Short Wave - We Baked A Cake For Our 3rd Birthday!

Episode Date: October 12, 2022

Of course we have to have cake for Short Wave's third birthday! Sugar-ologist and biochemist Adriana Patterson talks to producer Berly McCoy to give us some tips from chemistry - the secret to making a fluffy cake and how honey can help a buttercream frosting.Check out Adriana's Cakeculator - https://cakeculator.sugarologie.com/.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Hi, my name is Robert O'Skades and I live in Balaparadarizu, Chile. I want to give a huge, felice compliance to Chartwave, hoping for a long future of this program. We're listening to Shortwave from MPL. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. I love birthdays. And cake.

And celebrating with people you care about. And cake. Right, producer, birthday. early McCoy, I get it, I get it. You want to cut straight to the cake. Yes, Aaron, because as you know, I, a very much non-baker, made a fancy cake. And by the powers of science, it came out great because I had helped from a scientist turned baker, of course. There's a lot of just basic science concepts that go into baking, thinking about water and how it mixes with oil, incorporating air into different kind of mediums.

So there's a lot of physics, chemistry. I could talk to you about this for like hours. This is Adriana Patterson. She got her Ph.D. studying biochemistry and then discovered a knack for baking. She now has a YouTube baking channel called Sugarology, where she makes these science-themed baking videos. Like understanding why things happen and the background of how buttercream comes together rather than just the straight-up recipe. So today on the show, Celebrate Shortwave's third birthday, Burley and Adriana talk about the science of cake.

How to make your cake fluffy, your frosting smooth, plus Adriana's tips for new bakers. I'm Burley McCake. And I'm Aaron Frosting, and you're listening to Shortwave, the Daily Science Cakecast from NPR. I know you can't wait to cut into the birthday cake, dear listener, but first we have a surprise for you. We're throwing a birthday party, and you are invited. It's going to be on Wednesday, October 19th at 3 p.m. Eastern on Twitter spaces. We'll talk about the early days of how Shortwave got started. We'll share some behind-the-scenes shenanigans and other stories, and we'll take your questions.

In fact, we want to know what you want to know about Shortwave ahead of time, because it'll help us plan. So please send us your questions, your ideas, things you want to talk about before October 19th. You can either tweet us at MPR Shortwave or email a little. us at shortwave at npr.org. And then make sure to join us October 19th at 3 p.m. Eastern on the main NPR Twitter account. Okay, Burley, before we dive into the science, I got to hear about your experience making your very first cake. So I made a layer cake. Fancy, how many layers? Three whole layers. I baked three round cakes and then made the frosting that goes in between and around the layers. For the cake part, I had help from my friend Christy Graf. We're going to

to do a great job today because we have science on our side. Yes, yes, cake confidence. I dig it. You know, Aaron, you can't be afraid to take whisks. But really, the process went mostly smooth. Okay, it says butter, the insides of three, six-inch cake pans. In a bowl, sift together, cake flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and baking. Whisking, whisking. What was your favorite part, really? Of the cake making, definitely making the meringue. That's this mixture of egg whites, and sugar that somehow turns into this whipped cream looking thing when you mix it on high for long enough. Oh, you can see it thickening. Oh, those do look like peaks.

Yeah, I've got to admit to a little meringue insecurity. I never know if the peaks are peaky enough, and yet I know you can overbeat it, I think. Yeah, I guess we had beginner's luck on this one. We did make a good cake. It smells delicious. I didn't think I was a cake maker, but after I just tasted that cake, I could make more cakes. Yes, yes, some baking converts. How did the frosting go?

For that part, I improvised a little bit, but it also turned out good. It was this honey butter cream, so basically a ton of butter, some honey and powdered sugar, and a little salt. Unwrap these six sticks of butter. Epic fail. The mixer bowl wasn't locked. I think sometimes a kitchen aid requires a graduate degree, yes. But I have one. A little tiny bit over on the hook.

Honey. No, I actually think I want a sweeter. I just like freestyle added a little bit more honey. And I feel like a rebel. That's good. Yeah, there's no such thing as too much. Honey, Burley, that is a scientific fact. Our fact checker's going to have fun with that one. So then my friend Lee Klassen came over to help me decorate. Right, Burley. And this is where the artistry comes in, I'm guessing. I mean, I watch Great British Baking Show. Like, there are so many ways you can decorate a cake. I have to make a confession. I've never seen that show. And maybe that's why this part was potentially our biggest fail.

We tried to cut out letters in parchment paper to add the words happy birthday shortwave and sprinkles to the cake. Read happy. Oh, I'm not proud. It was bad. So we scraped it off and instead, let's make a rainbow. Okay. Let's make a rainbow. And it looked pretty dang good.

That was the icing on the cake. Burley, the photos look like a marvel of confectionery. And to all you listeners out there, Burley actually shipped me a piece of the cake so I could taste it. And I regret to say it never arrived. So like you, I'm left to my imaginary taste buds on this one and the photos that we've got online. So I did all of this and then called up Adriana, our scientist turned Baker, to talk through the chemistry of cake making. As you know, Shortwave's third birthday is coming up on October 15th. And to celebrate.

Happy birthday. Thank you. Very excited. To celebrate, you helped us design a recipe that I attempted. It was a three-layer buttery vanilla yellow cake with added spices for a fall theme and a honey buttercream frosting. I want to talk about a few science themes involved in this process. And the first is the cake, which I have to admit I was so, so pleasantly surprised at how delicious and fluffy it was. Oh, that's so great.

