Pound Cake Perfection: Using the science of cake batter to create a perfect pound cake. by Eileen Gray

Author:Eileen Gray [Gray, Eileen]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2017-03-12T05:00:00+00:00

Sugar's Role in Cake Batter:

Of course, sugar is important in the kitchen because the sweet flavor makes food delicious. We humans are programmed to like sweet. Sweetness also balances out sour and bitter flavors in food to help create a more complex flavor.

For a baker, just as important as the flavor enhancements that sugar provides are the ways that sugar affects a baked good's texture. As we learned in "Cake Batter" class #1, the “creaming” method of mixing cake batter uses the physical shape of sugar crystals to aerate the butter and lighten the cake's texture.

Sugar is hygroscopic, meaning it has a tendency to attract and hold onto water molecules. This characteristic of sugar helps make and keep baked goods moist.

Sugar interferes with the coagulation of proteins. Adding more sugar to a cake recipe causes the proteins in the flour and eggs to form weaker bonds, creating a more tender, softer crumb. But more is not always better. Excess sugar could weaken a cake structure so much that it collapses. A successful recipe balances adding enough sugar to tenderize and sweeten, but not so much to make the cake collapse.

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