yes because I'm always so worried about over mixing sometimes I don't mix enough so I just stopped baking cakes all together them 😰 I'd love to make sure!
Love this "TESTED!" series. It's wonderful having a trusted source try them out and give honest feedback. A big question I have is: does letting a batter sit for a while matter? For example: Say I bake a batter in a special tin (mini-muffin tin, special shapes), but only half the batter fits in the tin. The second half has to wait until the first batch is done... is that detrimental to the "waiting" batter? I'm always concerned the batter that is waiting is being ruined. Would love to learn about that. Thanks!
If you are using double acting baking powder(most is nowadays), theoretically you shouldn't have an issue. I think as long as you creamed well, so your little bubbles don't settle out of your batter, it should be okay?
Yep, it’s the scone method and it’s so much easier and faster and the results are even better!! 😂🙌 I like to take cold fridge butter (when making scones) and grate the butter into the flour and then use the pastry cutter to cut it in until it’s the sandy texture or close to it. Can’t wait to apply this to cakes!
I'm a reverse creaming convert. I'd rather do nearly ANYTHING than wait for butter and sugar to cream together, and I never can quite tell when it's really fluffy enough. Reverse creaming, though -- yep. I can SEE when something looks like sand! Great video. Thanks!
I'm wondering if the method would make more of a difference if you put the cakes at a disadvantage by using all-purpose flour instead of cake flour. Maybe the lesson here is that using the right flour is the most significant factor. It would also have been interesting if you'd *tried* to overmix with the biscuit method to see if it really offered protection against longer gluten chains. I might have to do some of my own experimentation...
You sure you aren't Julie's throw-away account trying to get at least 3 more cakes out of Glen?? I would love to see this done with all purpose flower too.
@@jhowardsupporter the curiosity is in if the methods used will result in greater variability in the texture due to the increased protein content of all purpose flower. The methods may not have mattered as much for a 6 percent protein cake flour compared to a 10-11 percent all purpose flower.
I think the overmixing concern is a bit overblown. I think it depends on your ingredients overall. Last night, I made a Guinness Chocolate Cake for dessert. I got caught off guard by a problem on the stove and forgot about the mixer beating all the ingredients together (butter, cocoa, flour, sour cream, vanilla, salt, baking soda, Guinness stout, sugar and eggs) and went about five minutes past "mix until combined." The cake still turned out to be incredibly light, tender, soft, and moist (it still was this afternoon when I had a second piece). So, that is what happened to me by overbeating the batter. Seems like a good idea to me.
I wonder if it has something to do with the cocoa powder, which has no gluten, being a large portion of the dry ingredients. In my experience, chocolate cakes tend to be more forgiving and white/yellow cakes are much harder to get right.
As someone who makes a pretty damn good cake almost entirely by accident, and who tends to roll my eyes at warnings that “you must do it this way or things will go badly,” I’d say the difference between the first two methods is negligible in my experience. The “hot milk” method, though, I always thought of as just a different kind of cake, rather than a different method.
I feel like the hot milk method is probably easiest if you don't have a stand mixer, since there's no need to cream the butter, which is always a tedious step without one haha
I was given this recipe by my motherr in law in 1967 and have used it ever since. It is always a lovely cake. The only difference is that the recipe calls for oil instead of butter. Having said that, I have often substituted butter for the oil, and there is no difference. It is so easy to make, especially with a stand mixer. There is no way the mixture can be over mixed if the flour is added alternatively with the liquid.. I do find that the texture is tougher when the flour is added lastly, though. That may be down to the fact that South Africa has a different type of wheat to the UK and America.
If doing the “Reverse Cream” or Scone Method just take cold fridge butter and grate it into the dry ingredients and use a pastry cutter, if you don’t have a stand mixture. Super easy. Then I just use my hand mixer to mix the wet in. 👍 To me this feels like a much easier and faster method than the traditional and bonus it gets an even better result! 🙌
@@FitChickGlows I don't have a pastry cutter but I think it can be done by hand, rubbing the butter into the flour, similar to how pastry dough is made.
