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Cake: So Great. So, So Great · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house stuff Works
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry. Three of
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: us are together, which means it's time for stuff you
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: should know about. Cake. Cake, cake, gake, gake, cake, gake, gake, gake, caccake, cake, cake,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: cake cake. Uh. This made me I just frankly want
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: to put my face in a cake sheet. Caking. Oh man, Yeah,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I know. We had a discussion about cake or pie
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: quite a while ago. I don't remember exactly where you
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: landed on that. I'm surprised you can only think of
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: one one time we've done that. Yeah, cake or pie? Both? Yeah?
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Same here? Why choose between two wonderful things that you
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: don't have to choose between? Agreed? As a matter of fact.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Every once a while you hit like the birthday party
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Jackpot where they'll have like cake am pie and you're like,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: looks like I'm in heaven. But today, today, Chuck, we're
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: not talking about pie. Although we can't talk about one
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: pie in particular, because we're talking about cake. It turns
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: out I saw this somewhere that Boston Cream pie is
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: actually a cake. Yeah, surprise, Boston, sorry to ruin your day.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: They're probably the ones that are like that are saying that.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, probably maybe, I don't know. The article on
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: it was written in a thick Boston accent. Yeah it
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: is a cake. I'm not sure why, but I just
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: know it's a cake now. And I want to give
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: a hat tip here. Um. I mean we both worked
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: off of the house Stuff Works article. But I also
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: found a lot of good stuff on a site called
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: What's Cooking America? Did you run across them? They are
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: good man. They they have, you know, clearly their niches cooking, baking,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: all things like ulinary. But they're They've got some really
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: well researched articles on their site about like the history
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: of cakes and things like that. Yeah, that's good stuff.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Kudos to you, remember kudos. They're gran Oli bar. Those
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: are great. Oh yeah, are those not around anymore? No? No, no,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: those are gone. And then r I p also Bonkers candy,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: So kudo went the way of the Dodo M. I
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: never heard of bonkers. They were like a fruit chew,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: but like really had some chew to it, not like starburst.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: You know, it's just disintegrates. These were like they were chewy.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: They were good. They're about as good as it gets
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: really candy wise. Yeah, they need I know, you've noticed
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: they need to chill out here with the sweets at work.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Oh dude, Like they have little Debbie Star crunches and
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Swiss cake rolls and stuff all over the place. I know,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: we don't need that in here. There's like three or
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: four people who are like walking around toothless now, just
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: rotten right out of their heads. Well and also not you.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: My toothlessness is for different reasons. Here's this from a Christini. Uh.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: And I've also noticed that there's this weird mix in
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: our office now because they try to get super healthy. Yeah,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: so there will be like Swiss Swiss cake rolls next
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: to a bag of like clam chips or something what chips?
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Clam chips sound kind of good. Seeweed uh,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: seaweed strips. Oh yeah, yeah, I know, I know what
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: you mean. Or like just figs. Yeah, you know, it's
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: like a fig Newton without the good tasting part around.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: We take figs and we mash them up, then we
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: wrap them in sell of fane and you eat them
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: for five dollars a piece and your child spits them
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: out because they know better, right. Uh no, today, Yes,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: I'm with you. I do think it's gotten a little
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: out of hand, Like it's basically just a huge test
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: of willpower at the office, like every moment. You know, Yeah,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: I don't, I don't indulge. I'm not getting into those
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Swiss cake rolls. But it is tough to walk by
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: the miniature candy bar section and not be like, well,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: just one of those little guys. Look how tiny it is? Right?
