I’m Just Here For More Food

If you’ve ever made cookies or cakes from a recipe, odds are good you’ve come across this sentence: “Cream butter (or shortening) with sugar until light and fluffy.” The reason is this: Creaming creates products with a fine, regular texture and a soft, moist (but not necessarily tender) tooth. The problem is that most recipes fail to explain why you need to “cream” anything, nor do they tell you how to manage the creaming process.

The Creaming Method

Scale or measure all ingredients. Fats should be pliable but solid (no sign of melting). If kitchen temp is over 70°F, chill the mixing bowl.

Combine all Dry Goods (except sugar) by pulsing in food processor.

In a small bowl, beat eggs together along with any extracts.

Using a stand mixer, with the paddle attachment, on medium speed:

Mix the fat(s) alone for a minute to spread them around the bowl.

Add sugar(s) slowly and beat until mixture lightens noticeably in texture and increases slightly in volume.

Reduce the speed to “stir” and add the eggs very slowly, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary.

Work in the Dry Goods in three installments alternating with any additional liquids, such as milk. Always start with the dry ingredients and finish with the wet for a smoother batter.

Stir in any bits and/or pieces (chocolate chips, nuts, etc.).

Bake according to the recipe’s instructions.

Frequent Creaming Mistakes

Fat is either too warm or too cold.

Adding sugar directly to fat without briefly beating the fat first.

Pouring sugar all at once instead of adding it in a slow steady stream with the mixer on.

Not knowing when to stop: although you’re no longer able to see sugar granules, if you rub a bit of the creamed fat between your fingers you should still be able to feel them.

(Technically speaking, sugar can dissolve quickly in butter because it’s hygroscopic and there is water in butter. If the recipe was formulated with the butter’s moisture in mind (and any good recipe would be) then things can start getting out of whack if the sugar is allowed to hoard that moisture. This doesn’t happen with cakes calling for shortening because there’s no moisture in it.)

Not beating the eggs and refrigerating them before adding to the creamed fat. In this case, the eggs absorb heat from the fat, which make it harder. If the fat has been getting too warm, this could be a good thing. The point is to be aware that the temperature of each ingredient has a substantial effect on the process.

To me, “cream” is the most troublesome word in the baking canon. The problem is that it has so many meanings.

Cream (n.) the stuff that floats to the top of fresh milk.

Cream (vt.) to beat into a creamy froth.

Cream (vi.) to dress with a creamlike sauce.

Then of course there’s

Creamy (adj.) something that’s been creamed, or reminds you of cream.

The second definition, the verb transitive, is the most difficult of these. Besides being almost completely subjective—after all, one baker’s “light and fluffy” may be another’s “dense and crunchy”—one cannot become a baker without grasping its meaning. If a person tells me that they believe baking to be difficult, I blame this word (along with “knead,” but that’s another chapter).

Most home bakers think the goal of “creaming” is to soften the fat. But softening is only a side effect of the true mission, which is aeration—the integration of tiny “seed” bubbles into the fat. Butter, when properly creamed, significantly lightens in color because billions and billions of tiny air bubbles change the way light reflects from the mass. Creaming also significantly increases the volume of fat. Most of the time this is done with sugar, which acts as an abrasive, cutting tiny holes into the fat, which then seal over, creating tiny bubbles. Leaveners like baking powder produce the gases that blow up the bubbles that create the texture of a baked good, but they don’t create those bubbles—creaming does. As you no doubt recall from the shortening/butter sections, these bubbles are greatly responsible for the final texture of the good in question. In fact, the fine texture of cakes and cookies is due more to creaming than any other single factor.

So what’s the best way to achieve this airy state? Ideally in the work bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with a paddle. The fat, a little on the cool side, goes in, and you turn the machine to low, just to break things up. Then sprinkle in the sugar and edge the power up to about 50 percent. After a couple of minutes, you’ll need to stop and scrape the bowl, especially the bottom, with a rubber spatula to ensure that all the fat and sugar gets a good beating.

Don’t do this with the whisk attachment. For one thing, a firm fat could break or bend the tines, and even when soft, a huge ball will probably form in the middle of the whisk and just sit there. No, only the paddle can slap the fat against the side of the bowl and scrape the sugar into it.

Your other technological options are limited. I’ve seen creaming done with an electric hand mixer, but it took forever and it wasn’t pretty. The biggest problem with hand mixers is that they throw a lot of material around and they take longer to get the job done. That means more heat is produced and that can melt the fat. And, since hand mixers usually have thin metal beaters, they aren’t very good at rubbing fat and sugar together. No, you have to have a stand mixer if you’re going to cream properly. And no, you can’t use your food processor. Believe me, I’ve tried. Is there an “unplugged” option? Well let’s put it this way, once upon a time people made cakes by hand, but they had something most of us don’t have today: servants.

Here’s how the Creaming Method works:

Sift together the Dry Goods. (See the information on sifting here.) That means any and all flours, your chemical leavening, salt and other dry spices—basically, everything but sugar.

Cream the solid fat and sugar(s), preferably with a stand mixer using the paddle attachment on medium speed, until light and fluffy. Okay, there I go using those vague terms of “light” and “fluffy.” Here’s when to stop: when you’re no longer able to see sugar granules, but you can still feel them if you rub a bit of the creamed fat between your fingers. Although you can overcream (and you’ll know that you have when your mixture moves from a smooth and homogeneous mixture to something akin to curdled milk), inadequate aeration (i.e. undercreaming) is far more common. As a rule of thumb, I like to see the volume of the fat increase by a third.

Add the eggs slowly. Many recipes call for adding eggs one at a time. I think that’s kinda silly, because in most cases that means adding water (in the form of egg whites) directly to fat. Since fats and water don’t get along very well, batters mixed this way tend to come together slowly. To get around this, mix the eggs together first so that the water in the egg whites can hook up with the emulsifiers in the yolks. Add them in a steady stream and the eggs will be absorbed in no time.

