Cake Pans

You're opening a can of worms with that question. One particular pompous blowhard on here refused to admit I was right. I ended up having to killfile him. I saw his picture one time and he even looks like a fat pompous blowhard.

I think that you should ask the "Myth Busters".

snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote in news:1155583971.668535.290230@

74g2000cwt.googlegroups.com:

Actually, while your observations were on target, that an aluminum pan doesn't brown like other materials, your terminology was wrong. The reason they don't brown as much is not because of reflecting heat, but rather poor conduction of heat due to lack of mass.

Wish I knew the science of this.....

I think that aluminum has a better conductivity rating than cast iron. That's what a post in rec.food.cooking (?) said when they were discussing cast iron frying pans vs. cast aluminum ones.

On a practical level, I have both a cast-iron frying pan and a heavy cast-aluminum one, and the aluminum one is noticeably better than the iron one in quickness of heating, and evenness of heating.

Whatever that all means when it comes to cake pans. . .

Alan

Aluminum is actually a good conductor but you're right about those lightwight disposable aluminum pans and their lack of mass. The reflectivity of them does play a part though. I was thinking of the heavyweight aluminum cake pans when I made my original post. You can take two identical cake batters and pour one into a dark colored pan and the other one into a shiny reflective pan and assuming the pans are made of the same material and are of the same mass the one in the reflective pan will come out with a light crust and the one in the dark colored pan will come out with a dark crust. The one in the reflective pan may even take a few minutes longer to bake. I never use dark colored pans or cookie sheets because everything gets too brown.

lightwight? Somebody stole my e.

You might find it useful to go take a high school level physics course.

-- Larry

Frank....let me be "frank" with you. There is NO reason to turn this into a "massive" scientific experiment when each contributor will come out with a different result...thus proving they ARE CORRECT and nothing you have to say will prove them wrong.

If you are getting "dark bottom" results....turn down the heat. YOUR oven is too HOT.

If you are baking with "light bottom" results....turn UP the heat.

You know how to check a cake for "doneness", just like grandma did. Get that toothpick out of the drawer and "check as usual".

After the "frosting" is in place...who cares....unless you burned the shit out of the bottom of the cake. If you did...you need to PAY ATTENTION to what you are doing. It is plain and simple.

Here is one of the best whipped frosting recipes I have ever prepared.

@@@@@ Now You're Cooking! Export Format

Boiled Frosting

Frostings

1 cup milk 4 tablespoon flour 3/4 cup butter 1 cup sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix flour and milk over medium heat until it forms a paste. Let cool.

Mix butter and sugar together then beat in cooled flour and milk mixture. This will take 10 minutes, at least, until no sugar granules can be felt between fingers. Add vanilla.

Yield: 1 batch

** Exported from Now You're Cooking! v5.73 **

The Fine Art of Cooking involves personal choice. Many preferences, ingredients, and procedures may not be consistent with what you know to be true.

As with any recipe, you may find your personal intervention will be necessary. Bon Appetit!

The truth is far more complex than mass or conduction or reflectivity.

If this were about mass, lead would be a great cooking material. Setting aside heavy metal toxicity, I'll give you a hint - it isn't. Quite poor, in fact.

Reflectivity does play a part in the oven - things that are black absorb a broader spectrum of the radiant energy in an oven than things that are not black. This has not been in dispute since the days of the Count von Rumford.

The cornerstone of this argument, the piece you completely overlook, is specific heat, and how it relates to the density of a material. Mass is just one part of the density question.

I'm not about to go into tremendous detail. I already did that over in rec.food.drink.tea several months back when someone was aghast that i never bother to preheat featherweight glass teapots that have a paltry

440 joules per kilogram-kelvin to offer me. Granted, the argument at the time was about stored energy.

Here's the basics: Ignoring for the moment the difference in density, iron and steel have about half the specific heat of aluminum, which is expressed as a measurement of joules of energy per kilogram.

What this means, in the most basic of terms, is that given the same mass and the same surface area, and similar surface features, a steel pan will buffer about half the amount of energy that aluminum will before conducting it to the food.

It all conducts at something real close to the speed of light, so "faster" isn't the right term. There's just more conduction going on in the steel.

No material is "better" in all cases. I make bread in steel pans because i like the browning qualities and the resulting crust formation. I make cake in aluminum pans because i like the browning qualities and the resulting crust formation.

I have one aluminum bread pan. I tried making bread in it once. I prefer to make pound cake in it.

I have intentionally left out references to the mean thermal conductivity of these materials. I don't feel like looking that up today. If you want to have fun with that, Pyrex is about 450 k/kg-k too. Figure out why it doesn't behave exactly like steel.

