What to add to the batter of the cake to avoid hardening when the gluten formation can't be avoided?
So, over mixing batter forms gluten, which in turn hardens the cake. Fine.
The problem is that I don't want lumps in the cakes, and the above statement prevents me from fine mixing the batter. So, is there something which I can add to the batter (more milk?) to make the outcome soft despite Gluten?
Best Answer
Milk won't help you - it's mostly water, and gluten develops from flour (more accurately, specific proteins in flour) and water.
The way to reduce gluten development is to incorporate more fat into the batter. Lipids are hydrophobic and will prevent further hydration of the glutenin.
Using a lower-protein flour will also help. If you're not already using cake flour, the reason it's called cake flour is because of the lower protein content.
That being said, have you actually tried leaving the batter coarse? Just because the batter is lumpy does not mean that the cake will have big lumps. The entire mixture is wet, so unless you leave huge lumps of dry flour in the batter, you won't end up with a lumpy cake. There's a difference between "don't overmix" and "don't mix" - you're supposed to mix enough to incorporate, just don't try homogenize it.
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Quick Answer about "What to add to the batter of the cake to avoid hardening when the gluten formation can't be avoided?"
Water is what coaxes the two wheat proteins glutenin and gliadin to combine and form gluten. So by adding or withholding water from dough or batter, you can encourage or deter gluten's development. When you want to maximize gluten, a moderate amount of water is ideal.How do you prevent gluten formation in a cake?
In order to keep the baked goods soft and have a melt in the mouth texture, we have to avoid gluten development in our batter. And the correct way to do this is by gently folding the flour in the batter instead of vigorously mixing in it. We only fold the flour in till no streaks of flour are seen in the batter.What mixing method reduces gluten development?
The chiffon cake method and the biscuit mixing method are both excellent examples of mixing methods that aim to minimize gluten development. In the chiffon cake method, the batter is very gently folded together, mixing as little as possible.What does adding cornstarch to cake do?
It is a terrific ingredient for thickening puddings, soups and pie fillings, and is also used in many baked good recipes. When added to cake, cookie and shortbread recipes, cornstarch helps create a crumbly and tender dessert-like texture. Commercially, cornstarch is often used as an anti-caking agent.How do you reduce gluten in flour?
The process that reduces the gluten content by removing proteins from the flour includes milling and bleaching. The more a grain has been milled and sieved to remove the bran and germ, the more proteins are removed. Bleaching flour also removes proteins and nutrients, resulting in less gluten.Problems With Overmixing Cake Batter \u0026 How To Avoid It
More answers regarding what to add to the batter of the cake to avoid hardening when the gluten formation can't be avoided?
Answer 2
Acid inhibits gluten formation, so it's possible that incorporating an acidic ingredient such as buttermilk, vinegar, or lemon juice will tenderize the cake.
This will definitely force you to experiment and adjust your recipe, however, since the acid will also interact with other ingredients, most notably leavening.
More acid means more reaction with baking soda/powder, which might lead to a collapsed cake (if too much carbon dioxide is produced before the batter has time to set up in the oven).
It will also, obviously, have an effect on flavor. Given enough of the acidic ingredient, its own flavor might even become too prominent.
It should be noted, though (as Aaronut already mentioned) that cake batter just needs to be mixed until all the ingredients are combined. As long as you have no pockets of dry ingredients, your cake should bake perfectly well.
Answer 3
Time. You can try adding time.
So, one of the things mixing really needs to do is equalize the moisture - mix the dry into the wet ingredients, so the batter is (mostly) uniform instead of pockets of drier flour in swimming in liquid. Mixing the ingredients about does this quite well, but it can also develop gluten if you mix it too much or too fiercely, which seems to be the problem you're having.
Letting the wet ingredients sit with the dry should let everything get moist and hydrated before you finish mixing it, and so the same amount of mixing should end up with a more uniform product - especially if you stir together roughly, let it sit for the lumps to moisten, then finish mixing into a fairly smooth batter.
It is also a lot easier to mix ingredients if everything is closer to the same consistency, like adding two dry or two moist ingredients together - and after absorbing a bit, the flour should be looser and moister, the liquids should be thicker because some has absorbed into the flour, and everything should stir together much more smoothly instead of sliding past each other. You may still get little lumps, but they should be little wet lumps of batter that will smooth out with heat and time while baking, not big pockets of dry flour that would leave the finished cake lumpy and wet and undermixed... and certainly not overdeveloped gluten to make the cake tough.
It's worth noting that gluten is not the enemy, by the way. It gives some structure and helps catch the bubbles that make your cake rise. You don't want a lot, granted, if you want a cake that's soft instead of chewy - but if having none was better, cakes made with actual gluten-free flours would be so much more popular than (wheat) cake flour. Also, it actually takes some doing to develop serious gluten (lots of proteins sliding past each other and snagging), so smoothly mixing your batter to a mostly uniform consistency and avoiding lumpy cake shouldn't be a problem, spending a lot of extra mixing time furiously trying to smooth out every little lump may be too much.
Answer 4
Heat can also denature the proteins that form gluten. Toasting the flour and/or adding boiling hot liquid at some early phase of mixing are both known to have a perceivable effect (not AFTER the gluten is developed - heating that will cook the finished gluten just as it will happen in a bread).
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