Moose’s Cake Diaries Ep #3: The Cake is a Lie
Goop Lab is the only thing I know about Goop Lab
Hi food friends,
Don’t ask me what’s new in food or Ukraine or Love Island; I can only tell you what’s new in B2B research. (My work-work industry.) In times like labor under capitalism, you really only have space for the ones you love. Your community, as the brands love to call it.
With that, updates from friends of Currant:
Naz Riahi shares about “All that Was Innocent and Violent: Girlhood in Post-Revolution Iran”
Mayukh Sen’s book Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America is now out in paperback! Order here.
Thom Eagle is still writing my favorite newsletter.
Jesse Hirsch is open to agriculture related pitches for Ambrook Research (ag-tech).
Kia Damon is cooking in Brooklyn from 10/26-27!
Aaron Goldfarb details how a retired athlete gets into the alcohol game — through ‘‘Home Run King’ Roger Maris
Ayako & Family released their latest run of heirloom plum jams from Yakima Valley, RUN
Keep reading for the newest installment of Moose’s cake diaries below. What is a Goop Lab? Why would an oral surgeon invest in a 100L commercial oven? Find answers below.
Stay hungry,
Vicky Gu
Currant Founder & Managing Editor
Banner design: Clare Lagomarsino
Who’s this? I'm moose (he/him), an avidly keen amateur baker, and fiend for all things food. I'm always on the hunt for the next flavour high, yet all too often cocking-up and landing a low. All of this just to distract from my day job as an oral surgeon.
What’s this? Dispatches from the moose test bakery - trials, tribulations and lessons from an amateur baker in search of show stopping cake
Where at? Robin Hood County, UK
Ep #3 - The Cake is a Lie
This episode of Moose’s Baking Diaries is brought to you by Goop Lab. Ever wished your cakes would underbake? Have you always wanted to replicate an oozy jammy doughnut, but with cake? Well, look no further for this episode has all your answers. After all, the cake is a lie. (This episode has no affiliation with Goop Lab in any way, shape, or form).
The past few weeks have been the most challenging of them all. Coming in off the high of a successful vegan Swiss-Meringue Buttercream (SMBC), I complacently consistently cocked up every bake. A spate of scatter-brained weeks that I suppose ultimately ended up as a crash course in “Baking Fails 101 and how to avoid them”.
Aquafaba’s Anonymous
Aquafaba put in a stunning performance last time, holding up the lofty peaks of SMBC. Sadly, it did not prove to be the golden elixir I hoped it would be, at least not on its own. Erin McDowell suggests that aquafaba can be used to replace eggs and egg whites; 3Tbsp for 1 egg, or 2Tbsp for 1 egg white. Putting this to a blind taste test showed that aquafaba could not handle the heat. Two identical cakes were made, one with egg and one with aquafaba substitution, and fed blindly to over-eager participants. Whilst taste was not affected significantly, the rise left a lot to be desired. I was mortified to be back in steamed pudding territory. Aquafaba alone would not do it.
If you’re not like me, less stubborn and more brains, you would have probably begun with an already established vegan cake and called it a day. When you find those recipes, though, your nose might crinkle at the vinegar in the batter. Yet, my heart skipped a beat when a test batch was light and fluffy, airy and delicate. No more palate sticking. No more glass of water with every bite. The vinegar in these recipes reacts with the baking soda and bicarb to chemically leaven the cake and give it lift - the exact same science behind the school-fair volcano, just edible.
The cake test is a lie
It almost seems that as soon as I overcome one problem, another one comes up to the surface. Every cake I tested seemed to be underbaked in the middle, yet they all passed the cake test. Gently stab a cake with a tooth-pick in the center, and withdraw with baited breath as it reveals the presence or absence of crumbs. Almost always my tester came out crumbless, and almost always the cake was underbaked. I could criticise and say that the skewer was always a bit oily, but it’s a cake after all. As such, with the run of underbaked cakes I was having, the test kitchen became known as the Goop Lab.
A few thoughts came to mind about why I was chronically underbaking the cakes: the oven has hotspots, the baking time wasn’t adjusted for different sized trays, the recipe itself was an issue. After struggling to bake 5 wedding cakes in a domestic kitchen oven, I decided to get a 100L commercial oven and struggle even further. To test for hotspots, I cremated a loaf of bread in the oven. Lo and behold, the edges of the oven were the hottest, whereas the middle remained a few shades lighter. Oddly enough, the center is where the fan is located, so it seems that all the hot air is being forced through the middle, hitting the door, and bouncing back along the edges. Mam always told me to never open the door on a baking cake, lest it collapse. I’m sorry Mam, but I’m going to have to start rotating everything if I want an even bake.
Since I was already trouble-shooting, I used a pan-size convertor to make sure that quantities were suitable for the trays I was baking in, which would actually come in handy for scaling up recipes. I still have no answer though for why the cake tester always came out oily/greasy. Is it that I’ve been testing wrong my whole life? Or could it be the fact that vegan cakes are inherently oil/butter heavy, and the lack of eggs means that the cake no longer has to go through a “setting” reaction wherein the eggs would normally be fully “cooked” and therefore not wet.
Sometimes you just want to bake, and want the bakes to come out perfectly. Then you eat the cake, share the cake, get a bunch of positive feedback and sleep happy. Why do that, when you can instead dream about goopy cakes, troubleshooting at 3AM why your cakes are sticky and collapsing, wondering whether the right side of the oven is hotter than the left, and constantly refreshing your email to see if King Arthur Flour have answered your cry for help (THEY HAVE A BAKING HOTLINE). Every day was sat with an endless list of tabs open, and an even greater number of hairs fallen. Yet this was all necessary, and arguably better to have happened now than when it came to crunch time. With what I’ve learned these past few weeks I can finally begin to focus on the coconut cake, and pistachio cake.
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Please never stop narrating these adventures; I adore them. And I want to know the story behind this casual "I decided to get a 100L commercial oven" moment?!