Betty Crocker's New Cake Mix

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I vaguely recall using cake flour at least once. But it was definitely not a routine staple item when I was growing up. (I have a vague memory that there might have been one box that my mother used one time for one recipe...and then rotted on the shelf until it got tossed.)

 

 
 
White Lily and Martha White makes good quick breads, cookies and crust, IMO.
I prefer a good bleached white flour for cakes. Adluh is great. So is Hudson Cream and, of course, cake flour such as Swan's Down.
I like to sift plain flour two or three times before measuring for cakes and just once for cake flour..
 
I buy bread flour in 25 lb bags, Put it in two gallon zip-lock bags.  It lasts me 4 months or so as I make 1 large sourdough rye usually weekly.  Also use the bread flour for my sweet doughs at Christmas and Easter, always make poppy seed rolls.  When I make a cake my go to is a Chiffon cake, most use AP flour, some call for cake flour, always keep both on hand.  Proper creaming is the key to a good cookie or cake - or frosting for that matter.
 
Slightly OT but what's everyones experience with recipes baking times in correlation with how ovens manage temperature? Ever since getting this GE dual oven gas range everything takes longer to bake than recipes call for. I got an oven thermometer for it and have been keeping an eye on it and it appears to keep + - 10 degrees from setpoint. 

So is it correct for me to assume that most if not all recipes are accounting for ovens with a wider temp swing or run hotter than setpoint? 
 
Four years ago when I got the big KA, I soon thereafter acquired a digital scale.  I weigh flours and sugars when baking as well as chocolate chips, oats, ...  I predominantly use King Arthurs White Whole Flour and through research have prettymuch gotten results for cakes, cookies  quick breads as well as breads rolls (use vital gluten for lighter rise for these).  People were surprised when I told them what flour is used.  I also weigh the whole wheat baking mix when I make biscuits or other recipes on the box.  Also weigh cereal each morning, frozen veggie proportions, 3 oz. of meat when apportioning leftovers after a roast or meat loaf.  Also my baby carrots for snack packed in my lunch. 
 
@gusherb

Probably the right answer is to do what you have already done; using a properly calibrated oven thermometer get to know how evenly or whatever your oven heats.

Some ovens are remarkably accurate, others swing widely, and cost is not an indication of quality in that area.

Many bakers/cooks will also make a few tests using recipes that *never fail* to get an idea of what a new oven is like. One can tell by how cake turns out if there are any problems with the oven and or if corrections need to be made.

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/...we_should_stop_trying_to_micromanage_it_.html
 
I have an absolute aversion to weighing any food, I was tramatized by Weight Watchers, having to weigh and measure everything, LOL!

Cooking and baking are something that I enjoy and I’ve never had any complaints about the results, so I’ll keep it simple. I can eyeball somethings just by site, if I’ve prepared the recipe many times before.

Likewise,I won my life long battle with weight control once I lightened up and trusted my eyes to judge correct portion size.

When I do measure while cooking and baking standard measuring cups and spoons are working well for me. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
Eddie
 
Eddie I can understand.  The opposite was with me.  I felt being empowered when I started weighing.  Amazes me who a specified servicing per package of item turns out to be.  Has helped me with portion control. 
 
Bob I’m glad it works for you, I know anything that helps you to take good care of yourself is a good thing!

Years ago when I first started going to WW it helped me too to get a proper perspective on just what a 1/2 cup of rice was supposed to look like, for example. You do this measuring and weighing long enough and you’ll be surpirsed that the portions sizes get to be instinctive for you. Thats when you’ll hopfully trust your eyes to tell you what the correct size should be.
Eddie
 
Insightful article, Launderess. I'm tempted to get a second oven thermometer just to make sure the first one is right. I've suspected the longer bake times are due to how fast the burner cycles on this oven, I've never seen an oven burner cycle so fast. And in the article they suggested that the recipes on the box are indeed being conservative as I suspected.

The message I'm getting is that there is no right or wrong when it comes to how hot or cool an oven runs, but the perfectionist in me doesn't want to accept this and wants to experiment and analyze this oven and the overall subject at hand until I'm blue in the face.
 
Weighing

Funny thing, scales. Coming from health care I'd see variations of 10+ pounds from one set to another weighing patients. It's why they tell people to always weigh themselves on one set all the time. Most of those little bathroom scales aren't very accurate at all--digital or not.

I can remember as a chemistry major in college using those Mettler scales; heaven only knows what kids use today. Most accurate scales are still the kind with weights on one side and the item on the other.

Here in the humid South, the weight of flour can vary enormously from season to season and even week to week. And that's with air conditioning! I've found that weighing, for breads and cakes at least, can at times be correct and at other times be way, way off. The trick is to do enough bread doughs and enough cake batters to know what it should 'feel' like and look like.
 
It reminds me somebody I know very well... (I won't say it's my husband)

He cooks amazingly well (I never saw him cooking)

The only thing he "cooked" for me was cookies... only once..... he says he made it from scratch.

Coincidently, it tasted exactly like Toll House, that one that comes in a giant tablet you just need to break and toss into the oven.

His "homemade from scratch" was so perfect that i had the impression I saw the Toll House logo in one of the cookies.

Now, for me, a typical Brazilian... There's nothing more disgusting than boxed, canned, packed, industrialized, whatever food. Cake mix? NEVER! It can be the best brand in the world, it will always be a boxed crap. Real cake is made from scratch, and I mean it.

Obs. I REALLY know how to cook and I love cooking.
 
I can’t exactly explain why I dislike buttering the pans, but it really gets on my nerves.  It must be some childhood trauma that I’ve repressed!!  I do use butter, though, since the various sprayed products leave a little taste that doesn’t appeal to me.
 
Thanks,

Thats a great hint Launderess, I’ll have to give it a try. The baking sprays do impart a slight flavor, not particularlly bad. I’ll get one of those silicon pastry brushes, so it will be easier to clean.
Eddie
 
Have always used a folded piece of wax paper to slather on Crisco or whatever shortening, then flour. Takes about a few seconds at best, and leaves one without greasy fingers.

Do not like any of the "PAM" type sprays; they leave a nasty residue on pans/bakeware that not even automatic dishwashers seem to shift. That residue also turns my aluminum and stainless steel pans an odd shade of brown/tan.
 
Flour is the key

You can sift and weigh and whatever else you want to do. But if you don't use a good soft winter wheat flour. You won't have luck with cakes muffins or biscuits. Gold medal is fine for yeast bread. But I would no sooner try to make a biscuit with it as I would try to fly a broom. White lily is not as good as it once was. They don't make it in Tennessee anymore and it really is not the same. Biscuits need self rising flour I like virginias best or adluh for fine layer or angel food. Swans down cake flour most old biscuit makers never measure anything and turn out biscuits much better than mine. Real lard also makes for better biscuits but I rarely use it crisco is fine
 
Most

Old ladies break every rule when making biscuits and get perfect results every time. Most keep a bowl full of self rising flour in their kitchen. They add a handful of crisco or lard. Pour some buttermilk on that then mix the milk and shortening together well then work in enough flour to get a soft dough working the dough three or more times as much as you are supposed too then pinch off the dough make the biscuits by hand and most bake them in a 500 degree oven when they are done they side more flour into the bowl on top of what's left for the next time
 

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