I first encountered the "reverse creaming" method a few years ago in a pound cake recipe I found on the internet. I was skeptical because I had been thoroughly conditioned into the "you'll develop gluten!" mindset when I learned how to bake. I was pleasantly surprised and impressed with the result, and I agree that the method does produce a slightly, but noticeably, more tender crumb than the traditional method.
With all the examples lined up - the reverse creaming method cake was noticeably taller and fluffier-looking, and the hot milk sample appeared to be the flattest and densest - so I would think the methods did make a difference - even though they all tasted good. Great test!
The amount of dishes Glen is willing to do for something so simple as the method by which you cream the ingredients in a cake is amazing. Also, it's 4 a.m. and after watching seven of Glen's videos, I'm starving. Thanks Glen.
If I understand correctly, box cake mixes are basically a form of the reverse cream method since the box contains the flour coated with shortening, you add wet ingredients?
The third method is close to what I use to make got water chocolate cake. You just need the liquid hot enough to bloom the cocoa powder. Then pull it out warm and make a pour over frosting with butter, powdered sugar, salt, vanilla, and cocoa powder. Easiest cake ever. It was the way my grandma did it, but it's just a simple recipe. The cake batter is runny, but it works out every time.
I love hot water chocolate cake. So easy and delicious. Next time you make it try replacing the hot water with hot coffee. The coffee really boosts the flavour of the cocoa without actually tasting like coffee.
I akways add a tsp instant coffee powder to my choclate cakes. Usually ny go to method is oil and milk, heated and added to beaten eggs and sugar. Then fold in dry ingredients. Makes a beautifully light and tender cake. Fir chocolate cake I replace a quarter cup of flour with a quarter cup cocoa powder. Still add the vanilla. My mother in law gave me the recipe when I first got married, 1964.
for commercial applications the reverse cream method clearly came out taller. Get similar or better results by separating the eggs and foaming the egg whites. I would even say that taking the eggs to ribbon stage, like in in a genovas, in the hot mik method would have a similar result. The point is getting as much air into the cake before baking as possible leading to a much more uniform distribution of air bubble size and ultimately smaller bubbles. I was surprised when the reverse cream method worked better until I realized that commercial cake mix is prepared in reverse cream method. Except even more beating is applied.
Since you're doing baking science; one thing I've always wondered about, but never tested for myself. I was told in culinary school that you only wanted to use pure vanilla extract in situations where it wouldn't be heated, and that otherwise, artificial vanilla would work just as well while being far cheaper. I think it'd also be cool to see if pure vanilla makes a difference even in situations where it's not heated.
Great job, Glen! Science @ it's best! One thing I found out about making meringue: recipes ask for either a tbsp of water, a tbsp of hot water or a pinch of salt. Now, the "hot water" thing is obviously bull..frog: if your spoon is red hot, the water will evaporate. If it's water temp, it'll be room temp by the time it hits the egg white. And the amount? Like testing the body temp of a fly with a quicksilver thermometer. *sigh* But what the salt does: it's drawing water from the egg white. There we go: we need some free water in the mixture. Done! Greetings from the far north of Germany!
If you want to win at the fair you need to separate the eggs. Doesn’t matter which method you use as long as you beat the whites by themselves and fold them in at the end. This is always true and applies to white, yellow and chocolate cakes. Try it and amaze yourself!
Is it just me or does Glen slightly overbake everything? I would also love to see the difference in flour. I just can't see home bakers in the 1800s having cake flour. I know it is different, but my grandmothers never bought it.
Observing over the past few years, it seems to me that the Australian TH-cam cooks (Ann Reardon, Scran Line, Niko’s kitchen) all use the reverse creaming method as their default, while the creaming method is taken for granted among the North Americans. I’ve been meaning to try it, and now will for sure. Another side note, aren’t all box cakes reverse creaming by default?
The "reverse" method is the default way of cake making in Australia, so as an Australian, I was slightly puzzled with Glen's first method. That "hot" method looks like an opportunity for something very bad to go wrong when heating the milk and butter...
The reverse creaming method cake seems taller to me? I can't tell if it's an artifact of the camera angle or not, but am I the only one that thinks it's a bit taller?
