All language subtitles for bc01

this is an irresponsible amount of

batter for this bowl size i just want

people to know that

if chris morocco were here he would be

horrified this is all about like

you know use the right tool and

everything

hi everyone i'm claire and this is

episode one of ba's baking school

we are showing you everything you need

to know about layer cakes from the cakes

themselves to the fillings to the

frostings

putting the whole thing together

decorating in a five episode series

and by the time you watch you should

know everything there is to know about

how to make a layer cake at home

whether it's your very first and you're

a novice baker or you're more

experienced and just want to get better

over the course of the series we're

going to be making three specific layer

cakes to demonstrate these universal

techniques and here are those cakes

so here i have our three individual

layer cakes a layer cake

is a construction of multiple layers of

a sponge

separated by a filling and then the

whole thing is iced

and decorated let me break down each of

the cakes and how they're different

cake number one is our birthday cake it

is composed of

three layers of classic yellow cake the

layers are soaked in a vanilla milk

the filling is a whipped chocolate

ganache the frosting is chocolate

sismering buttercream and the decor

is rainbow sprinkles pressed around the

sides but if someone made this cake for

me on my birthday it would be

like it would like cry it would be so

touched

for our coconut cake here's what we got

six layers of white cake

coconut milk soak in between the layers

coconut caramel

outside and on the top we piped italian

meringue

torched and then toasted coconut on top

it might

look intimidating but you really can

make this at home so

um you just have to watch all five

episodes just get comfortable

our third cake is our carrot cake it's

enormous

we have three layers of carrot cake with

walnuts the filling is

very thin layers of pineapple vanilla

compote then in between the layers

and around the sides and top classic

cream cheese frosting

the decorations are candied carrot

ribbons they're not supposed to be this

big i made a mistake and then we

couldn't reverse

we couldn't reshoot it i did some bad

math

sorry episode one is all about the cakes

themselves

how to mix the batters the different

recipes all you need to know about

the cakes that go inside of our final

compose layer cakes

so to make the layers for any kind of

layer cake there are

essential tools that you must have a

large whisk heat proof

spatula liquid measuring cups dry

measures mixing bowls

at least two light-colored identical

cake pans these are nine inch

parchment paper and scissors for cutting

out rounds non-stick cooking spray

and a stand mixer i really don't

recommend

making a layer cake by hand sand mixer

will make it so much easier

so the first thing you have to do always

before starting to build your batter

is line your cake pans and that's

because a layer of parchment on the

bottom ensures that your cake releases

when you turn it out i'm just tracing

around the very bottom of the pan with a

pen you can use a sharpie

i'm going to trace the second one right

next to it and now i have the outline of

the pan

because this one doesn't actually fit in

the bottom of this pan because they're

not the same size

these two fit nicely in the bottom i'm

gonna use a little bit of non-stick

cooking spray to coat the pans

and now i line the parchment in the

bottom sometimes i like to

fold it in half like this so that helps

to eliminate air bubbles as i place the

parchment

in the pan another light coating of

spray

on the parchment itself to really ensure

that the cakes don't stick

i dust everything with a layer of flour

now i tap the flour while rotating the

pan all the way around so that it coats

not only the bottom but the sides

any cake that you bake in here will

slide right out if you were to skip this

step

it could lead to disastrous consequences

it's time to find out what would happen

if we

didn't prep our baking pan this is just

a batch of our regular

yellow cake so i'm going to scrape in no

parchment no butter

no flour not even a spray of pam so i'll

bake this for the regular time about a

half an hour

and we'll see what happens okay here is

that cake layer that's cooled a little

a little worried there's no parchment so

there's nothing

that's creating any kind of release on

the bottom

it's pretty stuck all right this guy it

has to come out in pieces

unfortunately it's like an arrested oven

like and that's why you always prep the

pan

disaster otherwise so now that the pans

are prepped we're ready to move on to

the batter

i'm going to show you three distinct

cake recipes using three distinct

methods for mixing

each of our three cakes has a different

texture and that's because of the way

the different ingredients are mixed

together that produces different amounts

of

gluten so i'm going to show you what

gluten looks like gluten is produced

when

the proteins in wheat flour interact

with water different

amounts of gluten development affects

the overall texture when water comes

into contact with wheat flour

