BakingSOS Answers

Ayush says: I’ve tried an egg-less chocolate cake many times but it is not doing nicely. Every time it turns hard or rubbery. Also it sinks down after rising before it can set. I make it in a convection microwave oven. Can you please help me so that i can get it right?

Baking S.O.S. says: I don’t have a lot of experience baking without eggs, but I can try to give you a few suggestions. Perhaps there might be something that you haven’t yet tried.

First, I don’t like to bake cakes in convection ovens because the movement of the fan causes the fragile cake batter to sink and fall. This could be part of the problem that is causing your cake to sink. If you have a standard conventional oven, or if you can turn the convection feature off, I would recommend baking your cake in a conventional oven.

Secondly, are you baking a cake recipe that is formulated to be baked without eggs? Or are you simply eliminating eggs from a standard cake recipe? If so, are you substituting anything else in place of the eggs?

If you simply eliminate the eggs from a cake recipe, that would explain why your cakes are turning out dense and rubbery. To make an egg-less cake, you would either need to find a recipe that is formulated to be baked without eggs, or you would need to use some kind of a substitute for the eggs. Eggs perform a number of important functions in baked goods, so it generally doesn’t work to simply eliminate them from a recipe. You need to substitute something else.

There are several egg replacer products, including: Bob’s Red Mill Egg Replacer and Ener-G Egg Replacer.

You can also use finely ground flax seed combined with water as a substitute for eggs. The formula is: 1 Tbsp. of ground flax seed + 3 Tbsp. water = 1 egg

Lastly, I have baked delicious chocolate cake recipes that use mayonnaise or Miracle Whip in place of the eggs. (just read the label carefully to make sure that the mayo doesn’t contain eggs in it) You could do a quick Internet search for chocolate mayonnaise cake recipes, or try this one here at allrecipes.com: Chocolate Mayo Cake. Good luck!

Ann Louise asks: With Christmas coming I am really desperate for  helpful advice on what I’m doing wrong when baking the  sponge cake for my trifle. I have always used the trifle recipe from The Joy of Cooking book, which I’ve had since 1979, although  I’ve only begun using that particular  recipe in the past few years. I always thought that the cake was o.k. until I tasted my friend’s trifle when we were at her place for Christmas last year. The cake in her trifle was moist with a fine grained  texture whereas mine always comes out dry and full of large air holes. When I asked her for the recipe, she said it was the same one that I use from the Joy Of Cooking Book, but our cakes differ like night and day, and I was too embarrassed to let her know this. I’ve gone over the recipe and my method repeatedly but I can’t seem to figure out what I’m doing wrong. The recipe calls for whisking the eggs and sugar over simmering water until warm, and then beating them for 15 minutes until triple in volume. At this point, when I am whipping them for 15 minutes, the mixture is full of large pockets of air, whereas I’ve seen during a YouTube video of sponge cake making that the batter is relatively smooth  with very little bubbles of air. What am  I’m doing differently to create such an opposite result  in my sponge cake? I would love to be able to master this cake so the  trifle I serve my family this Christmas will be as delicious as my friend’s,  but I need help deciphering what I’m  doing wrong.

Baking S.O.S. says: Sponge cake is supposed to be dry by nature.  If your sponge cake turns out dry, then it is probably turning out right.

Sponge cake is more commonly made in Europe, where desserts tend to be less sweet and less laden with buttery fat, as our desserts in America are. If you are expecting your sponge cake to turn out like a typical American butter cake, you will be disappointed because it will never be so, based on the ingredients in the recipe.

As for the large air holes from the whipped egg whites, that is the only thing that make a sponge cake rise.  If you do not whip enough air into the egg white-sugar mixture, then the cake will not rise at all, so air holes are OK.  To be sure that you are heating the egg whites & sugar enough before whipping them, try using a kitchen thermometer to take the temperature. They should reach about 117 degrees Fahrenheit before you remove them from the heat.  Egg whites start to coagulate at around 120 degrees, so be careful not to let them get too hot!

So what is the secret to a moist sponge cake, you must be wondering? Simple syrup! The traditional preparation of a sponge cake is to soak it with some type of simple syrup–to give it extra flavor and moisture.

Simple syrup is equal parts of granulated sugar and water (ex. 1 cup sugar + 1 cup water) boiled together until the sugar dissolves. From there, you can add ANY kind of flavor imaginable. From something as simple as vanilla extra to various flavored liqueurs (which is the traditional preparation of a trifle)–almost anything goes.

