The Great Scratch-Off...Yellow Cakes - Page 21

I don't really perceive a problem with that because once it's cooled I cover it if I don't fill/ice right away. But that's kind of an interesting question; maybe next time I shouldn't do it (if I can control myself!) and see if the cake remains moister....hmm...

hmmm let us know.
but right now i can't stop looking at your picture of the crumb of SW's cake. it looks so moist and delicate and delicious. my DH is getting jealous cause i'm drooling over it.

I always peel the tops off too purely for aesthetics.

Great review ceshell!

The SW cake looks a lot like a cake mix. I really want to try it!

Well I'm finally about to go turn the oven on! I think I will play with Cake Man Raven today.

Cake Man Raven Modified

***I did not completely follow this recipe. I need butter in my cakes and since I am also doing this to find MY recipe I added ¼ c of butter. I creamed it in with the sugar for a few minutes and then added the oil and followed the rest of the recipe as posted.***

The Recipe- Can't get much more simple than this cake. It's almost like a quick bread in its simplicity. The cake is very cheap to prepare also. The recipe makes less batter than others.

The Look- The cake did not bake up that much and since it already starts with less batter I can see this as being an issue with some. If you are the type to bake three layers it will be perfect. For those that bake two and tort you will have to modify the amounts...may even have to triple the recipe. The cake baked up flat. (baked at 325)

The Texture- Very much like a fluffy cake mix! BUT! I let the cake sit for the usual ten minutes and inverted onto a cake plate. IT BROKE APART! The cake is a total loss! The cake is very most, soft, tender, and almost perfect. I guess there is just not enough structure to it. Darn.

The Taste- Awesome! Can definitely taste the butter and the buttermilk twang. Poor cake

Pros- Very easy and economical. Taste is great as is the texture. I think this cake could have been a great possibility to get cake mix people to convert, lol.

Cons- It broke into pieces

Rating- n/a

Having almost made the cake I was looking for in this recipe I went googling. I found a recipe by Shirley Corriher that has a lot of the same elements as this cake does. It calls for both butter and oil which I like, because you get the taste of the butter, but the lasting moisture of the oil. It calls for buttermilk which is my favorite. And it calls for more eggs which I think may have been an issue with this recipe.

It's in the oven!

*fingers crossed*
[/u]

Update on my previous review of White on white buttermilk cake......it was still fabulous and moist at 2 1/2 days. I could not taste at exactly 3 days, cause.....well my husband lives here.
I am making another yellow tomorrow and then I guess I'll try 1 or 2 more to report on this week.

Ok the Shirley Corriher cake did not come out for me. It was really eggy, had too much structure, and too oily.


Well I tried another recipe that was not a scratch off cake, but I think people will like this cake! It is a recipe by Restaurant Eve and I really liked it! I made cupcakes and they baked up very nice.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/20/AR2006042002164.html



The Recipe- you can't get any easier than this! You add melted butter into the dry. Then mix in all the liquids at once. The batter was thick and yummy. I subbed buttermilk for the milk.

The Look- I made these into cupcakes. They baked up nicely with a slight dome.

The Texture- A tight and tender crumb. Middle of the road in moistness, but I overcooked them slightly.

The Taste- I really liked the taste of these. Not too sweet, but a nice flavor.

Pros- Super easy! These are good for those that tend to over beat their batter or are just intimidated by the creaming process and when and how long to mix the rest of ingredients. It's pretty foolproof.

Cons- Don't really have any. Always room for more moisture, but again I am not sure if it was my fault for overbaking. I will try again in a few days.

Rating- 8 out of 10

sorry ladies. This thread became unwatched ( a lot of mine have been doing that) adn I completely fell behind. I will try to catch up when I have time

OK, I made the
Great American Cakes
by Barbara Kafka
Gourmet December 1987 recipe that Naty submitted today......for Father's Day

Judging Criteria
1. Flavor - good, but not anything remarkable really. I would have liked more vanilla flavor or something.......
2. Texture/Crumb - nice. Not too heavy or dense. Soft, but plenty sturdy. I'm sure you could carve this and/or stack it easily. Had none of that "cornbreadiness" that some scratch cakes have.
3. Moistness - good, medium moistness.
3. Ease of Recipe - simple, cream, then alternate
4. Cost of Recipe - stick and a half or butter and three eggs......I guess kind of average
5. Ability to convert into cupcakes - did not try

There was plenty to like about this cake and yet I wanted to be wowed a little bit more in the flavor dept. If I made it again, I would add more extract of some sort.....maybe just more vanilla, but something.
Husband and brother-in-law both enjoyed it though. I ended up serving it with a covering of chocolate Meringue Buttercream. Simple and good but not a "eureka!".
I would give it a 7.

