Equipment
Growing up in a country with a rich home-baking tradition, I inherited many cake-making techniques from my
mother and grandmother. Their kitchens were tiny with quite modest equipment. They had no special pans or utensils but
could still make the most exquisite cakes I have ever known. They, as well as many mothers and grandmothers of my childhood
friends whose homemade birthday cakes brought us so much joy, taught me some valuable life lessons. I learned that
the most important cake ingredient is not listed in the recipe – it is love. All homemade cakes are products of love, a basic
human desire to share, give, and extend beyond the ordinary.
Below is a list of the basic equipment needed to make a cake which I will describe in this section.
Electric mixer
I extensively use a hand-held electric mixer (displayed in the center of the second photo below). When I came to to the USA from Yugoslavia in the 1990s, I expected that this little gadget would be a part of every household, but I quickly realized it was not so. My Taiwanese friends were the first to say in amazement, “What is that?” If you do not own a hand-held electric mixer, it is possible to use a hand whisk, but the procedure is lengthy. Even my grandmother, after years of hand-whisking, purchased an electric mixer because she realized how much easier and faster it was to beat eggs and make creams with it. Tabletop mixers are not required for these cakes and may in fact be completely useless for some procedures such as making egg-based cream.
Nut and Coconut Graters
The manual nut grater is another tool that I use extensively.
It may not be a part of today’s average kitchen, but
it has been considered an absolute necessity by generations
of home-bakers in Europe. In this age of electric appliances
and gadgets, manual nut graters may seem a relic from the
past, but for grating walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, or pecans,
a manual nut grater is still the best and most convenient
tool because it quickly produces very fine, dry, grated nuts
with not even a hint of oil. Nuts grated in this manner may
completely replace flour since they perform the same function
as flour with regards to the cake structure, resulting in
wonderful, nut-rich, flourless, gluten-free creations.
A manual nut grater does not extract nut oil which destabilizes cake batter. Oily or pasty nut pieces can cause the batter to collapse and ruin it even before it reaches the oven.
My grandmother had a massive metal manual grater that could be attached to her kitchen table (the green grater in the center of the photo, also shown in the lower right section of the photo below). These graters are not easy to find nowadays. They produce the finest powdery-dry grated nuts in no time. I also own an inexpensive hand-held manual grater which works very well too (the white hand-held grater with an extra grating attachment in the photo above). It is sold in stores as a hand-held manual “rotary cheese grater”. The only drawback is its small capacity, hence grating has to be done in several batches. My husband or daughters do this job, so I have grated nuts in no time. The quality of grated nuts from this little hand-held manual grater is very good and I recommend this option.
Electric mini graters and choppers (far right in the photo below) or food processors do not grate nuts well because they are actually grinders, not graters. They crush the nuts. They can do a relatively decent job if nuts are mixed with flour, cornstarch, or/and sugar in the same manner as grating coconut flakes (described below). Otherwise, the results are unusable, oily, sticky nuts or nut paste.
A mini grinder/chopper or food processor is very handy for making superfine sugar from ordinary granulated sugar or for fine grating of coconut flakes. Finely grated coconut, required in some of the recipes in this book, is readily available in European grocery stores but is not as common in the USA where most stores carry only large coconut flakes. Use an electric grinder to grate coconut flakes because manual coconut grating is very hard and the end result is no different from that of an electric grinder/chopper. Some grinders have very sharp blades and do not produce excess oil, but you may wish to mix the coconut flakes with flour, cornstarch, or sugar when grating to soak up the excess oil produced in the process for a drier end result. Mix one tablespoon or more of flour, cornstarch, or sugar for each cup of coconut flakes. Make sure to take the flour, cornstarch, or sugar from the amount given in the recipe’s ingredient list. Flour or cornstarch soaks up oil better than sugar, but sometimes neither may be an option as they may not be in the recipe’s ingredient list.
Measuring Tools
The measuring tools that both my mother and grandmother
used were just a tablespoon (about 15 ml/ 1⁄2 oz), a
cup that measured 250 ml/ 8 oz, and a kitchen scale.