Tested by Glen - A step forward against fake news and a return to experiment methods - this is one small step away from believe in all conspiracy theories
Thanks Glen for the experiment. I will try the reverse cream method with All Purpose flour since that's what I have at the moment. And I was wondering if I put the flour and butter in the food processor how that might work? Any homemade cake with these ingredients will taste great.
I used the reverse creaming method and I am delighted to report that it produced a beautiful cake. I live at high altitude (6,500 feet) which is a bakers challenge. I decided to replace 2 Tbsp / cup of All Purpose flour with 2 Tbsp Cornflour ( Cornstarch) to approximate the Cake flour used by Glen.
I'd love to see a comparison of putting the eggs in one at a time vs all at once. What's the difference in time for it to mix in and if it changes the final result.
I've been wondering about the different methods and when/why you would use one over the other. My curiosity has been satisfied. So Glen - which method will you be using going forward?
I just want to know why there are apparently so many people overmixing their batters. I just wanna get everything incorporated and move on with my life.
The third cake looked a tad higher too, I had hoped you might have done a bit of a closer shot to show the crumb texture. Oh well. Thanks for starting the series and what are you going to do with all that cake?
Almost impossible to find buttermilk in the UK. It’s just not something people here ever use. I’m not even sure what it is because I doubt it’s what I was told “buttermilk” was when I was a kid (in the 70s). I recall being told it was the liquid left over after butter was churned, essentially whey. Anyway, where Americans & Canadians use buttermilk, we just use whole (or semi-skimmed) milk. I think Americans call those 4% and 2% respectively.
As you say, essentially just whey (the liquid remaining after milk has been curdled and strained, that whey having ~0.3% fat): buttermilk (~0.5%-1.5% fat) is the liquid left behind after churning out the butter. All of this is just approximate, of course, since one can obtain higher and lower percentages and contents from different processes.
@Charles Rockafellor @Lady Kayla 'Buttermilk' in Canada and the U.S.A. has absolutely nothing (nothing) to do with the production of butter. 'Buttermilk sold in grocery stores here, and what pretty much all modern recipes ask for, is a skimmed 1% milk that is cultured / fermented with a bacteria. It more closely resembles Kefir, or a runny yoghourt product.
I think your third option introduced too many variables (bowl, manual mix) compared to the others...but if you look at the thickness of the batter, it looks like 1 was thickest, 3 was thinnest. I suspect the thickness is more a factor than the method is.
I was converted to "reverse creaming" method by Rose Levy Beranbaum, whom I revere (so excuse my sycophant bias). Rose adds about a quarter of the liquid along with the butter to the dry ingredients, but considering my bourgeois standards I would imagine that the results are about the same as yours. Fun video. Thanks, Glen.
Great idea for a series! I always enjoy "myth busting" content. Probably a bit more time-consuming than a regular segment, and this appears to be just before C-FMVU started consuming a lot of your time, but perhaps you can add more installments in the future. Cheers!
Love this! Would you consider making a video where you test if over mixing makes a difference? It's something I've been very curious about for a long time!
My mother always made one pot cakes in a similar way to your 3rd version; melt the butter into the liquid then add the sugar and flavouring, then the flour all in one go and finally the eggs. Texture was always good, and it only uses a single pot so cleanup is minimal.
Great, very interesting episode! I used to make a special muffin at Christmas and it was the reverse cream method, I think. But it was so many years ago, I just thought the method was quite different. It did make a wonderful tender and textured muffin. It was a marigold muffin with dried fruits. The petals were steeped in hot milk to make a sort of a poor man's saffron. I think the recipe was Dutch and that marigolds would have actually been calendula. But I dutifully saved and dried marigold petals for the Christmas muffin each year.
That was fun. And I loved the result. That after all the fuss online and in the cooking shows, it doesn't really make all that much difference in the end. What matters is having a good recipe. If you do, then it's basically going to work out fine unless you do something horrendous. I'd be more conerned with making sure the the oven is calibrated to work at the proper temperature.
