The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

ITJB Round 2 Week 5: 125 percent yellow cake (526/12 - 6/2/12)

Urchina's picture
Urchina

ITJB Round 2 Week 5: 125 percent yellow cake (526/12 - 6/2/12)

Hello bakers!

This on-time post comes to you courtesy of a strained back (mine) which is preventing me from doing anything else on this unfairly beautiful first day of the Memorial Day weekend. However, it comes to mind that there is very little a good cake won't fix, so I'm looking forward to this week's bake -- yellow cake! I hope I haven't just jinxed it for myself. 

I checked the errata and there is none listed for this cake -- so feel free to leap right in to page 188 and cake away! Looking forward to seeing everyone's experiences here on TFL. (Including, I hope, mine, now that school is out for the summer and I need something to fill the void...)

 

Kendra

gmabaking's picture
gmabaking

Now that you can stay at home, pamper yourself a bit and let everyone wait on you. I hope to bake tomorrow-

Barbra

gmagmabaking2's picture
gmagmabaking2

Rest, like Barb said, and relax... you're on vacation!!! Yippeee! Will post our pictures after Barb's baking... Looking forward to seeing what everyone decides to do with this cake... there are so many possibilities! 

Rest!

Diane

gmagmabaking2's picture
gmagmabaking2

We 3 sisters actually baked a bit differently this week. Helen and I baked on Saturday morning, with different results and Barb baked on Sunday afternoon.  I being the impatient one... read (albeit quickly) the instructions after the ingredients and therefore put everything into the mixing bowl together and put in the batter beater and beat it on KA6, which seemed kinda fast, but maybe added to my "airyness".    This is a first again for me... never attempted a jelly roll before, learned a few things, like "they stick to the dishtowel..." and I should have lined the pan with parchment paper rather than waxed paper... and spreading jelly and rolling cakes and pressing on the coconut is messy... but kinda fun!

  fluffy,              rolled up easily.  sweet!. All Done!

One is apricot and one is blackberry... very sweet and very filling... so they are all wrapped up snug in my fridge to be savored slowly!

Helen did exactly as the recipe states in the exact order and was not happy with her end product. The cake felt hard to the touch and did not rise, from the level it was when she placed it in the 9" x 13"pan.  

 Nice color, and browned evenly, but ....

Helen said it tasted like custard instead of yellow cake and wait, wait, you want to read this... she threw it out! Yep, it was that disappointing... did not even want to keep it for cake crumbs. My friends, you know, as bakers yourselves, THAT says a lot! Double checked to make sure everything was put in and in the right amounts, absolutely!  Does anyone have any ideas as to what made these two bakes so different? We use the same sweep and scoop method of measuring flours and we are virtually in the same climate and altitude, only separated by 40 miles of HOT Texas Highway.  Helen is suspecting that her baking powder was past its prime, anyone out there know if that is the answer?

Next up is Barb's cake...  in a sugar category all its own.              

Now, this was a comical situation from the beginning. Given Helen's and my totally different results Barb was prepared for anything! Except... accidentally using 8" rounds instead of 9" and earning the blessed opportunity for cleaning her oven... it got better after that, as you can see. She made this nice deep dish yellow cake with CARAMEL icing that sounds like it is to die for! Literally.

I know you want the recipe: 1 cup butter, 2 cups packed brown sugar, 1/2 cup 2% milk, and 3 1/2 to 4 cups of powdered sugar... are we counting the 125% ratio of sugar in that yellow cake to begin with... I don't know about doing the math to figure out the real sugar ratio on this finished product, but I am thinking one would spike the blood sugar by just carrying this cake through the room.  it certainly cannot be anything but SWEET!  Next week Vienna bread... so much fun learning new things! See you soon.

Diane

EvaB's picture
EvaB

6 cups of sugar in the icing alone! My GOD that is enough to kill anyone! Anyway they look very nice, am not sure what the problem with the second cake was, but I've used BP that was over 10 years old, and never had it fail. But I did get some bulk out of a bin, that didn't work, and it turned out to be CREAM OF TARTER, idiot stock person didn't read the bin, the box and didn't give a damn obviously!

I have done jelly rolls since I was a teen, and they are actually easy, I never saw any parchment paper so always used waxed paper, (the parchement might be easier) but they do require some technique. Mostly the thing is to get them done enough, they need to be well done, to peel from the wax paper (which by the way is different these days to when I started out with it) and to keep from sticking to the towel, I was told to lightly flour the towel, or even to sprinkle icing subar onto it. I never do either, just use a good linen towel, the surface is smoother and the cake doesn't stick, the cotton terry towels are a definite no, and the cotton waffled towels aren't good either. Basically you want a hard twist cotton towel or sheet that has nothing for the cake to grab into!