While i was pouring the cake batter into the pan, I realized that I had
forgotten to preheat the oven. I quickly turned the oven on and after
about 20-30 minutes, I placed the cake into the oven. The cake turned out
to be alot denser than I had expected. This was a new recipe from my friend
who said it would be light and fluffy. My question is, by letting the cake
batter sit an extra 20 minutes (at room temperature) have caused the cake to
be dense?

kate

"BMC" > wrote in message
...
> While i was pouring the cake batter into the pan, I realized that I had
> forgotten to preheat the oven. I quickly turned the oven on and after
> about 20-30 minutes, I placed the cake into the oven. The cake turned out
> to be alot denser than I had expected. This was a new recipe from my
friend
> who said it would be light and fluffy. My question is, by letting the
cake
> batter sit an extra 20 minutes (at room temperature) have caused the cake
to
> be dense?
>
> kate
>
>

While I don't know the answer to your question, you could make the cake
again with preheating the second time and see if you get different results.
~Peggy

On Sun, 14 Mar 2004 05:42:41 +0000, BMC wrote:

> My question is, by letting the cake
> batter sit an extra 20 minutes (at room temperature) have caused the cake to
> be dense?

Given that your oven temp was appropriate when you put your batter in... what
did you use for the leavening agent? Where whipped egg whites
involved? If so my guess would be this extra wait caused a deflation
in your batter = dense cake.

On Sun, 14 Mar 2004, BMC wrote:

> While i was pouring the cake batter into the pan, I realized that I had
> forgotten to preheat the oven. I quickly turned the oven on and after
> about 20-30 minutes, I placed the cake into the oven. The cake turned out
> to be alot denser than I had expected. This was a new recipe from my friend
> who said it would be light and fluffy. My question is, by letting the cake
> batter sit an extra 20 minutes (at room temperature) have caused the cake to
> be dense?

Without a recipe it is hard to say. On a guess, I would say yes. Some
cakes are a chemical reaction. The order you mix them and having the oven
preheated is critical. It is entirely possible that the mixture you have
starts generating gases the moment the wet and dry ingredients mix. Here
is a possible scneario (numbers are fake)

The gases form for the first 30 minutes. You take 5 minutes to fold them
together and it takes 5 minutes for the baking to seal in the gases to let
the cake rise. This leaves you with 20 minutes of gases getting trapped in
the cake. In this scenario leaving the cake sit for 20 minutes would
result in very little of the gases getting trapped in the cake. The cake
will be very dense.

--
Send e-mail to: darrell at cs dot toronto dot edu
Don't send e-mail to

"BMC" > wrote in message >...
> While i was pouring the cake batter into the pan, I realized that I had
> forgotten to preheat the oven. I quickly turned the oven on and after
> about 20-30 minutes, I placed the cake into the oven. The cake turned out
> to be alot denser than I had expected. This was a new recipe from my friend
> who said it would be light and fluffy. My question is, by letting the cake
> batter sit an extra 20 minutes (at room temperature) have caused the cake to
> be dense?
>
> kate

It depends:
1)If the cake is a batter type cake( made with creaming/blending
method) using a balanced recipe and was properly made, such delays
are still tolerable especially if you are using a double acting baking
powder.
2)If the cake is a sponge type and using a beaten whole egg foam
incorporated to the dry ingredients then its preferable that you
should bake it immediately.
I noticed that using a meringue type batter such as chiffons, have a
better tolerance to delays than the normal sponge cakes.