Thank you for the leg work🤔..the answer is dattada!! If you care do it the way you want.. it's marginally better ☺️ either way😊 it's 🤤Cake yum😘Thank you Glenn 💖
Reverse creaming? Isn't that just the old fashioned 'rubbing in' method? That was very common when I was a child and makes a lovely cake. The other old technique was melting the butter and sugar together. Melting the butter also makes it easier to make shortbread.
"Not changing the world, one cake at a time" great title 😂 Really like this series!
Does this mean you'll also do an episode with a purposely over mixed batter? 😁
I hope so!
Batter mixed on loop for 10 hours perhaps?
Another vote for trying to over mix it. Is it the flour being buttered or mild paranoia that makes the difference?
yes because I'm always so worried about over mixing sometimes I don't mix enough so I just stopped baking cakes all together them 😰 I'd love to make sure!
Do all three again but purposefully overmix them. Maybe that is the true benefit of the reverse cream method.
Love this "TESTED!" series. It's wonderful having a trusted source try them out and give honest feedback.
A big question I have is: does letting a batter sit for a while matter? For example: Say I bake a batter in a special tin (mini-muffin tin, special shapes), but only half the batter fits in the tin. The second half has to wait until the first batch is done... is that detrimental to the "waiting" batter? I'm always concerned the batter that is waiting is being ruined. Would love to learn about that.
Thanks!
If this was really TESTED this would be called THE ADAM SAVAGE TEST SERIES.
I've never had an issue when my batter has had to wait.
If you are using double acting baking powder(most is nowadays), theoretically you shouldn't have an issue. I think as long as you creamed well, so your little bubbles don't settle out of your batter, it should be okay?
“Reverse” method was called “rubbing-in” in England, 1960’s, when I was taught (biscuit has a different meaning there). Thanks for the video.
Yeah I was taught the same way for scones and such. Use the tips of your fingers to rub the butter into the flour to create a sandy kind of texture.
I did say it wasn't 'new' in the video - that I see this method in cookbooks in my collection going back to the 1700s.
@@Beruthiel45 he didn't say it was a new method. He said "reverse creaming" was the new name for the method.
Yep, it’s the scone method and it’s so much easier and faster and the results are even better!! 😂🙌 I like to take cold fridge butter (when making scones) and grate the butter into the flour and then use the pastry cutter to cut it in until it’s the sandy texture or close to it. Can’t wait to apply this to cakes!
"Not changing the world, one cake at a time" should probably be on a t-shirt.
Maybe.
No maybe about it. Definitely on a t-shirt. Also a coffee mug and a tattoo across my forehead.
I'm a reverse creaming convert. I'd rather do nearly ANYTHING than wait for butter and sugar to cream together, and I never can quite tell when it's really fluffy enough. Reverse creaming, though -- yep. I can SEE when something looks like sand! Great video. Thanks!
I'm wondering if the method would make more of a difference if you put the cakes at a disadvantage by using all-purpose flour instead of cake flour. Maybe the lesson here is that using the right flour is the most significant factor.
It would also have been interesting if you'd *tried* to overmix with the biscuit method to see if it really offered protection against longer gluten chains. I might have to do some of my own experimentation...
You sure you aren't Julie's throw-away account trying to get at least 3 more cakes out of Glen?? I would love to see this done with all purpose flower too.
You can use all purpose flour. A lot of chefs do.
@@jhowardsupporter the curiosity is in if the methods used will result in greater variability in the texture due to the increased protein content of all purpose flower. The methods may not have mattered as much for a 6 percent protein cake flour compared to a 10-11 percent all purpose flower.
@@jimsackerman 🤣
🤔 interesting
I think the overmixing concern is a bit overblown. I think it depends on your ingredients overall. Last night, I made a Guinness Chocolate Cake for dessert. I got caught off guard by a problem on the stove and forgot about the mixer beating all the ingredients together (butter, cocoa, flour, sour cream, vanilla, salt, baking soda, Guinness stout, sugar and eggs) and went about five minutes past "mix until combined." The cake still turned out to be incredibly light, tender, soft, and moist (it still was this afternoon when I had a second piece). So, that is what happened to me by overbeating the batter. Seems like a good idea to me.