two proteins gluten and gliadin produce

what's called gluten and it's these long

stretchy strands

that give bread dough for instance their

chewy texture

the more i mix this the more structure

i'm giving it

that's what we wanted bread dough not

what we want in cake batter

here i have two examples of baked goods

with different amounts of gluten

development so i can show you

what the final result is first i have

it's really like a muffin i mean i'm not

let's be honest a muffin is cake

anyone that doesn't know that kind of i

don't like muffins i'd just rather eat

cake

so this is an example of lower gluten

development

the texture is light and fluffy unlike

cake

the object when you're making bread is

often to develop as much gluten as

possible

when i press down and it springs back up

that's because of all that gluten

super springy very chewy i can see

little flecks of the whole grain in it

by changing around the order and method

of mixing together the batter

we can change the amount of gluten

development there's more than one way to

bake a cake

so i'm going to show you the three

different mixing methods for each of our

three layer cakes

cake number one is our birthday cake

very classic yellow cake

for our coconut cake we got six layers

of white cake our

third cake is our carrot cake we have

three layers of carrot cake with walnuts

these are the three different cakes that

we're going to make

we're ready to start building our first

classic yellow cake

and we're going to use the traditional

method for bringing the cake together

which starts with creaming the butter

and sugar and this is going to result in

a nice fluffy cake

with sort of a beautiful domed lid and a

very nice texture

here all the ingredients you need to

make classic yellow cake using the

traditional creaming method

granulated sugar unsalted butter large

eggs

buttermilk vegetable oil vanilla extract

baking powder

kosher salt baking soda and cake flour

okay so the first thing i want to do is

combine all my dry ingredients but i am

using a whisk to combine dry and this is

also going to eliminate any lumps that

could form

pockets of flour in the batter so i'm

just combining all these wet together

in with the buttermilk yellow cake is so

named because

it has a really large amount of egg

yolks in it and the yolks contribute a

nice sort of golden cue to the cake

so yellow cake equals egg yolks so i'm

using

11 yolks and just one whole egg so this

is my 11th yolk

and then the last egg is just a hole

how did i screw up cracking the whole

egg

okay so the general order of operations

is butter and sugar go in first

we want to work a lot of air into that

and then we add eggs

followed by wet ingredients and dry

ingredients alternating

beginning and ending with dry

all right i shut the mixer off as soon

as those last streaks of flour

disappeared

because if i kept mixing i would be at

risk of overdosing the gluten

which would be very very bad for our

cake what would happen if there is

the problem of overworking your batter i

have that same yellow cake batter that

i'm gonna just continue to beat in the

mixer

all right i think that's enough

i can tell that it's over mixed because

the texture of the batter is

droopy you can see how stretchy the

batter is

which is an indication of gluten okay so

i'm going to put this into the pan

into the oven 30 minutes and see what

happens

all right it has dramatically shrunk

away from the edges

as the cake bakes the gluten strands

kind of like snap

together and contract so you get that

shrinking

well the crumb almost has sort of like a

bready consistency

and i can tell that it has sort of a

tough texture

but it's definitely chewy not what we're

going for

in a layer cake on the other end of the

spectrum what happens

if you under mix your batter i have

yellow cake batter

with just the very last bit of flour

added

you can see there's a little bit of

flour still visible hardly any gluten

has

been developed at all but we're going to

bake it for 30 minutes and see what

happens

here is that cake layer right away

big dip in the center so it's sunk quite

a bit that is because there isn't enough

gluten structure to support the weight

of the cake

oh wow so you can see a much more open

crumb

super super crumbly it almost like turns

back in a batter when you eat it

the key to mixing your batter when

you're making cake

is make sure all the flour is in there

mix by hand at the end is really useful

to make sure it's well

mixed and everything is incorporated but

don't go any further than that

that will give you the best result in

the final texture of the cake

so now i want to work it a couple times

with a spatula by hand

to just make sure that the stuff that's

at the bottom mixes evenly with the

stuff that's at the top

i have my kitchen scale here i'm going

to use it to weigh out the batter to

ensure that i have

exact amounts equal between the three so

each one is 750 grams

and now i have a small offset spatula a

tool which you will find indispensable

for layer cake making

and i'm going to use this to level out

the batter and also work it into the

side so there's no air pockets

around those corners we're going to bake

these cakes at 350.

