I recently made a cake from a pudding-type box mix. It smelled terrific, but it had no body to it. It fell apart as I was frosting the bottom layer and would certainly never made it throught the ganache I prepared for the top. Any suggestions on how to amend a box mix to give the cake more density without going as far as pound cake?
Cake mixes are designed to be nearly indestructible. Maybe you inadvertently mis-measured something. What brand of cake mix did you use? I find that cakes from mixers lack the density of home made cakes. I would recommend just making a cake from scratch from a reliable source like The Cake Bible.
They are usually weak bodied cakes due to high moisture content. That is why I usually add more eggs to the recipe but reduced the water so that your cake will be stable. In that way I was able to produce a cake that is stable to covering with icing. Some boxed cakes used only 2 eggs and a cup or more of water. If you increased the level to 3 eggs but reduced the water correspondingly to accomodate the moisture in eggs the cakes will come out stable. Another peculiarity is some of this cakes need add water only. If that is what you have adding eggs and oil will improve the cake structure and strength. Roy
Reading the ingredient declaration will give you a lot of information on what you are getting in to before you buy it. If starch or modified starch is high on the list, it might be a bit gummy in texture and lack strength. Things like wheat flour, whey, barely flour, soy flour, milk powder, egg albumen all add strength. Just add water mixes usually have powdered egg already in the mix. Adding an egg will give some strength but may also increase aeration in mixing and emulsifying beyond the capacity of the batter structure to maintain the gas expansion. i.e. the cake could collapse in the oven if over mixed. The old adage of you get what you pay for usually applies as well.
Mr. Pastry
"Mark Floerke" wrote in message news:...
It is already satisfactory from the perspective of a pastry cook../cake baker. But.... It is not enough from the point of a premix formulator;it is only a guide what you can possilby do with that cake and how you can improve its as itself or in the make up of that premix in your target customers kitchen.
From my experience in formulating this institutional cake mixes, the various components as listed in the ingredient declaration are balanced with respect to the other components and the sum of its inteaction will even result in synergism and brings benefit to the end product.You do not add an ingredient to the formula if you do not antcipate its functionality what ever benefits and disadvantage it can bring to the cake it is to counteracted by other ingredients which in the end will result in quality improvement. A normal or basic cake mix ( example the white cake mix)is dry eating but stable to decorating.But the customer needs stability and more moistness. The cake mix formulator will think basically first like these:He start with the basic cake mix recipe and analyse the effect of its listed components.He may conceive the recipe in his mind or in his PC and check the resulting possible idea by test baking. If he add modified starch to the mix it will increase the amount of moisture in the cake due to the absorptive properties of this starch and therefore will contribute to the weakening and lessening of the cake volume.Therefore he had to conteract that by increasing the toughener i.e the albumen , milk solids or both but that will lead to drier cake.Then he compensate that by adding more shortening. But that will lead to a more tender cake and the cake will be greasy. At this point he will have to find look or shortening with improve perrformance due to the presence of more emulsifiers but he will considerr the level of emulsifier blends in the basic recipe and ponder how it can be improved so that it can perform in harmony with the recipe. He recognize that by Adding these ingredients will affect the cake volume, crumb structure and stability. AS the cakes will indeed aerate well but collapse during baking.It Means to the formulator leavening failure. The baking powder is fast acting. He will Choose a slow reacting leavener but with slight trace of fsst leavening acid.Anticipating that these leavening acids combination will release its total acidity at the critical point in the baking process ensuring that the batter has a sustained CO2 gas release in addition to the vapor pressure of the steam from the batter before the cake structure is hardened by the oven heat. Here leavening acid reaction will be synchronisation with the batter expansion and flow during the baking process. So that the cake will have a nice contour, even crumb grain and desired stability.. If his hypothesis and comes out well in the baking test then he will conduct further trials to get the best fit or optimize the cake formulaiton. Therefore in the end the cake formula is like a symphony orchestra where the recipe formulator will have to ?wave his baton to the components' in such a way that there is a right proportion of ingredient interaction in order to obtain the best cake . But with all the wizardry in formulation there is a always limits what a cake mix can achieve.So the formulator will establish baking tolerance before he finalise his decision of his formulae. And use this as the baiis for cake batter preparation recipe.But in the field problems do still arise and the cake mix is further tweaked by the consumer. Many of this moist cake mixes are already complete and you just have to add water,mix and bake and you have a cake. You have all the ingredients there ,sugar,flour, dried egg solids, milks solids , baking powder,highly emulsified cake shortening , vegatahle gums ,modified starches, milk solids,salt .In many cases, the cake made from this types of mix (with water only added )is fragile if additional topping is put in as decoration. Then that is where the bakers will come in and modify the recipe just consdering the fact that if he add more eggs the cake will be drier therefore se should incorporate salsd oil to balance the interaction between the toughener (ggs) and the tenderizer( salad oil). So to make the cake more stable in (addition to the wate)r he had to blend it a little amount of eggs and salad oil.
I disagree with this principle.It has nothing to do with the fortification of the egg content that it will destroy the cake performance as long as you maintain ingredient balance.That is the common perception of pastry cooks and cake bakers who do not understand the mystery and science of cake mix formulation. I have formulated cake mixes in this fashion and had tested extensively other similar cake mixes( for example) the General Mils Gold medal institutional white cake mix which you can make a cake in two ways: First there is the dump the mix into the bowl and pour water in two stages vhile mixing in two to three stage as well.The cake is satsifactory looking but weak and slightly gummy.The batter density or specific gravity here is in the range of 0.65-0.75. gram/cc.If you mix it longer the batter density goes down to 0.5 range and the cake rise well but collapse in the later baking stage;meaning this add water only cakes lacks mixing tolerance. In contrast: in the Second way : there is a recipe for making decorated cakes that requires the addition of eggs and vegatable oil. (This was mentioed earleir) The cake that results from it is stable and strong but still moist and has better sensory quality.The observed batter density here is o.75-0.85 meaning it's a heavier cake than the first one. And another peculiarity is its slightly stable to overmixing as the batter spcific gravity does not go down below the 0.70 gram per cc. My cake mix follow the same peculiarity it produces the lightest batter with add water only but batter gravity goes down in the second process but improves the cake stablity and cake volume.Scoring the cake favors the quality of the second method The second method was a recommendation from the customer as the result of direct observation by the bakers who has to contend with weak cakes using the add water only. The institutional cake mix manufacturer had to go back to the drawing board and see if there is a way to make a better cake that will satisfy the customers requirements. By basing from this experience with the same pecuiiarities noted the modification of the make up recipe is the option that any troubled home baker have to apply also to get the stable cake he want from the existing cake mix in his stock. In the end if faced with the problem like weak cake structure the modification of the make up recipe could do wonders to an other wise (from the point of the customer) as an inferior cake that is unfit for decorating. In this case of the original poster in this thread; if the cake mix recommendation is only two eggs adding another egg can improve the strength of the cake Or for that reeaon alone even additional egg white will do the job satisfctorily while reducing the water to compensate for the moisture in the increased egg. But the final decison will come from the result in the posters baking test what is best for his particular premix . Roy
Check out the Cake Mix Doctor website. There is also a book or two by her. It tells you how to take a cake and doctor it up. Most are very delicious.
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