heyjoe wrote:
> On Fri, 24 Aug 2012 20:02:27 +1000, DavidW wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I'm about to make a chocolate cake and I have a few questions:
>>
>> 1. Should a chocolate cake typically contain salt? Watching cooking
>> shows it seems that just about everything should be seasoned,
>> according to professional chefs, but there's no salt in the
>> ingredients. It's a boiled chocolate cake (some ingredients, inc.
>> water, baking soda boiled and cooled before eggs, flour added). The
>> butter is listed simply as "butter". Commercial butter is normally
>> salted to an unknown degree. If I use unsalted butter should salt be
>> added; if so how much for a standard-sized cake?
>
> no comment
>
>> 2. If I bake and ice the cake on Monday and keep it in the fridge
>> will it still be in good shape on Friday? (i.e., no noticeable
>> degradation).
>
> I don't think so. IMO, store the cake at room temperature, make the
> frosting as fresh as practical. Keep the finished cake at room
> temperature and HOPE for the best.
>
>> 3. I have a vague recollection of asking this before, but there was
>> no magic solution. The mixture is very wet before the flour is added
>> and you always get bits of flour that will not mix in. My mother
>> solved this by using an electric mixer or blender, but I don't think
>> the cake was as good as when the flour was mixed in gently by hand
>> (and you put up with a few small flour pockets). Is there another
>> technique whereby I can mix in the flour evenly by without any
>> detriment to the cake?
>
> I don't have a problem with LITTLE bits of unmixed flour ina
> cake/pancake/muffin/quickbreaad.
>
> The idea is to minimize the development of gluten by just getting the
> dry ingredients to combine with the wet. This is a technique issue!

I was unaware of the gluten problem. Thanks, and thanks to others who mentioned
it.

> Without a list of ingredients, it's hard to make specific suggestions,
> but you might replace up to 1/4 cup of the liquid in the cake (ie.
> water or milk) with vodka. The idea here is to allow thorough mixing
> without developing gluten.
>
> 'nother idea - hold down the gluten devlopment by substituting cake
> flour for all purpose flour (rough guess, up to 1/3 cake flour, 2/3
> all purpose flour).

The flour is just ordinary self-raising flour. I don't know about "cake flour".
There might be terminology differences between locations. I am in Australia.

> But the real clue is . . . don't overmix your cake batter!

Good. That's what I suspected, but with the pretty watery mixture after the
cooling that's why I get little spots of unmixed flour. I suppose I could try
adding the flour before the eggs.