Chocolate Cake Taste Test, Update

Picture from Wikipedia

My husband and I have done some very challenging further research on chocolate cakes, and we have come to some conclusions. Please keep in mind that these are opinions.

The Chocolate Sour Cream Cake is moist, and not too sweet. It is perfect for eating with chocolate frosting, which is my favorite way to eat chocolate cake. Don't forget the glass of milk.

The Chocolate Butter Cake is flavorful, and has a finer crumb. I will probably use it for a German Chocolate Cake or with a chocolate mousse filling. I hate coconut flakes, but German Chocolate is my Dad's favorite, so I make it for him and scrape off the filling.

I have two birthdays coming up, so I see more cakes in my future. I hope you are safe after the hurricane, and had a safe and fun Halloween.

11/12/2012—updated to clarify picture source

Posted with Blogsy

Chocolate Cake Taste Test

I have been planning a taste test of chocolate cakes for a while. I was feeling a little stir crazy last week, so I started baking, and baking, and baking.

I tried to have a diverse selection of chocolate cakes. All used cocoa, though the ATK recipe used unsweetened chocolate as well. I had a wide variety of mixing methods as well. I did not try to isolate variables; I just used recommended recipes as they are.

I made 6 cakes in 9 by 13-inch pans. I frosted each with American Buttercream, without the almond extract. Each frosting was tinted a different color so I could keep track of the different cakes. Eight of my friends and family had a small piece of each cake, served with seltzer as a palate cleanser. Most rated each cake 1-5 and some gave comments as well.

The test ended up being double-blind, as I had forgotten which cakes were which. I'll start with the winners.

I was initially prejudiced against the Chocolate Butter Cake from Cookie Madness; I thought all-butter cakes were inevitably dry. I included it in the test only because I was seduced by the picture and description. The butter cake ended up being one of the two winners. The flavor was amazing. The texture was more fine-grained and velvety than stick-to-your-fork moist. The mixing method is the paste method, where the butter and flour are combined first.

The other winner was the Chocolate Sour Cream Cake. It had awesome flavor, of course, but a slightly coarser and perhaps more moist crumb. I want to point out that no two people agreed on what was moist and what was dry, so it's very subjective. It is made by whipping the eggs and sugar until light, then stirring in the sour cream and vegetable oil.

Of these two winners, everyone loved one or the other—I loved both. Even those who had a different favorite rated one of these two very highly.

None of the other cakes was bad, and all had their strong points. As my Dad said, "I would eat any one of these."

The KAF Chocolate Cake was the most well behaved. If I were learning to bake, I would use this guaranteed recipe with its very clear directions. It also was the most attractive and came out of the pan best. It has a milk chocolate rather than dark chocolate flavor.

The Deep Dark Chocolate Cake from Hershey's was the easiest to make and had a good, dark flavor. One of the tasters thought it was slightly bitter even. It is simply stirred in one bowl.

The BakeWise version of the Deep Dark Chocolate Cake was definitely the most dense. I thought it was almost a brownie. It was a little trickier to make though.

The Old Fashioned Chocolate Layer Cake from ATK had cocoa and unsweetened chocolate. Its taste was distinctive, probably because of the chocolate. It whipped the eggs and sugar first, like the sour cream cake.

I will make the butter and sour cream cakes a couple more times, to figure out which I prefer and to make any changes.

Note: my update and final conclusions are here.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Vanilla Frostings Compared

After reading All Yellow Cakes Compared at Cookie Madness, I was inspired to try the same thing with frostings.

I made Swiss and Italian Meringue Buttercream, French Buttercream, American Buttercream, and Boiled Milk Icing.

The meringue buttercreams are made by combining butter, vanilla, and a cooked meringue. In Swiss buttercream you heat the egg whites before beating them; in Italian meringue you whip the egg whites and then beat in a very hot sugar syrup. These are the standard frostings at high end bakeries, especially for wedding cakes. They are very silky and rich, but not very sweet.

French buttercream is made similarly to the Italian Meringue buttercream, using egg yolks instead of whites. The egg yolks are whipped and cooked by a very hot sugar syrup, and then butter is beaten in. Like the meringue buttercreams, it is silky and not too sweet, but a lot richer.

American buttercream is the familiar frosting made by whipping butter, shortening, flavorings, and water or milk, then adding lots of powdered sugar. Sometimes meringue powder is included. Kids like it because of the sweetness. Decorators love it because it crusts and can be made very,very smooth, looking almost like fondant. Also, if made with mostly shortening, it is one of the few frostings that can hold up to heat and humidity.

Boiled milk icing is not as commonly known as the other frostings, and I don't think it can be bought ready-made. In Maryland it is the only frosting traditionally used on red velvet cake. However, it can be flavored like a buttercream and used on any cake. It is also called cooked icing, red velvet icing, and miracle icing. It is made by beating together butter, shortening, granulated sugar, and flavoring, then mixing in a pudding made from boiling milk and flour.

The Results

I had two twenty-year old missionaries and a family with several children over. The frostings were color coded, and I had a piece of paper for people to write their opinions down. We also wrote down the children's opinions. The frosting was on yellow mini-cupcakes, made from the BakeWise recipe.

The Swiss meringue Buttercream was the least favorite--probably because it was the least sweet. I was the only one who really liked it.

The people thought the Italian meringue buttercream was better than the Swiss, but it wasn't anyone's favorite. Reviews were mixed on the French. My friend Alysia liked it, but one of the missionaries said that it was the worst.

Almost everyone liked the boiled milk frosting, though one of the missionaries said it was OK.

Every single person liked the American buttercream best. It is the most familiar, and I've been working on my recipe for a while. I think that, with so much less sugar to balance it out, the cooked buttercreams seemed too buttery. I'll put my Recipe for American Buttercream in the next post.

The best part is that the winning recipe is by far the easiest to make!

 

Posted with Blogsy