so i'm going to start with two in the

upper position

far to the sides and then one in the

middle and the idea is to prevent

the two on the top from blocking heat to

the bottom

i'm also going to rotate them a little

more than halfway through baking

so here's what we did for mixing cake

batter using the traditional creaming

method we started by beating together

the butter and sugar until very light

and fluffy

then we beat in the eggs followed by the

dry ingredients and the wet ingredients

that we added alternating starting and

ending with dry then we scraped the

batter into the prepared cake

pans dividing evenly and weighing to

guarantee perfectly even layers

i smoothed them with an offset spatula

and we put them in the racks of the oven

preheated to 350

on the upper third and lower third to

bake until done

so now i'm going to put together the

white cake batter and i'm going to show

you the technique it's called reverse

creaming it produces a cake with a very

fine crumb

and also a really flat top and here's

what you need for classic white cake

cake flour granulated sugar baking

powder kosher salt baking soda unsalted

butter

buttermilk vegetable oil large eggs

vanilla extract

and almond extract so it's called

reverse creamy because you don't start

with the butter and sugar you actually

start with all the dry ingredients in

the bowl first

and then you work in the fat so i'm

combining all the dry ingredients in the

stand mixer bowl plus my sugar

so i'm going to plug my dry ingredients

into the mixer

and now i have room temperature butter

here in the traditional creaming method

for the yellow cake we didn't add a

flour until the very end and now we're

starting with all the dry ingredients

here and adding the butter directly to

it

so this will seem really

counter-intuitive for a lot of cake

makers out there

but it's a wonderful method it works

really well

what i'm doing here is i am working the

butter into the dry mixture so that the

fat and the butter is coating the flour

and that is going to inhibit gluten

formation when i add the liquid

ingredients

a little bit of vegetable oil i like to

add almond extract to white cake because

it's sort of a classic touch

and also some vanilla extract just gonna

whisk these together

okay i'm gonna add about half of the

buttermilk this is gonna start to build

a little bit of structure in the cake

so i'm gonna let this mix pretty well so

now i'm ready to add my egg mixture and

i'm gonna do it in two additions

now the batter is fully mixed all the

ingredients are added because there's so

little gluten that we've formed so far

we actually have to work the batter

quite a bit and this is our chance to

work some air into it because we don't

have that part where we cream the butter

and sugar

so i'm going to let it go on medium high

for a good two minutes

and this also will help incorporate some

irritant batter to lighten it

okay now i'm ready to divide my batter

into my pans

these go into the same 350 oven same

orientation of the pans

so here's how we put together the white

cake batter using

the reverse creaming method we started

by combining all the dry ingredients

plus

sugar in the bowl the mixer whisk that

to combine then i added all the butter

and worked that in with the paddle added

all the buttermilk and

a little bit of vegetable oil worked

that into a batter then added the eggs

whisked together with the extract into a

liquid

i added that in two editions and beat

very well afterwards until i had a light

fluffy batter divided that into the

three prepared cake pans

and into the 350 oven

carry cake is an oil-based cake there's

a different method for putting together

the batter and here are all the

ingredients

and there are a lot of them large eggs

granulated sugar dark brown sugar

vanilla extract vegetable oil

all-purpose flour

cinnamon ground ginger freshly grated

nutmeg baking powder

kosher salt baking soda buttermilk

carrots and

walnuts so our third cake today is a

carrot cake which is an oil-based cake

so very different from the yellow cake

and white cake because no butter at all

and it starts with beating air into the

eggs along with the sugar

so an oil-based cake tends to be a

little bit denser but also because of

all the oil in there it's also much more

moist

i do like walnuts in my carrot cake so

we're gonna add them today so these will

toast in like a 350 oven

for 10 minutes or so until they're

darkened a little bit and toasty

smelling

so what i'm going to do is grate the

carrots on the large holes and put them

in this bowl and then

combine them with the buttermilk because

the buttermilk will start to tenderize

the carrots

now i want to mix together all my dry

ingredients again

okay now i'm going to start building

everything in the mixer

i'm using whole eggs and now i'm going

to beat the eggs

with my sugars i have dark brown sugar

and white sugar because i'm not creaming

together butter and sugar

my chance of incorporating air into the

dough is really in this stage

and you can see that this mixture is

already lightening quite a bit

and now i'm ready to do a crucial step

in oil-based cake which is emulsifying

the oil into the eggs and sugar

so this just means that i am combining

the eggs and oil so that they thicken

basically the oil will disappear into

the eggs so i'm going to turn this on

medium

and stream in the oil very slowly i

don't want to overwhelm the eggs with

oil so i'm just going to

take it pretty slow so you'll notice

that there's no

oil that's like sitting on top or that's