For me to be able to attain batter tolerance to delays in aerated foam
cakes.
I beat the meringue not only in high speed but to incoporate medium
speed to allow formation of equally sized gas bubbles which are more
stable than irregular sized gas cells by straight high speed mixing of
the meringue.
The principle is like this:high speed mixing will create the gas
bubbles ,while the medium speed will subdivide the gas cells into
smaller sizes which are more stable to coalescence( i.e., the union
of gas cells to form a bigger gas cells which are more bouyant and
will rapidly rise to the batter surface affecting the leaving effect
of the batter in the oven).
Fine equally sized gas bubbles are less susceptible ( to that defect),
than the large irrergularly sized gas cells.
I found that the stability of the whole egg foam is also better if you
combine both high speed beating with medium speed which results in a
finer gas cells in the egg foam that can contribute to better batter
stability.
If you are using kitchen aid in small scale mixing ,2/3of the mixing
time is all high speed and 1/3 is in medium speed until you reach the
desired thickness.
If you make larger quantities of sponge type cake batter its better
to mix the egg foam and meringue 50% of the time in high speed and 50%
at medium speed.
In many cases I just use the medium speed (i. e the speed 3 in the 4
speed machine or the 2 speed in the 3 speed machine) or roughly
equivalent to the speed 6 in the kitchen aid mixer.
Not only is the cake batter more stable but the cake grain is more
finer and uniform with such technique.
I usually combine this with a good baking powder.
I prefer the SAS/MCP found in the Calumet and Clabber girl than the
SAPP/MCP found in the Red Star, Fleischmann etc for batter tolerance.
I shy away from simgle acting baking powder specially the fast ones(
based only on calcium phosphate or the faster sodium pyrophosphate
acidulant).
But my perfect a choice, I rather make my own baking powder from the
acidulants I have in the laboratory which I can have complete control
of the leavening rate of my cake batter.

In fact with my institutional recipes I can even let the cake batter
stand (at ambient) even for an hour with no effect on cake quality.
It can be a sponge or batter type cakes and the results are equally
satisfactory.

Roy

Thanks for all the responses.

The batter consisted of mixing egg whites in one bowl and then folding it
into another a bowl with egg yolks (already beaten). Some flour was added
to the final mixture, but no baking powder was required. In the end, it
tasted pretty good (in terms of having the right sweetness to it), but had
the texture of a dry pancake.

I will try it again some time soon.