Measuring by weight is more precise than measuring by volume, but using cups and tablespoons instead of a kitchen scale is simpler. This is why I use a kitchen scale when it is important to have a more precise measurement, as when measuring flour for cake batter. When precision is not that important, as when measuring sugar, I use cups and tablespoons. Note that, when measuring flour by volume, I do not sift before measuring, so the quantities given in the recipes refer to unsifted flour. However, I do not intend to convert people from using traditional measuring methods, therefore, these recipes offer quantities in all reasonable units, starting with my first choice.
Measuring cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons should be standard, made for measuring, and not just any cup or spoon from the cupboard, since sizes can vary significantly. One measuring tablespoon should hold 15 ml/ 1⁄2 oz and one measuring teaspoon should hold 5 ml. When measuring, the spoons should be leveled off, not heaping (you can use a flat knife to level off the content). If you do not wish to accumulate unnecessary kitchen equipment, you could measure the size of a cup or spoon (use a medicine dispenser for this purpose) and, once you establish their capacity, use those instead of standard measuring spoons and cups.
Mixing Bowls
It is very useful to have a large mixing bowl (4 quarts/liters capacity or more) for mixing egg whites and also for cooking creams in a double boiler. Stainless steel bowls are the most versatile, but a non-reactive metal, glass, porcelain, or even plastic bowl will do for many recipes. A mixing bowl is more convenient than an ordinary kitchen pot because it has sloped sides and no hard-to-reach edges, which make mixing easier. Again, if you do not feel like purchasing extra equipment, use an ordinary pot, but keep in mind that you will have to take extra care to mix all the way to its bottom edges.
Pans and Wire Racks
All cakes in this book are round because I prefer the
standard-sized (9 inch/ 23 cm diameter) round baking pans
to other shapes. Have at least one and preferably two or
three such pans (the number of pans depends on the recipe
and oven size). The reason for baking in more pans is usually
to simplify or foolproof the procedure. Cake layers are
generally moister and springier if baked as one thick cake
rather than when baked separately. However, baking one
thick layer without it collapsing requires considerable skill
and experience. Only a perfect or near-perfect thick cake
can be cut into the required number of thinner layers.
Cakes can be baked in smaller or larger pans, but the baking time should be adjusted accordingly. As a general rule, cakes baked in larger pans should be baked for a shorter time.
Line the pans with aluminum foil (as shown in the photo), or with parchment or wax paper, or just grease and flour them. Aluminum foil is just pressed against the interior of a pan to acquire the pan’s shape. If you use parchment or wax paper, only cover the bottom (the sides of a baked cake are easily detached from the pan by running a thin knife around them). Cut a circle the size of a pan and secure it to the bottom with a drop of butter or oil. To grease and flour a pan, coat it with butter (spread it thinly with your fingers) and then sprinkle some flour and tilt, tap, and shake the pan to dust it all over. Turn the pan over and tap to discard any extra flour. If you are making a dense chocolate or walnut cake, use aluminum foil or wax paper, otherwise it may stick to the bottom of the pan.
Wire racks are not necessary. For generations, cakes were left to cool on a cloth or kitchen towel, but nowadays, almost every kitchen has a rack made from metal rods where a cake can be placed to cool (see the photo). If you do not already own one, let a cake cool on a flat surface lined with a clean cloth.
Ovens and Baking Stones
A bigger oven, capable of holding three 9 inch/ 23 cm diameter baking pans, is helpful for recipes that require three or more cake layers, but a smaller oven that holds only one or two pans also works. Every recipe for which this is an issue addresses both concerns. Most cakes in this book can be baked in only one or two pans and then cut into separate horizontal layers.
For best results, all cakes except egg-whites based cakes, known as meringues, are baked in an oven with steady, radiant heat. These conditions are provided by any ordinary, conventional oven, but the uniformity of heat of any oven can be improved with a baking stone (pizza stone). This is not necessary, but it does improve oven performance, especially if the oven operates with a blowing fan (convection oven). An oven with a baking stone requires extra time to preheat (usually up to about 20 minutes), even though the indicator light may show that the oven is at the correct temperature sooner. Fan-circulating heat tends to produce a slightly drier cake (which is in fact perfect for meringue cakes, since they should actually be dried, not baked). Ovens with convection mode only are very rare, but if there is no option in switching from convectional to radiant heat (or in turning off the fan in the oven), the baking temperature should be lowered from the recommended baking temperature by about 15%.