I wonder if it has something to do with the cocoa powder, which has no gluten, being a large portion of the dry ingredients. In my experience, chocolate cakes tend to be more forgiving and white/yellow cakes are much harder to get right.
As someone who makes a pretty damn good cake almost entirely by accident, and who tends to roll my eyes at warnings that “you must do it this way or things will go badly,” I’d say the difference between the first two methods is negligible in my experience. The “hot milk” method, though, I always thought of as just a different kind of cake, rather than a different method.
Yeah usually the cake is fine what ever way you do it.
LOL same boat. Once you slather the icing on, nobody really cares but I do appreciate the science behind the testing process here :-)
I feel like the hot milk method is probably easiest if you don't have a stand mixer, since there's no need to cream the butter, which is always a tedious step without one haha
I didn’t know this method was possible.
I agree with the statement “somethings aren’t worth the effort”,
Knowing this I plan of using this method.
I was given this recipe by my motherr in law in 1967 and have used it ever since. It is always a lovely cake. The only difference is that the recipe calls for oil instead of butter.
Having said that, I have often substituted butter for the oil, and there is no difference.
It is so easy to make, especially with a stand mixer. There is no way the mixture can be over mixed if the flour is added alternatively with the liquid.. I do find that the texture is tougher when the flour is added lastly, though. That may be down to the fact that South Africa has a different type of wheat to the UK and America.
If doing the “Reverse Cream” or Scone Method just take cold fridge butter and grate it into the dry ingredients and use a pastry cutter, if you don’t have a stand mixture. Super easy. Then I just use my hand mixer to mix the wet in. 👍 To me this feels like a much easier and faster method than the traditional and bonus it gets an even better result! 🙌
@@FitChickGlows I don't have a pastry cutter but I think it can be done by hand, rubbing the butter into the flour, similar to how pastry dough is made.
I first encountered the "reverse creaming" method a few years ago in a pound cake recipe I found on the internet. I was skeptical because I had been thoroughly conditioned into the "you'll develop gluten!" mindset when I learned how to bake. I was pleasantly surprised and impressed with the result, and I agree that the method does produce a slightly, but noticeably, more tender crumb than the traditional method.
With all the examples lined up - the reverse creaming method cake was noticeably taller and fluffier-looking, and the hot milk sample appeared to be the flattest and densest - so I would think the methods did make a difference - even though they all tasted good. Great test!
Hi Glen, love the video and the idea of new series to challenge preconceptions and cooking myths.
A new novel from Stephen King…The Shortening!
A terrifying tale about a haunted tub of lard?
Mwahaha!
The amount of dishes Glen is willing to do for something so simple as the method by which you cream the ingredients in a cake is amazing.
Also, it's 4 a.m. and after watching seven of Glen's videos, I'm starving. Thanks Glen.
Yep, it’s 3:24am here and I’m starving too! 😂
I was asked how I liked my eggs cooked? I told them "in cake"! Lol
If I understand correctly, box cake mixes are basically a form of the reverse cream method since the box contains the flour coated with shortening, you add wet ingredients?
The third method is close to what I use to make got water chocolate cake. You just need the liquid hot enough to bloom the cocoa powder. Then pull it out warm and make a pour over frosting with butter, powdered sugar, salt, vanilla, and cocoa powder. Easiest cake ever. It was the way my grandma did it, but it's just a simple recipe. The cake batter is runny, but it works out every time.
I love hot water chocolate cake. So easy and delicious. Next time you make it try replacing the hot water with hot coffee. The coffee really boosts the flavour of the cocoa without actually tasting like coffee.
I akways add a tsp instant coffee powder to my choclate cakes.
Usually ny go to method is oil and milk, heated and added to beaten eggs and sugar. Then fold in dry ingredients. Makes a beautifully light and tender cake.
Fir chocolate cake I replace a quarter cup of flour with a quarter cup cocoa powder. Still add the vanilla.