Drop the mixer speed to low and add the dry goods slowly, alternating the addition of the dry goods with any other liquid ingredients. Then stir in any bits and pieces like chocolate chips at the end.

Depending on the amount of liquid involved, the mixture produced may be a pourable batter (a cake) or a thick paste (a chocolate chip cookie). So your final step would be to pour the batter into or “drop” the cookies onto a pan and bake.

It’s the Temperature of the Fat

THE SUCCESS OF CREAMING depends in no small part on the temperature of the fat. Most recipes use the term “room temperature” as though it actually meant something. Depending on the season, my kitchen can range from 65° to 80°F, and that’s if I break down and use the air conditioner.

So, if butter is the fat in question, I break it out of the fridge and counter it until it hits between 65° and 70°F, maintaining the temp with a probe thermometer.

If shortening is the fat, I like 70°F or lower. During warm summer months, I keep my shortening tightly lidded (Tightly lidded because fats are quite good at picking up random flavors.) in the refrigerator so that it’s always ready. The nice thing about shortening is that it’s almost as easy to work with at 50° as 70°F. If you just can’t bring yourself to refrigerate shortening, you can always stick it in ice water.

Shortening can be measured by volume and chilled at the same time by being placed in a measured amount of ice water. Simply submerge shortening with a skewer or fork and measure by displacement. Leave in water 5 minutes. Fish it out, dry on a paper towel, and go to work.

Proper Pan Prep

FEW THINGS CAN RUIN YOUR DAY LIKE a cake or loaf or muffin that refuses to let go of its cooking vessel. Proper pan prep can prevent such stubbornness. I grease and line every pan I bake with, even if the application doesn’t call for it. It only takes a couple of minutes to take out an insurance policy against such disasters…isn’t your baked good worth it?

I use one of the following three methods, depending on the target food.

Baker’s Joy. This is a spray lube that actually contains flour. So when some recipe (none herein, I hope) demands that you grease and flour, you can do it all with the push of a button. It’s the only manufactured pan release application I use in baking—and it’s especially good for Bundt pans, muffin tins, and any pan with hard-to-get spots. If you can’t get your hands on some, then there’s…

AB’s Kustom Kitchen Lube. Yep, make this stuff up right there at home. Just toss 2 cups of shortening into the ol’ stand mixer with 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour and mix it on low, just until the shortening sucks up the flour. Then hike the speed up to medium to aerate it a bit for easy application. Store it in a resealable plastic container and use it to lube up anything and everything. It’s good on just about any type of pan.

Lube pan with shortening. Why shortening and not butter? Because butter contains two things I don’t want under or around the sides of my baked good: water and protein. Butter may only contain some 15 percent water, but as that water changes to steam, it increases in volume by about a thousand times. That steam’s got to go someplace and it can wreak havoc as it does. Butter also contains proteins…so does Elmer’s glue. Enough said.

Parchment. (No, wax paper will not do. Parchment is impregnated with silicone, which is a wonderfully nonreactive substance (that means it doesn’t stick), and it’s very stable. Wax paper is nonreactive only as long as the wax isn’t melted. Line your cake and bread pans with wax paper only if you’re looking for a nice crayon flavor to infuse your foods.) I paper just about everything. Here’s how:

To line a round cake pan:

In the case of squares or rectangles, I generally make a sling, leaving two of the sides (the short ones on a loaf pan) greased only.

Another reason to love parchment paper: Often the starch and protein inside cookies hasn’t set all the way when it’s time to evacuate the oven. In these cases attempting removal via spatula can end in misshapen cookies or worse. By baking on parchment, you can simply slide the entire batch off to a cooling rack without touching a single cookie. That way the pan is free for another load and the cookies are safe and sound.

The two exceptions. Soufflé dishes get buttered then dusted with flour or grated cheese (see here) because the foam needs something to cling to as it climbs. Pans used for angel food cakes aren’t lubed at all, because the fat would break down the foam structure. That’s why you generally have to cut angel food cakes out of the pan with a knife…hence the two-piece tube pan.

Apple Cake

Another really old recipe from the Brown family books.

Hardware:

Digital scale

Dry measuring cups

Wet measuring cups

Measuring spoons

Nutmeg grater or microplane

Chef’s knife

Cutting board

12-cup Bundt pan (This is the classic Bundt. The fancier flower and castle shapes usually have a 10=cup capacity.)

Food processor

Large mixing bowl

Whisk

Stand mixer with paddle attachment

Rubber or silicone spatula

Cooling rack

THE CREAMED

THE EGGS

THE DRY GOODS

THE EXTRAS

Apples: I like Galas.

Place an oven rack in position C and preheat the oven to 275°F.

Prepare the Bundt pan (see here) and set aside.

Assemble the ingredients via the CREAMING METHOD, folding in the apples and pecans last.

Pour the batter into the Bundt pan and bake until the internal temperature reaches 212°F, about 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Cool in pan for 15 minutes, then remove to rack to cool completely.

Wrapped tightly, this will keep for 5 days.

Yield: Serves 12

Fudge Cake

You’ll be sure that you’ve done something wrong when you’ve made this batter—it’s very loose for a cake. Don’t worry. It will be fine. In fact, this cake is so good that it doesn’t even need frosting, but I’ve given you a recipe anyway. And if you liked Hostess Cupcakes when you were growing up, this recipe comes pretty close. Just substitute a muffin tin for the cake pan, fill the cups (with or without paper inserts) three-quarters full, and bake for 15 to 20 minutes in a 350°F oven, rotating the pan half-way through. You’ll get about 2 dozen cupcakes.