How did it get that fluffy? You cream the butter and sugar together. It's a very common way to start your cake or cookie recipe, and that incorporates a lot of air. That sugar kind of makes these little pockets in the butter fat, which then expand in the oven, when you have leaveners, such as baking soda or baking powder, that creates carbon dioxide gas, which expands in the oven. So that's one of the main reasons how most cake recipes get that fluffiness. But then I wanted something super, super fluffy. So I added an extra step, which was the egg whites. That was like this one of the coolest parts of making this cake was making this meringue. To watch egg whites and sugar go from this mush to like mountain peaks, you know, was really, really cool.

Can you explain what a meringue is and then what it's doing in the cake? Yeah, so what's happening is egg whites are essentially a bunch of proteins, egg white proteins, that are swimming in water, and it creates this super viscous kind of liquid. And when you whip it up high speed, you're essentially incorporating air and unwinding the egg white proteins. So once those proteins become unraveled, they kind of create this web. and that's the meringue, that fluffy white meringue. It's a web that's encasing a bunch of air. And by adding that into cake batter, that's another way to add an airiness into the baked cake because we're adding all these holes that, again, expand in the oven and create that spongy texture that we love in cakes.

I know it's weird to think about it, but a cake is essentially a stabilized baked foam. It's not like a foam that has like bubble, it's made of bubbles. or like a sponge. Yeah. That's what a cake is. And the more air that you force into it, the more spongy it is and the more fluffy it is. That's a really beautiful visual. I want to talk about the butter cream frosting now because your recipe calls for honey.

You substituted that for all of the powdered sugar that the butter cream usually calls for. What does that do? For the most part, when you're adding that amount of sugar, it doesn't really dissolve in the fat. There's a fair amount of water in the butter, but it's only about 20%. It's not nearly enough to dissolve all of the sugar. And so there's always going to be kind of a mouth feel. I typically make a lot of European butter creams, and those are very smooth. And so when you compare the two, there's always going to have a textural component to American buttercream that I'm not really a fan of.

Some people don't mind that texture that American buttercream has, but essentially, if you're getting that crusty top, which is some people like that, then you don't have enough water in there to dissolve the sugar. And so what I did is I took that recipe and I kind of went with the idea that, well, buttercream in and of itself is an emulsion. And by that, I mean, it has a special component or molecule inside called an emulsifier that holds water and oil together. So in butter, I believe it's casein. That's holding the fat in the water together. Now, there's enough of the casein and the butter that you can actually add more water-based

ingredients into the butter and still haven't maintained that sort of stability. And so we can add honey, we can add maple syrup. I like corn syrup because it's kind of a neutral taste that you can flavor however you want. So my editor mentioned this saying, baking is science and cooking is art. What do you make of that? I think about that a lot. There are bakers who are very artistic, but it's only after you really kind of get the foundation of baking in and of itself and learn the technique and kind of the science of it that you can get to the decorating part and the artistic part. And I only say that because I'm actually really bad at that stuff. I'm not a cake decorator.

I would bake. Didn't it differ after seeing your YouTube channel? Oh, thank you. I mean, I can be precise with things, but yeah, like I treat my kitchen like, I almost treat it like a lab. I have my lab book right in front of me right now. I'm trying to write out a new recipe. But yeah, it is a science. Let's switch gears and talk about your K-Qulator.

Tell me what that is. Yeah, so the K-Ulator is a web-based application that is free to use. Anyone can use it. Essentially allows the baker to. choose a cake flavor, a frosting flavor, and a pan size, and it will automatically generate a custom cake recipe for you. The idea behind it is really that I didn't want to be confined to a book, a cookbook. And so I really wanted this idea of baking and being in the kitchen to be a dynamic process. Well, I will say I think I will be using it again.

from a science perspective, what is your advice for making a great cake? Yeah, so I think the number one thing is to invest in a scale. They're not too expensive. But the other thing I would say is maybe to choose a recipe that you would really like. And then you're going to have to bake it a few times. For myself, typically when I develop a recipe, it takes me about three to four weeks. Wow. Just because, I mean, I'm probably a little bit weirder than most bakers because I tend to get lost in the research.

But I feel like it just gives me a better understanding of baking in general. Erin, one of the best parts of my interview with Adriana was her reaction when I showed her my cake over Zoom. That looks fantastic, Burley. Thank you. And you did the sprinkles on the side too. Oh, yeah. And your frosting ratio is perfect. That's pro work there.

I think you get some cake baking in your future. I think that's going straight to my head. As it should, as it should, Burley, thank you so much for bringing us this little slice of cake science for Shortwave's birthday. You're welcome. I'm just heartbroken. I didn't get to taste the cake. I know.

Next time we'll make it together. We will make it together. That is something to look forward to for our fourth birthday party. This episode was produced by Burley McCoy, edited by Giselle Grayson, who is also our senior supervising editor, and fact-checked by Margaret Serino. The audio engineer was Natasha Branch. Brendan Crump is our podcast coordinator, that Donovan is our senior director of programming, and Anya Grunman is our senior vice president of programming. I'm Burley McCoy. And I'm Aaron Scott.

Thanks for listening to Shortwave from NPR. Happy birthday to all of you. Happy birthday. Burley, I think you have some cake puns for me. I don't know about that, Aaron, but I will say this cake making was quite the emotional process. I mean, even my cake was in tears. T-I-E-R. I'll take that.