So once you bake the sponge cake and allow it to cool, you then slice the cake into layers and brush each layer generously with a flavored simple syrup to give it moisture and additional flavor. Then follow your trifle recipe from there. I like to use homemade pastry cream and fresh fruit in my trifles–yummy!

But here’s my secret: I don’t even bother making sponge cake simply because it is dry, flavorless, and difficult to bake successfully without much practice or experience.  I skip the sponge cake and simply make my favorite yellow cake recipe.  We Americans like our cake to be tender and moist, so I go straight for the cake recipe I love best–no need to follow the trifle recipe exactly.  The beauty of a trifle is that you can use ANY combination of cakes, flavorings, fillings, and toppings that you choose.

So if you don’t feel like fighting with the sponge cake recipe again and again, simply skip that step all together and try it with your own favorite cake recipe, instead.  You can still soak the cake layers with some type of liqueur and/or simple syrup, if you like.  (Here’s an interesting side note: Trifle is also called “tipsy pudding” because of the high alcohol content of the dessert!)

Betty asks: I have made pound cakes for years but was trying a new recipe.  I used loaf pans rather than a bunt pan.  The cake separated from the pan and was very crumbly.  I did use dark pans.  Some of the recipes I have tried call for a combination of butter and Crisco, and others for just one or the other.  What do they do differently to a cake?

Baking S.O.S. says: Pound cake gets its name from the fact that the recipe calls for 1 pound each of all the ingredients:

• 1 pound of flour
• 1 pound of sugar
• 1 pound of eggs, and
• 1 pound of fat–traditionally, it is made with all butter

That’s it.  It’s a very simple recipe in it’s original form. But there are probably hundreds of variations out there because bakers have tweaked the original recipe over the years, putting their own twists on this classic cake.  So the results that you get will vary a bit, depending on which recipe you follow and how much that recipe varies from the original.

I can’t tell you why the recipe you made was crumbly (without actually seeing the recipe’s ingredient list), but I do know from experience that I do not like the effect that teflon-lined pans have on baked goods. The dark coating attracts the heat of the oven, causing cakes to get very dark on the outside edges that come in contact with the pan (the bottom and sides).  The results look and taste bad, so I no longer use non-stick coated pans for baking. I recommend a glass or plain metal loaf pan for baking pound cakes.

As for your other question: How do butter and Crisco affect the cake differently, the main difference is taste. Butter has a much richer flavor than Crisco, which is fairly neutral. So for a better flavor, I recommend using all butter.

But it is interesting that you asked because I was just talking to a co-worker about fat in pound cakes just the other day, so your timing is perfect! My co-worked is from the South, and she says that it is very common for Southern bakers to make pound cake with lard. She says lard gives pound cake a much denser, more moist texture. She herself likes to make pound cakes with a combination of butter and lard. So give that a try sometime if you would like to experiment with the different taste and texture qualities of different fats.

The best way to compare the differences would be to start with a very basic pound cake recipe–like the one above–and then try different variations on that same recipe, rather than trying completely different recipes.  When you start with one standard recipe for your base comparison, you will have a better idea of how the changes in ingredients affect the overall flavor and texture of the cake.

Happy baking!

Noreen asks: Is it possible to mix a cake batter and put it in the refrigerator to bake it off later? How will that affect how the cake rises?

Baking S.O.S. says: This question is particularly interesting because I don’t have any actual experience to draw on–all I can do is guess what might happen.

Typically, for any baked good that is leavened with baking powder or baking soda, the leavener will start acting as soon as the batter is mixed. To get the most leavening effect, the batter should be placed in the oven immediately after mixing.  Otherwise, the leaveners will lose their effectiveness the longer they sit in the batter without being baked (double-acting baking powder takes effect in 2 ways–hence the name “double acting”–first, when the baking powder is moistened by mixing it in the batter, and secondly, when it is heated by placing it in the oven).

I have successfully mixed up muffin and scone batters the night before and placed them in the frige to bake the next morning without any noticeable loss of leavening. So it could be possible to do the same with a cake. However, cake batter also tends to be much lighter and fluffier–more fragile–so I don’t know if cake batter will rise as well if it is allowed to sit for too long before baking.

Here is what I would suggest: Bake the cake batter straight from the frige–do not allow it to warm up to room temperature before baking because this will probably cause additional loss of leavening. Before baking the cake, though, place the batter back in the mixer and beat or whip it on high speed for a couple of minutes. This will incorporate some air into the cake batter which should help it rise better once baked.

Good luck, and keep me posted on how it turns out!