separated it's all incorporated into the

eggs

now i want to switch to the paddle so

i'm going to add about

a third of my dry with the mixer on very

very low

half of the carrot mixture

this bull is definitely gonna overflow

i'm really nervous

okay you know what i have to do at this

point i just switched to doing it by

hand

this is an irresponsible amount of

batter for this bowl size i just want

people to know that

i usually forget at this stage to have

the walnuts but i'm not going to forget

so i'm going to do that i think mixing

my hand at the end is always a good idea

it's going to be i mean this thing

weighs a ton it's going to be a lot of

batter

so into the same oven these will take a

little while also because

denser batter a lot more moisture longer

to bake

so for our oil-based cake we started by

whipping the eggs and sugar

in the stand mixer with the whisk

attachment until very light

and foamy then i emulsified in the oil

adding it very slowly so that i didn't

overwhelm the egg mixture then we added

our dry ingredients alternating with our

wet including our carrots

starting and ending with dry and then i

folded in the walnuts divided into the

pans

and baked in the oven i want to talk now

about doneness indicators so how to know

when your cake is ready to come out of

the oven

here i have three examples of cakes all

at various stages of baking

so i have one that's perfectly done one

that's under done

and one that's overdone for this yellow

cake that's under done

when i put in my cake tester and pull it

out you can see that

it still has batter that's clinging to

it the cake is basically still

raw or semi-raw in the center you'll

notice that as it cools it's going to

sink

because they're the eggs have not fully

cooked in the cake and there hasn't been

that like souffle action and when i cut

into it there'll still be some raw and

cooked batter in there

this cake on the other hand gets over

baked you can see

it's quite a bit darker on the surface

it's very hard

and the interior is going to be

completely dry this cake

is just right so nice even golden color

a cake tester inserted into the very

center comes out clean

this cake should be nice and tender in

the middle but fully baked

okay so to recap take a look at it it

should have a nice even golden color all

across the surface including the center

touch it should spring back when you

poke at the center k-tester will come

out clean

and also smell it'll smell like

incredible birthday cake

scent in your kitchen when the cake is

approaching doneness a cake that's

properly baked should taste good

without any frosting at all

what we got are you rolling yes oh okay

all right these are done one of them

sunk a little bit because i took it out

too early

so even even even i make mistakes

all the time this is a layer from the

carrot cake that we made

i'm going to show you how to unhold a

layer from the pan provided that you've

lined your cake

pan properly all you have to unmold the

layer is cut around the sides with a

thin blade or an offset spatula

invert the rack onto the pan flip the

whole thing over

give it a nice sharp tap on the counter

remove the pan and peel back the

parchment right now it's time to do some

tasting

i have all the cake side by side carrot

white and yellow

we're going to take a look at what the

interiors look like and the differences

in sort of the crumb and texture overall

based on the different mixing methods

and ingredients so first i want to talk

about the obvious visual differences

yellow cake versus white cake this has a

much more golden hue to it because of

all the yolks

this one was just egg whites both the

yellow and white cakes have

sort of more openness as opposed to the

carrot cake which is weighed down not

only by the oil but by

all the stuff that's folded into it as

well the texture of the

white cake the slightest pressure kind

of dissolves into crumbs so it's really

really tender

reverse creaming means that you develop

overall i think less gluten

so less bounciness more tenderness as

opposed to the yellow cake which has a

little bit more structure to it but

still a really tender crumb

this carrot cake definitely is a little

like heftier

really moist much less prone to sort of

crumbling

all of them are good for layer cakes

because they

resist drying out pretty well do you

want to try these i want to walk you

through each one

wait hold on i just need you to pretend

like they're not dry they're dry

flavor's still good they've been only

probably

they've been sitting out for a little

while so yellow cake white cake

carrot cake are three different kinds of

nibbles

very classic yeah to me it's like

birthday cake yeah yeah

this is nice and it's lightness yeah

definitely i like the almond flavor

hmm yummy flavor

how much do you love cake we love cake i

doubled the batter in the bowl

how much carrot is in this

i don't remember

it's not that sweet the thought being

that you're going to have cream cheese

frosting on top

yeah cream cheese frosting the goal with

these in terms of flavor was like not to

overwhelm with sugar because

you always get something to balance out

yeah totally i feel i learned a lot

today

thanks molly i think the main takeaway

about cake today is that

it's a lot of work but as long as you

follow the rules you get

such a wonderful versatile result keep

watching so you can see how we not only

put together all the other components

but then also build our final layer

takes in the end

so don't go anywhere