Todayâs test was White on White Buttermilk Cupcakes. Note: The black flecks in the cupcake are just crushed Oreo cookies. I added the cookies to the mix and forgot to reserve some âun-Oreoedâ mix for the taste test. Oops.

Flavor: okay, but there was a definite tang of buttermilk in the cupcake. The kids didnât care for the buttermilk taste, which is surprising because they all love red velvet.

Texture: nice crumb, but it had a dense mouth feel.

Moisture: very moist, but not wet or oily.

Other comments: Some of the adults who tasted theses cupcakes also tasted the Sylvia, Downy, and Magnolia cakes from last weekâs trifecta. The people who liked the flavor of the WoW cake were also the one who loved Sylviaâs cake, but every one of them thought that Sylviaâs was better.

So I think Iâll give it a 7 out of 10. It tasted good, but I would opt for Sylviaâs or Downyâs recipe for an adult party and Magnoliaâs for a kidâs party.

All right, my results for in for the actual two cakes I signed up for! I elected to make the Whimsical Bakehouse Gold Cake and the Doubleday White Wedding Cake/Golden Cake.

My Photobucket photos are in the same stream as the other cakes; however, Ill link you to the first cake of this review and you can scroll through them from there. http://s696.photobucket.com/albums/vv321/ceshell/Cake%20Central%20Yellow%20Scratch-Off/?action=view&current=IMG_9459.jpg

Whimsical Bakehouse Gold Cake
Flavor: This is a tasty vanilla cake, but I must say, I was underwhelmed by the flavor. There just wasnt much to it. It was pleasant, but it didnt wow me. My friend who reviewed it did comment buttery.
Texture: This is on the denser side; I would compare the texture somewhat to the Sylvia Weinstock cake, although it wasnt quite as velvety. Definitely more dense than light and fluffy but still had a fine crumb.
Moistness: Moist, but not overwhelmingly so
Cost: Upper end of moderate. Uses cake flour and buttermilk. It also calls for all extra-large eggs (which are more expensive) and uses 2 yolks in addition to the three whole eggs. So actually you can get some extra value out of the recipe if you are making SMBC.
Ease: Easy. Standard creaming method. Id say the most complicated part of this recipe is simply having to separate two eggs to get the extra yolks.
Cupcake Potential: This baked up nicely into cupcakes.

General: As I said above, to me this was a nice yellow cake, but nothing to write home about. More of a birthday cake than an adult dessert cake. My friend (who called it buttery) liked it but preferred the lighter, airier texture of the Doubleday cake below. However, the flavors of the two cakes dont really compare at ALL (see below review). Its a fine cake, but I dont see any reason to bake it when the Sylvia cake has a similar texture but has that bonus savory factor that this cake lacks. I give it a 7 out of 10.

Doubleday White Wedding Cake/Golden Cake
Flavor: This one surprised me! I thought it was ironic that I had submitted the Magnolia Lemon cake and I stated that it really didnt taste lemony. Well guess what: this cake is NOT billed as a lemon cake but it IS lemony! I know it is due to the extract. I actually was about ¼ tsp shy on the extract and ¼ tbsp shy on the grated rind, but even so this tasted like a lemon cake, not a yellow cake IMO. Therefore, it is a little hard to compare to all the others.
Texture: Delightfully light and fluffy. The crumbwell remember, I am challenged in the area of describing crumb, but is this what you mean by a coarse crumb?? Personally I think this cake looks terrible inside, but it is nice and light in the mouth.
Moistness: Surprisingly moist. When I took this out of the oven, and also when I sliced in to it, I was sure it was going to be dry and cornbready even before I cut into it. However it was quite moist. Oh, that was my friends first comment about this cake too: Moist!
Cost: Inexpensive. Uses all basic ingredients, although these days a lemon will set you back a buck LOL
Ease: Easy. Standard creaming method. You do have to grate a lemon if you want to follow the recipe exactly
Cupcake Potential: OK. The cupcakes were nice and light and airy too, just like the cake. But they did that flatten-and-sink thing, unlike the WBH cupcakes.

General: So yes, to my mind, this isnt a yellow cake, but as a lemon cake, its a great recipe. I did not omit the lemon since we were supposed to be sticking to the recipes; I think this might be a nice light cake w/o the lemon factor, but I cant be sure if there would be enough flavor to it without that element. Im sure youd have to up the vanilla in lieu of the lemon. My rating: As a yellow cake: 4 out of 10 (too lemony!). As a lemon cake: 8 out of 10.

