music] [Music] so [Music] okay my minute is over my cake is completely mixed just to make sure you can use your blade or your spatula and just scrape the bottom of the bowl and if you see that it's not completely blended just blend it by hand for another couple seconds but this is completely blended and you can see the consistency of the batter it's very light it's very uniform it's very creamy so we'll scrape this off batter i'm going to show you an easy way to divide cake batter in into two pans you can eyeball it uh and you can just sort of guess or you can actually do it like bakeries do and make sure that you have the exact same weight on every cake so i'm using a scale i'm going to put my pan on the scale and i'm going to hit the tare button and that brings my my settings down to zero and i know from having made this before that it's going to be about 22 ounces of batter in that pan so i'm just going to dump that right in the middle there's 21 and there's 22 ounces in that one and there's 22 ounces in that one and i have just about two little spatulas left and i'm to put one in each then just spread the batter with your spatula until it reaches the edges and the final thing that you want to do is just tap them on your table that will level the batter and if there's any big air bubbles in there they'll pop right out so those two cakes are now ready to go in the oven again this recipe is for two nine inch cakes or you can make three eight inch layers now i want to talk just for a second about a regular cake that you would serve at dinner versus a wedding cake or a professionally decorated cake where you want a full four inch height these cakes will come up almost to the top of the pan and this is going to give you about a three and a half inch cake if i were making a wedding cake and i wanted a full four inches i would put this batter in two eight inch pans not three and those cakes will rise just above the top of the pan and after they're cooled i'll put them back in the pan and i'll slice even at the top of the pan and that gives me two perfectly symmetrical two inch high layers that are perfect for making a wedding cake but for the average home use two nine inch pans will give you a really nice cake so i'm gonna go pop these in the oven i used anodized pans so i set my oven at 325 degrees and i'm going to bake these for about 30 minutes when we come back i'll show you how to test to see if the cake is done while our scratch cake is baking in the oven i'm going to quickly show you the best way to make a cake from a mix now i want to talk about mixes in general one of the most popular mixes on the market is probably a duncan hines cake mix and 20 years ago this was a very different mix than it is today today this package weighs just a little over 16 ounces it's just about one pound of mix you used to be able to bake two eight inch cakes with a dunkin heinz cake mix and it would come right over the top of the pan that's no longer the case there's less mix the formulation has changed and now you get two rather thin cakes i actually think this is more appropriate for two seven inch pans or if you want a really full cake actually one cake mix per pan for that reason here at global sugar art we came up with our own cake mix and we have purposely made these uh with more mix in it this actually has 24 ounces in it which is a lot more cake than a regular duncan heinz cake mix we also sell it in a two and a half pound bag and in a five pound bag this cake mix comes in yellow white and chocolate and this particular formulation i made specifically so that the cake is a little bit heavier and is perfect for covering with fondant this isn't going to be a light airy cake like a duncan hines this is going to be a little bit firmer cake with a delicious flavor and it will cut and serve beautifully so this is great for parties weddings large cakes and sculpted cakes as well in this case we're going to start with a cup and a half of room temperature water again just like the scratch cake always be sure you use room temperature room temperature ingredients so i'm going to put three quarters of a cup in there we're going to make the yellow cake and i'm going to put all the mix right in here at one time now this particular mix we we have a second mix that will be coming out very soon but this particular mix already has the eggs in the mix so it's great to have on the shelf at home because you never have to worry whether you have enough eggs in the refrigerator to make a cake at the last minute so put that on the mixer and i'm just going to start this at low and then i'm going to put this up to medium speed around 4 for 3 minutes i always like to use a timer because it's very easy to get distracted when you're baking and start doing something else and you really forget how long a cake has mixed and you can under mix or over mix the cake very easily that way so i've got three minutes on my timer i'm gonna start it and go right up to about a number four on here okay for the last 20 seconds or so i'm going to slow the mixer down and i'm going to slowly pour in one quarter cup of vegetable oil and again i'm just doing this slowly so that it doesn't splash out after you have the oil in add the remaining water that's my timer we're going to let that mix a minute okay just as in the scratch cake if i didn't have a beater blade on there with the rubber edge i would lower the bowl and i would make sure i scraped this down really well then i'm going to set my timer for three more minutes and i'm gonna put this at a low a low to medium speed right around a number two on this mixer and that's gonna beat for three more minutes okay we've come to the end of our three minutes we'll turn that off and just like i did with the round