Cakes are always baked on a rack placed in the middle of the oven, where heat is most uniform. For the same reason, never bake on more than one oven rack, one above the other.
It is very important to understand that oven temperatures and baking times in the recipes are approximate. This is not only because ovens are different and have thermostats with different precision, but also because of many other uncertainties such as room temperature and humidity fluctuations, different sizes of egg yolks and whites, or measurement errors. As a result, it is extremely important to check each cake while baking. Check first when it starts to smell good, which is at about 3/4 of the baking time, and then recheck repeatedly to make sure it is nicely done (see the section "When is a cake done baking?" on "tips & tricks" page on how to recognize this).
If the actual baking time differs significantly from the suggested time, adjust your oven temperature, and note that similar adjustments will be needed for all other recipes. When adjusting oven temperature, go up or down in 25°F/ 15°C increments. Keep in mind that, if the oven temperature is too high, the cake will rise fast, and then collapse or even burn on the outside with the inside remaining soft or underbaked. If the oven temperature is too low, the cake will not rise properly and, instead of developing the proper structure, it will remain low and dense.
Double Boiler
Many recipes call for a double boiler, also known
as bain-marie, in which cooking is done over steam. I use
a large metal mixing bowl with tapered sides placed on a
large pot of simmering water (the arrangement is shown in
the upper right corner of the photo). It is perfect for making
creams, cake fillings, and toppings. The rim diameter of
the mixing bowl has to be slightly larger than the diameter
of the pot, so it “sits” on the pot and does not drop into it or
have contact with the hot water. Its contents are heated by
steam, not the boiling water. An electric hand-held mixer
or whisk can then be used to mix the contents of the bowl
while the water is slowly simmering in the pot beneath. A
nice feature of this double boiler is that, once the cooking
is finished, the pot can be filled with cold water and used
to cool the contents of the mixing bowl. The mixing bowl
should be immersed in the cold water to help its content cool faster. A larger area of contact with the cold water will cool
the content of the mixing bowl faster, but too much water can splash out of the pot – use your best judgment.
I like to melt chocolate in a small improvised double boiler; two pots of slightly different diameters (in the center of the photo), or a pot and heatproof bowl. A one-piece commercial bain-marie (shown on the left side of the photo) is useful only for melting chocolate intended for decorations and glazing since chocolate melted for this purpose should not be cooled afterwards. This kind of double boiler works exactly as the small two-pot double boiler described above, but keeps the water safely encapsulated. Make sure the water is not boiling once you put the chocolate in the double boiler, otherwise the chocolate will scorch.
I do not recommend the one-piece bain-marie for making creams/fillings or cake toppings because its inside pot is totally immersed in boiling water. Boiling water cooks the filling much faster than steam and hence the filling can easily scorch. In an improvised double boiler the filling cooks more slowly but turns out nicer.
I recommend using the improvised double boiler described above for all purposes, unless you already own a commercial double boiler. I see no need for a commercial double boiler as it is easy to avoid splashes of water in an improvised one.
Although using a double boiler may seem complicated at first, it is actually very easy. Only one try will eliminate initial doubts. Keep in mind that steam coming out at the sides of the mixing bowl is very hot, so the bowl should be handled carefully.
Below is a list of the basic equipment needed to make a cake which I will describe in this section.
- Electric mixer
- Nut and Coconut Graters
- Measuring Tools
- Mixing Bowls
- Pans and Wire Racks
- Ovens and Baking Stones
- Double Boiler
Electric mixer
I extensively use a hand-held electric mixer (displayed in the center of the second photo below). When I came to to the USA from Yugoslavia in the 1990s, I expected that this little gadget would be a part of every household, but I quickly realized it was not so. My Taiwanese friends were the first to say in amazement, “What is that?” If you do not own a hand-held electric mixer, it is possible to use a hand whisk, but the procedure is lengthy. Even my grandmother, after years of hand-whisking, purchased an electric mixer because she realized how much easier and faster it was to beat eggs and make creams with it. Tabletop mixers are not required for these cakes and may in fact be completely useless for some procedures such as making egg-based cream.
