Everyone says Flo Braker is more reliable than Big Ben and yet I had THREE failures in a row with her genoise recipe. Now, boasty though it sounds, I'm a pretty good and experienced baker, and she is supposed to be a goddess. So what went wrong?
The cakes were FLAT. And I MEAN FLAT. They were trifle sponge in the making.
I know now what did it. It was the UK flour. Which is unbleached, and therefore lacks that bit of acid you need to interact with the soda to make the cake fly. Self-raising flour is bleached, but then the leavening quantities are fixed by the makers and can't be adjusted.
So two questions:
Does anyone know how to compensate for the lack of chlorine? I'm trying cream of tartar....
Does anyone know the ratio of chemical leaven in UK self-raising flour?
I haven't seen a genoise recipe that uses chemical leavening. Why not just stick to the classic genoise recipe/technique and forget about reinventing the wheel? If the cake was even close to a classic genoise, it shouldn't have been flat. The egg foam, if properly beaten with the dry ingredients correctly folded into, should have been enough to have leavened the cake.
Evidently I explained badly. Of course I don't mean that one would normally use chemical leaven in a genoise, but presumably the unbleached flour nonetheless had an impact, and I wondered if by adding some form of acid I could compensate for it - as with Dutched cocoa?
Indeed flour is a big issue in cake consistency....And if Flo Braker was an american she is well used to chlorinated cake flour usage in cakes ; and that particular treatment do provide robustness to cake performance. But wait, I am aware of the stringent food laws in UK therefore flour chlorination was banned several years ago. It had been my experience in the baking laboratory that comparing performance of cakes with unchlorinated but heat treated English cake flour is not as good as chlorinated US cake flour which is really superior. My remedy for such UK unchlorinated but heat treated cake flour was to use less liquid in cake recipe and it will come out all right. BTW, the acidic characteristics of good ( US) cake flour is not responsible for its interaction with the baking soda; the primary effect of the acidification was to modify the gelatinzation characteristics of the flour starch as well as interact with the the cake flour gluten( mellowing it down and making it extensible) thereby permitting the cake batter to expand more while also strengthening the structure.
Lack of chlorine meaning the flour pH is more than 5.5 is not modified by adding acidulant such as cream of tarter. The effect of chlorine is intimate and it includes the starch and the flour protein. Meanwhile cream of tarter only interacts with the soda present in the recipe and if there is an excess yes it can whiten the cake crumb as well but although both are acidic, potassium acid tartrate ( cream of tarter) and chlorine dioxide( chlorine treatment in the flour mill) their effect( I reiterate) are not eauivalent. In order to simulate the chlorine treatment ( as I mentioned earlier )the flour is slightly moistened and heat treated for hours in a special 'oven' before its packed.This particular step is precise and cannot be easily simulated at home but only in the institutional setting such as found in the flour mill.
Self rising flour throughout the world are pretty similar in terms of leavening effect.The only differ in the type of flour and the leavening acids they use in the mix. Another way to stablize batter is to use trivalent salts such as aluminum phosphates or sulfates; unfortunately that alum based baking powder is not sold in UK.I also had some succes with calcium chloride salt but its a precise formulation that you cannot do at home, and some sensitive tasters say that the CaCl2 provides some slight aftertaste , although its harmless. The easiest remedy for you is not to follow the recipe word for word but to reduce the amount of liquids as I am pretty aware the low absorption characteristics of UK flour if compared to American flour. I had the same problem several years back trying to formulate an american style supermoist cake in prepared mix company near that area using a UK made cake flour which was a disaster if I followed the all american way of making it. What I did I reformulated the cake to so that the amount of liquids added is slightly less than what I did with American type cake flour but modified also the cake preparation step to compensate for it. Roy
At last, someone intelligent enough to understand the question. Thank you!
And to all those eager to say 'silly', please read carefully next time. I'm not usually flamey, but there's something very annoying abotu being told you're a fool by people who have no idea what you're talking about.
As usual, Roy has the ultimate answer to your question. Still, I would get another recipe or contact the author and ask for help. Sometimes cookbooks have printing errors. You might be doing everyone a favor by pointing out that you had a problem. On review, the author might find an error or omission and could make the necessary corrections in subsequent printings.
Jane, what Roy says is true and probably makes a big difference if you are a commercial baking plant producing thousands of cakes. I would be quite surprised if you added a bit of acid or reduce the liquid a bit and your genoise suddenly came out right. For those of us who suggested getting a better recipe, I think it was the best advice. Unless you are food scientist who can accurately evaluate and modify ingredients, it just isn't worth wasting time and ingredients guessing how much of this or that it would take to modify ingredients to influence the outcome, particularly if you are facing a complete failure. And, before you get flamey next time, read carefully because I don't recall anyone suggesting that you were a fool. Of course, now that might be a question in the minds of some.
In fairness to others , I think they also provided satisfactory information that is related to the particular cake faults although maybe not the one that you expect. In fact many professional bakers if asked with that problem( of yours) will say the same thing that it has something to do with the recipe and operational side of the cake baking process. But as you had enough experience and you correctly narrowed down to the cause which is the flour as you stated here.
Just lately I was wondering if you are using self rising flour instead of cake flour. I have to remind you that most of the self- rising flour are not bleached or even chlorinated. Most of them are just plain flour with added baking powder and salt suited for making simple cakes, scones, flapjacks,some crumpets varieties and other English goodies. I had also used that Self rising flour in making genoise type cakes but in the low ratio category. Therefore if Flo Brakers recipe( I am sorry I am not familiar with her recipes or book) is a high ratio type cake and( I presume) you are replacing it with UK self-rising flour I am doubtful of its success. Unless you convert that supposed high ratio genoise recipe of that particular author to a lower ratio formulation.(i.e., the primary indicator is the ratio of sugar to the flour which is not allowed to exceed the flour weight which due to the lower sugar level needs the liquids to be reduced as well.) If you prefer to follow the particular formula in that book?.. then?.. I suggest that you better procure a high ratio cake flour and you will be ensured that your product comes out fine.But again these British counterparts are not absolutely equivalent to the higher quality of the American high ratio cake flour known in such familar brands as Softasilk and Swans Down..... I reiterate if I had to make a really high absorption cakes with UK cake flours( really high liquids I still had to reduce it slightly for optimum cake performance). Be reminded that in Britain there are two types of high ratio cake flour; one has lower protein level like the normal cake flour used for most high ratio cakes,( known in UK as angel cake , gold cake and other fine celebration cakes). Then there is another one the special high protein cake flour, that has a protein content( similar to even higher than bread flour, air classified in the mill and also heat treated) suited for heavier cakes such as fruit cakes with extreme amount of fruits , nuts etc. I remember the manufacturers for such both good cake making flours in UK were Allied mills, Spillers Dalgety, Arkady Craigmillar etc.I just cannot remember their proprietary product names and some of these flour milling companies keep on changing their product names? regularly for marketing reasons.. Anyway I wish you luck in your baking trials?. Roy
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