People ask me all the time, what are some good tips for creating a great cake or baked good.. 🙂 In actuality, all you really need is a proven recipe and make sure to follow the directions. You will notice a lot of recipes, especially cake recipes; call for room temperature eggs. What should you do if you forgot to take the eggs out ahead of time and you don’t want to wait forever? Here’s the solution: Take a large measuring cup or bowl and put your [unbroken] eggs in the cup and gently fill it up with hot tap water; high enough to the cover the eggs by an inch or so. Let the eggs sit in the water for about 10 -15 minutes and after the first few minutes, change the water again to refresh it with hot water. The eggs will come closer to room temperature so that they are not shocking cold. The reason why you want room temperature eggs is that it helps ensure the emulsion in the recipe and this helps the cake or baked good rise better.
The two major ingredients in cakes- which are fat and water (including the water content in the eggs) are by nature “unmixable”. When I say liquid this also means the liquid in the recipe such as milk etc. As my son would say,… ” Uh, Hello Captain Obvious!” 🙂 A uniform mixture of two “unmixable” substances is an emulsion. Having too cold an ingredient makes it much hard for the ingredients to emulsify. So….try to plan ahead a little and take out the eggs ahead of time and you’ll be fine, and if you forget because you are multi tasking, now you have a solution.
Happy Baking!
Suzie