Ruhlman's Twenty (25 page)

Batters lie on the opposite side of the flour-liquid fulcrum from doughs: a batter is a flour mixture that you can’t shape; it is flour you can pour.

There are all kinds of batters—ones of varying thickness, ones that include fat, those that use egg or a leavener—but a basic starting definition of batter is equal parts flour and liquid by weight. Batters can use liquids other than water (milk, sauce, juice), depending on what you’re after. Most batters contain some egg, with the white providing structure and the yolk adding richness. Butter adds flavor and richness. Sugar adds sweetness and flavor, creates structure, and affects texture. Batters can be leavened naturally, with whipped egg white, for instance, or chemically, with baking powder. But the basic composition of a batter is flour in liquid—flour that, once heated, provides a structure for the other ingredients.

Gluten remains a dynamic player in batters but not to the extent that it does in doughs. Indeed, a critical way that doughs and batters differ is that in a dough you aim to develop gluten, but in a batter you avoid it as much as possible.

Preventing the formation of gluten—the network of proteins created by vigorous mixing— is the key to successful batters, whose excellence is defined in part by tenderness. You do this simply by not overmixing. Try mixing pancake batter in a blender, and you’ll see the impact of gluten in a cake—you will have one tough pancake.

Thus, we mix flour into a batter gently. In a cake, it’s folded in last; in a batter bread or pancake, it’s mixed just until incorporated. In a tempura batter, it’s mixed at the last minute, so that the starch molecules don’t have time to soak up the liquid, resulting in a crisp coating. In a popover, absorption is desired, so the batter rests before you cook it, resulting in a popover with an almost creamy interior.

Most batters have egg. Egg adds nutrition, richness, flavor, and structure. Eggs are exciting players in batters because the way you mix them in many respects determines the end result.

In a simple batter, say, for batter breads and griddle cakes, eggs are simply mixed together with the liquid. In a cake, though, they can be mixed with the sugar first, then the flour is folded in. In a basic sponge cake, the eggs are beaten vigorously until they are fluffy from trapped air bubbles, which will leaven the cake. An even lighter cake can be made if the yolks and whites are beaten separately. For a rich pound cake, which includes butter, the butter and sugar are mixed (creamed is the term), and the eggs are beaten into the butter mixture. If eggs are part of a batter, the way they are handled shapes the finished product.

Sugar, equally complex in its effects, has an impact on flavor, texture, moistness, and color. When sugar is dissolved into the liquid ingredients to become a syrup, it makes a cake sweet. It also adds some structure, and it helps the cake to retain moisture. You can best see this
in an angel food cake, which combines equal amounts of egg whites and sugar, then about a third as much flour, folded in at the end.

Butter adds richness and depth of flavor to a batter, it helps prevent gluten networks from forming, and it can also make a cake dense. I use plenty of butter in a pound cake, but I prefer cakes without butter, in favor of those made simply with eggs, sugar, and flour.

Batter is one of the most common preparations in baking. The following recipes explore the basic batter types: a cake batter with whole eggs (for a batter using whites only,
see Angel Food Cake
), a batter bread, and a thin, airy batter for popovers.

The processed food industry has trained many of us to believe that making a cake is too hard to do on our own, so we’d better buy an easy cake mix. To be honest, not all cake mixes are bad, but they usually have a generic flavor, often contain transfats and an unnecessarily high amount of sugar, and typically use chlorinated flour. For a moist, uncommonly flavorful cake, try making one on your own. It’s a piece of cake.

This cake has no butter, which can make cakes heavy. (Don’t worry, there’s plenty in the icing!) The yolks and whites are mixed separately, with the beaten whites giving the cake the majority of its aeration.

Perhaps the most important part of baking a cake is thinking—having good
mise en place,
that is, having everything ready to go, especially a preheated oven and prepared pans. Also, if you have a digital scale, use that to weigh your flour in grams.

9 large eggs, separated

2 cups/400 grams sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 cups/280 grams cake/soft-wheat flour, sifted

Chocolate Buttercream Icing

Chocolate Glaze

Preheat the oven to 325°F/165°C/gas 3.

Prepare two 8-inch/20-centimeter cake pans/tins (or one 9-inch/23-centimeter springform pan) by coating with butter or vegetable oil and then flouring the bottom and sides, shaking out any excess flour.
Line the bottoms with parchment/baking paper
.

In a large bowl, combine the egg yolks with half of the sugar and the vanilla. Whisk until the yolks are light and bubbly and the sugar is combined, about 1 minute.

Combine the egg whites and the lemon juice in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat on high speed for 1 to 2 minutes. With the motor running, slowly add the remaining sugar. Continue to beat until the whites have tripled in volume and formed soft peaks.

Fold half the egg white mixture into the egg yolks, then fold in half the flour. Fold until well combined, then fold in the remaining egg whites followed by the remaining flour.

Pour the batter into the prepared pans. Bake until set and a toothpick inserted into the centers comes out clean, 30 to 40 minutes. Allow the cakes to cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then invert on racks, remove the paper, and gently turn the cakes right-side up to cool completely.

Slice the top off what will be the bottom layer. (If you used a springform pan, slice the cake in half horizontally to make two layers.) Ice the top of the first layer with the buttercream, then add the second layer and ice the top and sides of the cake. I recommend giving the cake a crumb coat, a very thin first coating of icing, refrigerating it until the icing sets, finishing the icing, and then coating with the glaze.