kate
~~~~~~~
Roy Basan > wrote in message
om...
> "BMC" > wrote in message
>...
> > While i was pouring the cake batter into the pan, I realized that I had
> > forgotten to preheat the oven. I quickly turned the oven on and after
> > about 20-30 minutes, I placed the cake into the oven. The cake turned
out
> > to be alot denser than I had expected. This was a new recipe from my
friend
> > who said it would be light and fluffy. My question is, by letting the
cake
> > batter sit an extra 20 minutes (at room temperature) have caused the
cake to
> > be dense?
> >
> > kate
>
> It depends:
> 1)If the cake is a batter type cake( made with creaming/blending
> method) using a balanced recipe and was properly made, such delays
> are still tolerable especially if you are using a double acting baking
> powder.
> 2)If the cake is a sponge type and using a beaten whole egg foam
> incorporated to the dry ingredients then its preferable that you
> should bake it immediately.
> I noticed that using a meringue type batter such as chiffons, have a
> better tolerance to delays than the normal sponge cakes.
>
> For me to be able to attain batter tolerance to delays in aerated foam
> cakes.
> I beat the meringue not only in high speed but to incoporate medium
> speed to allow formation of equally sized gas bubbles which are more
> stable than irregular sized gas cells by straight high speed mixing of
> the meringue.
> The principle is like this:high speed mixing will create the gas
> bubbles ,while the medium speed will subdivide the gas cells into
> smaller sizes which are more stable to coalescence( i.e., the union
> of gas cells to form a bigger gas cells which are more bouyant and
> will rapidly rise to the batter surface affecting the leaving effect
> of the batter in the oven).
> Fine equally sized gas bubbles are less susceptible ( to that defect),
> than the large irrergularly sized gas cells.
> I found that the stability of the whole egg foam is also better if you
> combine both high speed beating with medium speed which results in a
> finer gas cells in the egg foam that can contribute to better batter
> stability.
> If you are using kitchen aid in small scale mixing ,2/3of the mixing
> time is all high speed and 1/3 is in medium speed until you reach the
> desired thickness.
> If you make larger quantities of sponge type cake batter its better
> to mix the egg foam and meringue 50% of the time in high speed and 50%
> at medium speed.
> In many cases I just use the medium speed (i. e the speed 3 in the 4
> speed machine or the 2 speed in the 3 speed machine) or roughly
> equivalent to the speed 6 in the kitchen aid mixer.
> Not only is the cake batter more stable but the cake grain is more
> finer and uniform with such technique.
> I usually combine this with a good baking powder.
> I prefer the SAS/MCP found in the Calumet and Clabber girl than the
> SAPP/MCP found in the Red Star, Fleischmann etc for batter tolerance.
> I shy away from simgle acting baking powder specially the fast ones(
> based only on calcium phosphate or the faster sodium pyrophosphate
> acidulant).
> But my perfect a choice, I rather make my own baking powder from the
> acidulants I have in the laboratory which I can have complete control
> of the leavening rate of my cake batter.
>
> In fact with my institutional recipes I can even let the cake batter
> stand (at ambient) even for an hour with no effect on cake quality.
> It can be a sponge or batter type cakes and the results are equally
> satisfactory.
>
> Roy

"BMC" > wrote in message >...
> Thanks for all the responses.
>
> The batter consisted of mixing egg whites in one bowl and then folding it
> into another a bowl with egg yolks (already beaten). Some flour was added
> to the final mixture, but no baking powder was required. In the end, it
> tasted pretty good (in terms of having the right sweetness to it), but had
> the texture of a dry pancake.
>
> I will try it again some time soon.
>
That is interesting....
But allow me to comment further...You might learn something new.
So you are making a true separated egg sponge cake with large amount
of eggs as you are not using any chemical leavening.
Indeed I have used the same technique in making some continenntal
sponges (Swiss, French and German type recipes). One thing that I
noticed that even if both the whites and yolks are beaten separately
and flour is folded in. If those procedures are not done properly the
cake batter does not have enough tolerance for delays. But if made
properly and the flour was gently folded in. The window for good cake
quality for delayed baking can run up to minimum of 15 minutes to a
maximum of half and hour before the cake quality is distinctly
affected.
One of the common mistakes with such method is overconfidence that by
aerating both the whites and yolks in different bowls they still think
can get cake batter with better tolerance and yields cake with
consistent quality even if they mess up with the other steps in its
preparation.
Actually its the same thing ; whether your whip the whole eggs by
itself with sugar or you separate the components and beat separately
you should take care that they are not both overbeaten.
A stiff but not dry for the whites( medium peak) and the thick yellow
foam for the yolks is all that is needed.Then you have to sift the
flour over the combined eggs sugar foam while carefully folding it
until incorporated.
Another technique is just to sift and fold the flour in the well
beaten yolks side before gently incoporating in the beaten whites and
sugar.
One common mistake is just to stir the flour carelessly .It will
result that the foam structure will start to deteriorate and the
formed gas bubbles are initiated to coalesce. You will end up with
cakes that are bubbly in crust with large holes in the cake crumb with
lesser volume.
Indeed that cake type you made is dry textured no matter if you baked
it immediately or later.
That is why cake bakers/pastry chefs usually brush that type of
sponges with flavored syrup before assembly to certain desserts to
improve its texture and taste.
You want a moister cake you can add some honey in it as part of the
sweetener( You can whip that with the yolks .
Replacing 10-20% of the total sugar in the recipe with it can make a
difference in moistness.
But the best choice for moister sponge cakes is the chiffon type that
I mentioned previously.There are countless recipes available
elsewhere( in the internet and in baking books for you to try.

BTW, I am not condoning about your way of delaying baking time. If you
are just an occasional cake baker its best to stick to the rules in
cake baking.
Once the batter is made and placed in the baking pan, bake
immediately.
Leave to the expert bakers with regards to delays in cake baking as
they have means how to do it without affecting cake quality...
Good Luck!
Roy