My mother in law gave me the recipe when I first got married, 1964.
for commercial applications the reverse cream method clearly came out taller. Get similar or better results by separating the eggs and foaming the egg whites. I would even say that taking the eggs to ribbon stage, like in in a genovas, in the hot mik method would have a similar result. The point is getting as much air into the cake before baking as possible leading to a much more uniform distribution of air bubble size and ultimately smaller bubbles. I was surprised when the reverse cream method worked better until I realized that commercial cake mix is prepared in reverse cream method. Except even more beating is applied.
I thought the fluffiest cake would win at the fair, just as Glen said the same thing!
The hot milk method seems like a really good option if you do not own a stand mixer. The other two seem to be a lot more labour by hand.
Thanks for doing this… was very curious and you spared me the mess in my kitchen. :)
I’ll tell you what’s better! My husband cooking anything ever, much less 3 cakes!
I really like the side by side experimental comparisons.
Julie is a girl after my heart. Get that frosting on the top AND the bottom of each bite! 🤣
I love when Glen looks at these things because I love looking at recipes as science.
I could see a visual difference in he three and I guessed right before you even tasted them. Very cool experiment. I am loving the "TESTED!" series.
hell yes, there's my favorite bowl.
This right there is the information I needed,thank you!❤
Doesn't Really Matter (DRM) is a wonderful title for the SUB series...
It's like... Mixing Mythbusters! Mixbusters? Mythbakers?
Since you're doing baking science; one thing I've always wondered about, but never tested for myself. I was told in culinary school that you only wanted to use pure vanilla extract in situations where it wouldn't be heated, and that otherwise, artificial vanilla would work just as well while being far cheaper. I think it'd also be cool to see if pure vanilla makes a difference even in situations where it's not heated.
Alvin Zhou has a video on this
Since I don’t have cake flour, the reverse method makes even more sense.
Easy substitute; for 1 cup of AP flour, remove 2 tablespoons and replace by 2 tb of cornstarch .
Actually works wonderfully with all purpose. Cake flour just helps with texture, not necessary any mixing method.
Ohhh I really wanted to see one left in the mixer for like 5 mins and see what over mixing really does and how much it really matters.
Great job, Glen! Science @ it's best!
One thing I found out about making meringue: recipes ask for either a tbsp of water, a tbsp of hot water or a pinch of salt.
Now, the "hot water" thing is obviously bull..frog: if your spoon is red hot, the water will evaporate. If it's water temp, it'll be room temp by the time it hits the egg white. And the amount? Like testing the body temp of a fly with a quicksilver thermometer. *sigh*
But what the salt does: it's drawing water from the egg white. There we go: we need some free water in the mixture. Done!
Greetings from the far north of Germany!
Fantastic video more of these please 🎂🎂🎂🎂
I want to see the lazy man's method, just throw everything in at once.
Dump cake. Pretty sure he's done that before
Id love to see you tackle bread baking next for this series, there are lots of good wives tales surrounding almost every step of baking bread
I feel like this would be an excellent one. I treat my yeast bread dough like a sourdough, and my loaves are beautiful. Great crumb, structure
If you want to win at the fair you need to separate the eggs. Doesn’t matter which method you use as long as you beat the whites by themselves and fold them in at the end. This is always true and applies to white, yellow and chocolate cakes. Try it and amaze yourself!
Very interesting,many thanks, love the videos.
Is it just me or does Glen slightly overbake everything? I would also love to see the difference in flour. I just can't see home bakers in the 1800s having cake flour. I know it is different, but my grandmothers never bought it.
Oh fascinating. I always wonder about the order of mixing the ingredients. Also great video as always.
We have PBS's America's Test Kitchen in the USA - high tech. In Canada we have Canada's Test Kitchen at GIen's and JeweI's house! 😊
Observing over the past few years, it seems to me that the Australian TH-cam cooks (Ann Reardon, Scran Line, Niko’s kitchen) all use the reverse creaming method as their default, while the creaming method is taken for granted among the North Americans. I’ve been meaning to try it, and now will for sure.
Another side note, aren’t all box cakes reverse creaming by default?
The "reverse" method is the default way of cake making in Australia, so as an Australian, I was slightly puzzled with Glen's first method.