nine inch cakes i'm going to divide this batter into two uh eight inch pans and we're going to put this in the oven again i'm using the anodized pans so i'm going to bake these at 325 just one last thing on the cake mixes this line of cake mixes that we have also includes a delicious carrot cake mix that actually has real carrots in it unlike a lot of commercial cake mixes that are just more like a spice cake this is a nice firm and very moist and delicious carrot cake with carrots in it the new line of cake mixes that we'll have out very shortly is a different formulation and to that you will add eggs and water and oil and it's also going to be packaged in a little heavier packages so that you can get a nice full cake and it won't be just a one pound cake mix like many of the commercial mixes we'll come right back we'll be back at the oven and i'll show you how to test if the cake is done okay our 30 minutes is up and actually when i looked in the oven they still looked a little on the pale side so i set it for the additional five minutes this cake will take 30 to 35 minutes depending on your oven so we're ready to test the cakes you can reach in or you can just pull the cakes out a little bit the one thing you'll notice about a butter cake when it's done is it'll just gently start pulling away from the side of the pan i have a toothpick and when i insert that in the center it comes out perfectly clean and i'll do that on both of them and also test clean the old standard of touching a cake and see if it bounces back sometimes applies but typically on a real tender butter cake it will leave an indentation but the cake will be cooked so it's important that you do check with a toothpick once these are baked i'm going to take them out i'm going to put them on a wire rack and i'm going to let these cool on the rack in the pan for 10 minutes don't take them out of the pan for at least 10 minutes we'll come right back when this time is up and i'll show you how to remove them our cake is now cooled for 10 minutes and we're ready to invert it onto the wire rack you'll notice that it's just come away from the edge a little bit in a well-balanced recipe in a butter cake that will flatten out it will make a nice layer that will require very little or no trimming on the top to get a flat cake take a sharp knife and go around the edge of the cake all the way around so that you cut away from the edge now the easiest way and probably the safest way to invert a cake is to put the rack over the top use your pot holders to hold both of them at the same time and then just invert it and then you can lift the pan right off the top and you can see because we use the parchment paper for the bottom that it popped right out of the pan and then just slowly peel that back and you can see even though i greased the parchment paper you can see how some of the crust actually stuck to the parchment paper that shows you how much a butter cake can actually stick to a pan if i didn't have this on here i'd had a hard time removing it from the pan at this point let this cool completely don't wrap it in cellophane or put it in a plastic bag or refrigerate it don't do anything in this to this cake until it is thoroughly cooled give it at least an hour outside on your on your counter or a little bit more when it's completely cooled then you can either ice it and go forward and decorate it or you can put it like in a ziploc bag or you can wrap it with some sort of a cellophane wrap and leave it on the counter overnight or you can refrigerate it whatever you choose to do we'll be right back to finish this video and we'll take the cake mix cake out of the oven and show you what that looks like and the last thing we're going to do is we're going to actually cut into one of these layers so you can see the texture inside the cake we'll be right back well we're finishing up our lesson in cake baking and i wanted to cut both the cake mix and the scratch cake for you to see the final results you can see the difference in coloring and texture on the outside and that's just because this one is mostly butter and this is all oil in this cake and it really does make a difference the cake mix with the oil in it is going to be a very fine grain it's very soft and it's very moist the scratch cake is going to have a wonderful wonderful butter flavor you just you just can't compare the two flavor-wise although i think this is an excellent mix if you don't want to use a mix this is a fabulous recipe to try you'll find that it's very soft it's very tender and it's also very very moist this whole video that you just watched is sort of a prequel to a series that will be coming up next in my next video i'll teach you how to make a couple different kinds of buttercream and we're going to slice a cake fill it and ice it in two different methods and from there the series will continue on and i'm going to teach how to decorate with buttercream there's been a lot of education on how to decorate with fondant but buttercream has not gone away and i would like to teach you how to use a pastry bag and star tips and round tips and specialty tips and flower tips and how to get beautiful results with good old-fashioned buttercream stay tuned i hope you've enjoyed this video the products are available at global sugar art and thank you for watching [Music] you

Channel: Global Sugar Art

Views: 1,905,053

Keywords: Alan Tetreault, Global Sugar Art, scratch cake, scratch cake recipe vanilla, scratch cake tastes like box mix, cake from scratch tasty, cake from scratch easy, cake mix vs scratch, cake decorating from scratch, cake batter from scratch, scratch cake recipe easy

Id: lqpoG2nJOw8

Length: 32min 43sec (1963 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 06 2014