Arguments of shiny vs. dull should take into account issues like surface area on a molecular level, and the fact that aluminum oxide is a better thermal conductor than aluminum. Black vs. metal-colored was settled over 200 years ago.

irrelevant drivel deleted.......what temperature would you set your oven to?

Yes...that was a top posting. It really makes no more difference than your blather.

Can you provide a "tasty" cake recipe? Didn't think so.

Moral to the story...make chocolate cakes....who can tell if the bottom gets too black....but we all can tell when your product is DRY!

This is spectacular...

@@@@@ Now You're Cooking! Export Format

Chocolate Banana Sin Cake

cakes, chocolate, desserts

----CAKE----

1 lb semisweet chocolate 8 tablespoon butter 4 large eggs 4 tablespoon sugar 1 tablespoon cornstarch 2 teaspoon vanilla 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar ----BANANA TOPPING---- 1 lb bananas, ripe 2 tablespoon orange juice 3 tablespoon butter 3 tablespoon sugar 1 cup heavy cream 3 tablespoon confectioners sugar 1 tablespoon light rum 1 oz semisweet chocolate

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter a 10" springform pan and sprinkle with sugar.

Prepare the cake: Melt the chocolate in the top of a double boiler over simmering water. When the chocolate has completely melted, whisk in the butter a tablespoon at a time. Let the mixture cool slightly.

Meanwhile, beat the egg yolks with 2 tablespoons of sugar in a mixer at high speed until mixture is ivory colored and as thick as marshmallow topping about 5 minutes. Stir in the cornstarch and vanilla.

Beat the egg whites, adding the cream of tartar after 20 seconds, and adding the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar as the whites stiffen to soft peaks. Gently fold the egg yolk mixture into the chocolate mixture. Fold in the egg whites as gently as possible.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan. Bake the cake until firm on top but the center is still a little soft, about 30 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven, set on rack and let cool to room temperature. Run knife around edge and remove from pan. Cake will sink a little in the center.

Prepare the topping: Peel the bananas and cut them into 1/4 inch slices. Toss the bananas with the orange juice to prevent discoloring.

Combine the butter and sugar in a large skillet over high heat and cook until mixture begins to caramelize, about 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the bananas and cook, turning, until golden about 4 minutes. Let the banana mixture cool completely.

Beat the cream in a chilled bowl with a mixer. As the cream stiffens, beat in the confectioners' sugar and rum to taste. Continue beating until stiff.

Spoon the caramelized banana mixture on top of the cake. With pastry bag, fitted with star tip, pipe rosettes of cream over the top. Use a vegetable peeler to shave the chocolate over cake. Refrigerate leftovers.

Yield: 8 servings

** Exported from Now You're Cooking! v5.73 **

The Fine Art of Cooking involves personal choice. Many preferences, ingredients, and procedures may not be consistent with what you know to be true.

As with any recipe, you may find your personal intervention will be necessary. Bon Appetit!

So, what you're saying is that all differences in thermal properties boil down to an adjustment in the temperature of the oven?

Are you saying that there is no difference in thermal properties between different materials?

Do you propose to argue that the thermal energy applied to the top of the food makes no meaningful difference? Perhaps that the height of the ceiling of the oven makes no difference?

What about convection?

I don't give recipes to trolls.

This fits with what I learned in high school physics:

Dark surface, better absorber/radiator of heat. Shiny surface, not as good an absorber/radiator of heat.

Alan

I'm not so sure this applies only to the browness of the exterior of the cake.

The pan probably has more to do with the browness than the temperature, since the temperature should be set for optimum baking of the body of the cake.

The resulting 'browness' would probably have more to do with the material of the baking pan.

Yup.

Alan

==

It's not that I think stupidity should be punishable by death. I just think we should take the warning labels off of everything and let the problem take care of itself.

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Alan snipped-for-privacy@visi.com wrote in news:7656e25b25ev1o0oek7j4uplk810lf7v2k@

4ax.com:

Beter conductivity, but not better retention. Cast iron will stay hotter longer.

snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote in news:1155756261.588030.294460 @i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:

That has more to do with reflecting the radient energy than the heat it self. Same reason a dark car will heat up faster than a light colored one, it's not that the heat is reflected, but rather the raident energy, the light.

Heat is a form of radiant energy.

And this is an advantage because . . . . .

Alan

==

It's not that I think stupidity should be punishable by death. I just think we should take the warning labels off of everything and let the problem take care of itself.

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Better for searing meat.

Actually, I thought you wanted to give the heat up to the meat, in which case better conductivity would seem to accomplish the goal.

I would guess that the iron "staying hotter longer" means it isn't getting the heat onto the meat.

Alan