That "hot" method looks like an opportunity for something very bad to go wrong when heating the milk and butter...
Ahhhh....good point.
@@dj1NM3 Yep. I've always known it was 'rubbing-in' here in Australia. It just seems to be the normal way.
Well you'll need a method that produces fine but tender crumbs for those lamingtons
The reverse creaming method cake seems taller to me? I can't tell if it's an artifact of the camera angle or not, but am I the only one that thinks it's a bit taller?
Very informative, thanks a lot for sharing. 🙏🙏🙏
Tested by Glen - A step forward against fake news and a return to experiment methods - this is one small step away from believe in all conspiracy theories
Hi Glen. What a great idea. Top Video. Thank you … Greetings from Germany 🌲⛰🌲
Well done. Thanks for sharing your results.😋😋😋
Thanks Glen for the experiment. I will try the reverse cream method with All Purpose flour since that's what I have at the moment. And I was wondering if I put the flour and butter in the food processor how that might work? Any homemade cake with these ingredients will taste great.
I used the reverse creaming method and I am delighted to report that it produced a beautiful cake. I live at high altitude (6,500 feet) which is a bakers challenge. I decided to replace 2 Tbsp / cup of All Purpose flour with 2 Tbsp Cornflour ( Cornstarch) to approximate the Cake flour used by Glen.
Does It Really Matter? Is a perfect title for this show.
I am loving this series !! just so interesting thank you !!! and I am going to try the biscuit method next time :-)
But, would the different methods achieve the same results using all purpose flour instead of cake flour?
Now you need to have a get together- because three cakes is alot
Interesting. And surprising that there are different methods.
I really, really love this series. Not as much as the Old Cookbook series, of course, but A Whole Lot.
You should have tried to over-mix the batter in the second method in order to see if it's possible.
me, a person who doesn't bake with gluten at all: ah yes interesting results. I'll have to keep this in mind
I'd love to see a comparison of putting the eggs in one at a time vs all at once. What's the difference in time for it to mix in and if it changes the final result.
So interesting. Thank you for the experiment.
Very interesting 🤨 wow 3 different methods and they all great cakes I
I love this technique testing. Its fun to see the differences and what they more may not produce.
I've been wondering about the different methods and when/why you would use one over the other. My curiosity has been satisfied. So Glen - which method will you be using going forward?
Probably creaming butter and flour (reverse cream) since it doesn't really add any extra time.
@@GlenAndFriendsCooking Bummer if you don't have a stand mixer...maybe you could do a short with 'reverse' by hand mixing.
@@davidlogan8152 given that its using the same method for a pie dough, a dough cutter ought to do a satisfactory job by hand for the first step
Very interesting video, thank you. I'll keep that in mind next time I bake a cake :D
I just want to know why there are apparently so many people overmixing their batters. I just wanna get everything incorporated and move on with my life.
It happens a lot with pancakes because people will mix the batter until it's smooth, which is invariably too much.
Call me crazy but I always counted sugar as a dry ingredient and mixed with the flour
This new series is the perfect ratio of educational and shade throwing/salt I love it
The third cake looked a tad higher too, I had hoped you might have done a bit of a closer shot to show the crumb texture. Oh well. Thanks for starting the series and what are you going to do with all that cake?
So what did you do with all those cakes?
If you need to get rid of one-or-two of those, you can send them to me. :)
This channel is great. Answering questions, I didn't know that I had.
As always great video fun to watch you cook and always informative 👍
Fun experiment. Thanks.
Almost impossible to find buttermilk in the UK. It’s just not something people here ever use. I’m not even sure what it is because I doubt it’s what I was told “buttermilk” was when I was a kid (in the 70s). I recall being told it was the liquid left over after butter was churned, essentially whey.
Anyway, where Americans & Canadians use buttermilk, we just use whole (or semi-skimmed) milk. I think Americans call those 4% and 2% respectively.
As you say, essentially just whey (the liquid remaining after milk has been curdled and strained, that whey having ~0.3% fat): buttermilk (~0.5%-1.5% fat) is the liquid left behind after churning out the butter. All of this is just approximate, of course, since one can obtain higher and lower percentages and contents from different processes.