Final comments: I first sampled each one plain, and then I put a dollop of Tobas chocolate buttercream on each to assess the cakes with icing. Well, that definitely did not work for the Doubleday cake. Lemon cake+chocolate icingyuk. Each cake had such a completely different taste, I found I had to ice them differently. I filled the Doubleday cake with fresh lemon curd and fresh raspberries, and topped it with raspberry IMBC. Can I just say: YUM. That filling and icing combo really set this cake off. Absolutely a gourmet, grown-up dessert cake. We ate it after dinner and it was a perfect complement to our meal. I filled the WBH cake with a fudge/nutella filling and iced it with Tobas chocolate bc. This was a nice combo for the cake but it absolutely tasted like a kids birthday cake. (Mind you a large part of that is because Tobas is a powdered-sugar icing, but even with ganache or IMBC it would still be a birthday-cakey cake.)

So again for the four cakes I tried, I still like the lovely flavor of the RR WOW cake and will continue to make it. It will be tough to decide if, for some crowds, I should switch to the Sylvia cake because of that velvety come-back-for-more taste in your mouth. I wouldnt bother with the WBH cake, since its fine but nothing special, and I would only bake the Doubleday if I want a lemon cake. Althoughwith that nice light airy textureI must admit, Im now curious about baking that cake without the lemon, to see if I can get a yummy, buttery vanilla cake with that light texture. No! People, hold me back, theres too much cake in my house!!

i know i didn't register for the scratch off, but i hope i can share some of my opinions, since i tried baking both WoW and SW yellow cake few days ago.

WoW by Rebecca Rather
flavor: wonderful, full of flavor.
texture: fluffy, big "air holes" (dunno what you call them)
moistness: very, very moist
after 2 days, unrefriged: flavor maintains, everything as what it was on the day it was baked
color: i didn't get almost white cake as all of you posted here.. in fact my WoW looked dull compared to my yellow cake. it was yellowish dull.


yellow cake by SW
flavor: nice
texture: melt in the mouth, really fine
moistness: really, really moist
after 2 days, unrefriged: flavor somewhat deteriorated, tasted funny, texture maintained the same though
color: nice pale yellow, sweet color


yesterday, i tried baking WoW again, but this time i changed it a bit, instead of only using only EW, i used the yolks, and later added the soft-peaked beaten EW in the final process (like how we do it in SW's yellow cake).
and also i used salted butter instead of unsalted (no reason, just wanted to try how it would turn out with salted).
the result was, my WoW was finer in texture, and it resulted in a lot more volume (i'm guessing the beaten EW added in the final step helped that too), and better color. well.. it's no way a white cake now LOL...

so i guess, i'm favoring the WoW more than the SW's yellow cake.

I didn't sign up either, but I made the Magnolia Yellow/not-so-lemon Cake yesterday, and here are my results....

I did alter the recipe slightly - I didn't use lemon juice, used milk instead, but did keep the lemon zest. I also added 1 t. vanilla paste to the recipe.

flavor: I thought it was OK, nothing that really "WOWed" me. I thought it tasted very buttery,but the other tasters didn't say that. I thought it tasted a little less buttery as time went on - on the second day, it wasn't nearly as buttery tasting.
texture: it was fluffy and light, with a nice crumb. It cut easily and didn't' crumble.
moistness: moist on the first day and today it was fine, too. It was drier on day 2, but I wouldn't consider it "dry"
color: nice, light yellow color
ease: wasn't difficult at all
other comments: I made it into cupcakes - it made 24, but they rose in the cups and "spilled" over the sides, so next time I'll either put a little less in the cup or see what I can do to make them rise more straight up. I wish it had more of a vanilla flavor. so I think I'll try it again with more vanilla...

I think I'd give it a 7/10 on day 1, but an 8/10 on day 2.

I hope to try another one later this week with the same testers...

I made SW yellow cake (newer version with 1 cup of milk) and wasn't very pleased. I followed the recipe very closely, even sifted the cake flour. Everything came together nicely and it baked up fine. But, when I took it out of the oven it shrank like crazy. It looked like it was pulling away from the top of the pan faster than the bottom so I took my spatula and loosened it up so it would have so much pressure on it.

The speed and amount of shrinkage really suprised me - after about 10 minutes out of the oven it looked like it had lost about 10% of it's size. I turned it out onto the cooling racks after about 30 minutes. After it cooled completely I filled it with pineapple filling and frosted with seven minute icing and toasted coconut.

Could be that the pineapple filling was a little too juicy and it leached into the cake, but the layers seemed a little gummy to me. Tasted pretty good, just not very light and the crumb was not so great.

Will try again with the original recipe to see if I get better results, or perhaps use 1/2 cup milk. Anyone try that?

Okay I'm going to jump right on in here and ask a question (I have not yet read the entire thread so I don't know if this has been addressed or not): Sylvia's white cake -- I find that it bakes up great one day and very dry the next -- I've also heard others have this same problem. Have any of you had this issue? If so, what can be done about it (if anything)?

Question about the WOW Buttermilk cake: How white v. yellow is it? Thanks!