The 'Modified' Powder that Makes Cakes Better

generations of home bakers have known the secret you can achieve an exceptionally moist and dense yet light and fluffy cake by adding instant pudding powder to your batter I'm gonna give you a recipe for just such a cake and we're gonna learn the science of how and why this works so well also if you don't want to put a box of instant pudding in your cake I'm going to show you a DIY method for achieving the exact same effect so we were just up in the Tennessee foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains visiting my mother-in-law Gretchen this is her signature cake she got it from her mother who got it from a neighbor lady named Hattie so we've always called it Hattie's cake and a 75 year old woman in my Sunday School class tasted it and said she calls this the better than sex chocolate cake so I think that kind of describes it now sneer all you want but this starts with a 15 ounce box of yellow cake mix damn good stuff then comes the six ounce box of instant chocolate pudding powder it's important that it be instant I'll show you why in a minute then come three eggs an 8 ounce tub of sour cream 3/4 of a cup of water 2/3 of a cup of vegetable oil and a teaspoon of vanilla beat it up until nice and smooth oh look at that it looks pudding he doesn't it mix in a cup of chocolate chips and it's time to put this into a bundt pan and here is another secret ingredient bakers joy nonstick spray with flour inside it that's what you spray on the pan so that it doesn't stick and it really is kind of a miracle bake at 350 Fahrenheit for 50 to 55 minutes you'll know it's done when the edges start to brown and pull away from the sides and a knife or a skewer or something to the center comes out clean let it cool for a few minutes before turning it out onto a plate and here is when we'll find out if it's stuck so cross your fingers profession now what I love about this cake is its texture look at how kind of jiggly it is it kind of moves like pudding it's gelatinous hence jello now I think that I can bake a cake this moist and dense without putting powder in it but it wouldn't be as soft and it wouldn't be as light light in the sense of there would be a lot more fat in it furthermore this stays soft and moist for days after baking if it lasts that long why is that well let's wrap up a piece and take it over to dr. Curtis Luckett a food scientist of the University of Tennessee Knoxville he says the secret here appears to be the second ingredient listed on the pudding box after sugar modified cornstarch the modified starch of instant pudding is gonna have a higher water binding capacity basically they've modified the starch enzymatically physically or even chemically to better interact with water molecules so maybe in this cake they're binding to the water molecule is helping create a lot more moist and more dense cake if you have any regular cornstarch in your kitchen you can see this water binding capacity for yourself right now just whisk it into some water and bring it to a boil the starch molecules which are normally in tight little grains will open up and form what dr. Luckett would call a matrix that's a structural web that holds water inside it in a gel now how is this different from the modified stuff in the pudding box this is probably a pre gelled starch and to disrupt that granular structure you often need to cook in the presence of water to get the amylose amylopectin the two actual macromolecules that make up starch to leach out into solution and and start forming the food matrix but in the case of this modified stuff you don't have to cook it you can mix it right into cold liquid and it gels the manufacturers have busted up the starch granules in advance with enzymes with chemicals maybe even just by boiling it in water and then drying it out again and look this in effect is what is in your cake holding more water and fat than a cake can normally hold without collapsing doctor luck it figures another way the pudding starch has been modified is to prevent the amylose and amylopectin from bunching back together into a hard straw this is a process known as reassociation that leads to a result called retrogradation that's the primary mechanism sailing so when bread stales is because those starch molecules of migrated close to each other and started to reassociate and it kind of pushes water out and that process called retrogradation this is why Hattie's cake stays moist and soft four days after you bake it and there you go all the reasons why instant pudding powder is magic inside cakes now some people might be freaked out by the idea of adding a processed food to their cake for what it's worth doctor luck it has little kids like I do and I asked him anything in that ingredient list that you pause before giving to your kids none and get this you don't even have to use instant pudding powder if you don't want to it's got sugar and flavorings and stuff that you might not want or need in your cake you can buy unflavored pre gelatinized starch on the internet how much should you use according to this 2001 study out of Turkey the magic number is 10% replace 10% of the flour in your recipe by weights with pre gelatinized starch any more than 10% they found makes the batter too thin it can't trap gas when it bakes and you get this flat overly dense cake but yeah replace 10% of the flour in your recipe with this magic powder and Bob's your uncle as the Brits would say or you could just buy the boxes and make Hattie's cake it's a family tradition for a reason

Channel: Adam Ragusea

Views: 628,349

Keywords: cake recipe, chocolate cake recipe, chocolate cake, baking tips, cake mix, easy chocolate cake, baking hacks, store bought cake mix, cake recipe chocolate, instant pudding mix, instant pudding, pudding in cake mix, modified starch, modified corn starch, modified corn starch vs cornstarch, modified cornflour, pudding cake, pudding cake recipe, food science, pudding powder cake, pudding powder recipe, chocolate pudding, chocolate pudding cake, moist chocolate cake

Id: 4Sjv3LRVubo

Length: 5min 26sec (326 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 12 2019