@Charles Rockafellor @Lady Kayla
'Buttermilk' in Canada and the U.S.A. has absolutely nothing (nothing) to do with the production of butter. 'Buttermilk sold in grocery stores here, and what pretty much all modern recipes ask for, is a skimmed 1% milk that is cultured / fermented with a bacteria. It more closely resembles Kefir, or a runny yoghourt product.
I think your third option introduced too many variables (bowl, manual mix) compared to the others...but if you look at the thickness of the batter, it looks like 1 was thickest, 3 was thinnest. I suspect the thickness is more a factor than the method is.
I was converted to "reverse creaming" method by Rose Levy Beranbaum, whom I revere (so excuse my sycophant bias). Rose adds about a quarter of the liquid along with the butter to the dry ingredients, but considering my bourgeois standards I would imagine that the results are about the same as yours. Fun video. Thanks, Glen.
Great experiment and interesting results. Next time try the “dump everything in the bowl and mix method”. I suspect it will work well too.
Fascinating! The "reverse cream" method was perhaps slightly easier to do than the other methods, too!
Love your videos as always, but I really enjoy your comparison videos like this. Keep up the great work!
thank you for doing this!
I use a paddle to cream the butter, then I switch to a whip to mix everything else. And cake flour does make a tender cake.
Love this series, really interesting. Many thanks.
Great idea for a series! I always enjoy "myth busting" content. Probably a bit more time-consuming than a regular segment, and this appears to be just before C-FMVU started consuming a lot of your time, but perhaps you can add more installments in the future. Cheers!
In the video the cake on the right (reverse cream method) looks like it rose more than the other two. Was it higher or just an optical illusion?
Who else wishes they lived in the neighborhood so they could stop by for leftovers? I could seriously help do damage to three cakes at once. 😅
Coming next from Glen and Jules: Scones - Jam on first or cream? (Or even butter...?)
I love these tests. I especially love when you prove that what you were skeptical of is actually better.
Keep it up! Probably one of favourite series.
Love this! Would you consider making a video where you test if over mixing makes a difference? It's something I've been very curious about for a long time!
My mother always made one pot cakes in a similar way to your 3rd version; melt the butter into the liquid then add the sugar and flavouring, then the flour all in one go and finally the eggs. Texture was always good, and it only uses a single pot so cleanup is minimal.
I use this method to make muffins with butter instead of oil. The "reverse cream" method.
Better is better and it's no extra effort? I might do this going forward just for peace of mind.
Great, very interesting episode!
I used to make a special muffin at Christmas and it was the reverse cream method, I think. But it was so many years ago, I just thought the method was quite different. It did make a wonderful tender and textured muffin.
It was a marigold muffin with dried fruits. The petals were steeped in hot milk to make a sort of a poor man's saffron. I think the recipe was Dutch and that marigolds would have actually been calendula. But I dutifully saved and dried marigold petals for the Christmas muffin each year.
That was fun. And I loved the result. That after all the fuss online and in the cooking shows, it doesn't really make all that much difference in the end. What matters is having a good recipe. If you do, then it's basically going to work out fine unless you do something horrendous. I'd be more conerned with making sure the the oven is calibrated to work at the proper temperature.
Thank you for the leg work🤔..the answer is dattada!! If you care do it the way you want.. it's marginally better ☺️ either way😊 it's 🤤Cake yum😘Thank you Glenn 💖
The Joy of Cooking used the reverse cream method for their banana bread. I love how tender it is every time.
Reverse creaming? Isn't that just the old fashioned 'rubbing in' method? That was very common when I was a child and makes a lovely cake. The other old technique was melting the butter and sugar together. Melting the butter also makes it easier to make shortbread.
What if you "reverse creamed" everything EXCEPT the sugar, and then did a sugar/egg "foaming" like in the standard foaming method of cake making?
Have you ever cooked a cake based on internal temp not time in the oven?? It works for meats? Would it work for cakes?
That makes sense! Gonna try it! Would using ghee reduce water concerns? Thanks!
Love this already!