Nut and Coconut Graters
A manual nut grater does not extract nut oil which destabilizes cake batter. Oily or pasty nut pieces can cause the batter to collapse and ruin it even before it reaches the oven.
My grandmother had a massive metal manual grater that could be attached to her kitchen table (the green grater in the center of the photo, also shown in the lower right section of the photo below). These graters are not easy to find nowadays. They produce the finest powdery-dry grated nuts in no time. I also own an inexpensive hand-held manual grater which works very well too (the white hand-held grater with an extra grating attachment in the photo above). It is sold in stores as a hand-held manual “rotary cheese grater”. The only drawback is its small capacity, hence grating has to be done in several batches. My husband or daughters do this job, so I have grated nuts in no time. The quality of grated nuts from this little hand-held manual grater is very good and I recommend this option.
Electric mini graters and choppers (far right in the photo below) or food processors do not grate nuts well because they are actually grinders, not graters. They crush the nuts. They can do a relatively decent job if nuts are mixed with flour, cornstarch, or/and sugar in the same manner as grating coconut flakes (described below). Otherwise, the results are unusable, oily, sticky nuts or nut paste.
A mini grinder/chopper or food processor is very handy for making superfine sugar from ordinary granulated sugar or for fine grating of coconut flakes. Finely grated coconut, required in some of the recipes in this book, is readily available in European grocery stores but is not as common in the USA where most stores carry only large coconut flakes. Use an electric grinder to grate coconut flakes because manual coconut grating is very hard and the end result is no different from that of an electric grinder/chopper. Some grinders have very sharp blades and do not produce excess oil, but you may wish to mix the coconut flakes with flour, cornstarch, or sugar when grating to soak up the excess oil produced in the process for a drier end result. Mix one tablespoon or more of flour, cornstarch, or sugar for each cup of coconut flakes. Make sure to take the flour, cornstarch, or sugar from the amount given in the recipe’s ingredient list. Flour or cornstarch soaks up oil better than sugar, but sometimes neither may be an option as they may not be in the recipe’s ingredient list.
Measuring Tools
Measuring by weight is more precise than measuring by volume, but using cups and tablespoons instead of a kitchen scale is simpler. This is why I use a kitchen scale when it is important to have a more precise measurement, as when measuring flour for cake batter. When precision is not that important, as when measuring sugar, I use cups and tablespoons. Note that, when measuring flour by volume, I do not sift before measuring, so the quantities given in the recipes refer to unsifted flour. However, I do not intend to convert people from using traditional measuring methods, therefore, these recipes offer quantities in all reasonable units, starting with my first choice.
Measuring cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons should be standard, made for measuring, and not just any cup or spoon from the cupboard, since sizes can vary significantly. One measuring tablespoon should hold 15 ml/ 1⁄2 oz and one measuring teaspoon should hold 5 ml. When measuring, the spoons should be leveled off, not heaping (you can use a flat knife to level off the content). If you do not wish to accumulate unnecessary kitchen equipment, you could measure the size of a cup or spoon (use a medicine dispenser for this purpose) and, once you establish their capacity, use those instead of standard measuring spoons and cups.
Mixing Bowls
It is very useful to have a large mixing bowl (4 quarts/liters capacity or more) for mixing egg whites and also for cooking creams in a double boiler. Stainless steel bowls are the most versatile, but a non-reactive metal, glass, porcelain, or even plastic bowl will do for many recipes. A mixing bowl is more convenient than an ordinary kitchen pot because it has sloped sides and no hard-to-reach edges, which make mixing easier. Again, if you do not feel like purchasing extra equipment, use an ordinary pot, but keep in mind that you will have to take extra care to mix all the way to its bottom edges.
Pans and Wire Racks
Cakes can be baked in smaller or larger pans, but the baking time should be adjusted accordingly. As a general rule, cakes baked in larger pans should be baked for a shorter time.
Line the pans with aluminum foil (as shown in the photo), or with parchment or wax paper, or just grease and flour them. Aluminum foil is just pressed against the interior of a pan to acquire the pan’s shape. If you use parchment or wax paper, only cover the bottom (the sides of a baked cake are easily detached from the pan by running a thin knife around them). Cut a circle the size of a pan and secure it to the bottom with a drop of butter or oil. To grease and flour a pan, coat it with butter (spread it thinly with your fingers) and then sprinkle some flour and tilt, tap, and shake the pan to dust it all over. Turn the pan over and tap to discard any extra flour. If you are making a dense chocolate or walnut cake, use aluminum foil or wax paper, otherwise it may stick to the bottom of the pan.
Wire racks are not necessary. For generations, cakes were left to cool on a cloth or kitchen towel, but nowadays, almost every kitchen has a rack made from metal rods where a cake can be placed to cool (see the photo). If you do not already own one, let a cake cool on a flat surface lined with a clean cloth.
Ovens and Baking Stones
A bigger oven, capable of holding three 9 inch/ 23 cm diameter baking pans, is helpful for recipes that require three or more cake layers, but a smaller oven that holds only one or two pans also works. Every recipe for which this is an issue addresses both concerns. Most cakes in this book can be baked in only one or two pans and then cut into separate horizontal layers.
For best results, all cakes except egg-whites based cakes, known as meringues, are baked in an oven with steady, radiant heat. These conditions are provided by any ordinary, conventional oven, but the uniformity of heat of any oven can be improved with a baking stone (pizza stone). This is not necessary, but it does improve oven performance, especially if the oven operates with a blowing fan (convection oven). An oven with a baking stone requires extra time to preheat (usually up to about 20 minutes), even though the indicator light may show that the oven is at the correct temperature sooner. Fan-circulating heat tends to produce a slightly drier cake (which is in fact perfect for meringue cakes, since they should actually be dried, not baked). Ovens with convection mode only are very rare, but if there is no option in switching from convectional to radiant heat (or in turning off the fan in the oven), the baking temperature should be lowered from the recommended baking temperature by about 15%.
Cakes are always baked on a rack placed in the middle of the oven, where heat is most uniform. For the same reason, never bake on more than one oven rack, one above the other.
It is very important to understand that oven temperatures and baking times in the recipes are approximate. This is not only because ovens are different and have thermostats with different precision, but also because of many other uncertainties such as room temperature and humidity fluctuations, different sizes of egg yolks and whites, or measurement errors. As a result, it is extremely important to check each cake while baking. Check first when it starts to smell good, which is at about 3/4 of the baking time, and then recheck repeatedly to make sure it is nicely done (see the section "When is a cake done baking?" on "tips & tricks" page on how to recognize this).
If the actual baking time differs significantly from the suggested time, adjust your oven temperature, and note that similar adjustments will be needed for all other recipes. When adjusting oven temperature, go up or down in 25°F/ 15°C increments. Keep in mind that, if the oven temperature is too high, the cake will rise fast, and then collapse or even burn on the outside with the inside remaining soft or underbaked. If the oven temperature is too low, the cake will not rise properly and, instead of developing the proper structure, it will remain low and dense.
Double Boiler
I like to melt chocolate in a small improvised double boiler; two pots of slightly different diameters (in the center of the photo), or a pot and heatproof bowl. A one-piece commercial bain-marie (shown on the left side of the photo) is useful only for melting chocolate intended for decorations and glazing since chocolate melted for this purpose should not be cooled afterwards. This kind of double boiler works exactly as the small two-pot double boiler described above, but keeps the water safely encapsulated. Make sure the water is not boiling once you put the chocolate in the double boiler, otherwise the chocolate will scorch.
I do not recommend the one-piece bain-marie for making creams/fillings or cake toppings because its inside pot is totally immersed in boiling water. Boiling water cooks the filling much faster than steam and hence the filling can easily scorch. In an improvised double boiler the filling cooks more slowly but turns out nicer.
I recommend using the improvised double boiler described above for all purposes, unless you already own a commercial double boiler. I see no need for a commercial double boiler as it is easy to avoid splashes of water in an improvised one.
Although using a double boiler may seem complicated at first, it is actually very easy. Only one try will eliminate initial doubts. Keep in mind that steam coming out at the sides of the mixing bowl is very hot, so the bowl should be handled carefully.