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: And then the next thing, you know, you get like
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: ten rappers laying around your desk thinking like what have
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: I done? I know it's post Halloween stuff too, it
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: so maybe it'll die down. I I don't. I don't
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: think that's gonna happen. But yeah, but again though, today,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: I guess if if you replaced all of those candy
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: bars with cakes that were just sitting around, you get
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: zero complaints from me. Well, and at my house at Halloween,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: we gave away two things. We gave away whole slices
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: of pound cake and just pigs. That's the worst house
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: in the block. Did you? Uh you have a a pound
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: cake fan? Um? Not? Typically like I would never order
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: a pound cake or say hey, can someone bake me
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: one for my birthday? You wouldn't say, like, clark me
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: a pound cake. I would never ask one to clark
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: me a pound cake. But occasionally, like in my life,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: someone has had pound cake and said, would you like
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: some pound cake? And it's you know, it's good, it's good,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: sugary and dent stuff. Yeah. I like it because you
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: can just eat it with your hand. Sure, just pick
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: it up and eat it. Yeah, it's like cake on
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: the go. Yeah. Um. I am not a fan of
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: lemon cakes. Oh really, so like a lemon pound cake
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: I'm not into. Well, okay, let's just get it out there.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: What's your favorite cake of all time? Cheese? I'm gonna
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: toss it up between a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: That's Bill Clinton's favorite. Well, you know, as Bill goes
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: so it goes chuck, which is not true? Um that
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: the carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, or um, I
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: like a red velvet cake. Really? Yeah? Well that's the
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: cream or cream cheese frosting. Yeah. Yeah. Emily's favorite of
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: all time, hands down is the Waldorf Story of Red
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Velvet cake, which is red velvet cake with a frosting
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: that is basically only like shortening, vanilla and sugar. Oh
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: that sounds nice. It's not a cream cheese thing. What's
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: what's your favorite favorite of all time? Well, everybody knows
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: that cake perfection was achieved sometime in the twentieth century
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: when Public's grocery stores started selling their yellow cake with
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: butter cream frosting. There's no better cake on the planets
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: like a yellow sheet cake. It's simple, but it's tasty.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: It doesn't need any dress enough, but if it does,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: we'll just put like some add some more frosting in
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: the shape of balloons on top. It's just it's just perfection.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: It's a perfect cake. I love it. I can eat
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: it morning, noon, and night. I can eat stale stuff
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: I found in the dumpster behind Publix. I can eat
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: the fresh stuff right out of the oven, so hot
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: that it burns my mouth. I would eat it anyway
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: that it was given to me. Uh. I'm a big
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: frosting and icing guy too, So a corner piece of
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: sheet cake is pretty much heaven. Yeah, that's that is
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: the tops. What what is you me's favorite cake? You
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: mean's is actually the same as mine. We both are
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: junkies for Public's cake, to tell the truth, although I
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: have to say she introduced me to the wonder of
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: um Japanese cakes. And there's this little known fact about Japan.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: It loves to take I shouldn't say it's a little
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I'm probably a lot of people know this, but it
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: loves to take things that other cultures came up with
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: and then improve them ten percent. And one of the
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: things that they've done that with is the French bakery.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: So if you go to Japan, you'll see all these cute,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: little kind of um Provence style French bakeries everywhere. That's
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: still the best baked goods you've ever had in your life. Right, yes,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: oh by far, by far. That's very controversial, it is,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: but I'm telling you you would you would just be like,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Josh's right, this is better. I'm not kidding. They've they've
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: improved on it, and they're all they're they're very deferential still,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: they're like, oh, well, this is this is crap compared
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: to the what the French are making. However, you would
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: say that in Japanese, but they're actually wrong. It actually
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: is better. But one of the things that they make
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: that's just top notches. This um what they call cheesecake.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: It is not what you or I will call cheesecake
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: at all. Um, it's more like a yellow spongy cake.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: I don't know where the cheese thing comes in. Maybe
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: there's a little cream cheese in there. I'm not quite sure.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: But um, you and I would call it like kind
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: of a dense yellow sponge cake. But it is very,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: very tasty. And that's a kind of a Japanese tradition
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: that I would guess Umi would say is one of
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: her favorites. And just a little shout out, there's a
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: place in Toronto. Uh, next time we're there, I'm going
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: to take you there. Actually, that's not true. I brought
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: you a cake from there from Uncle Tetsus Cheesecake Bakery.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: That's a Japanese cheesecake. Oh that was good. Yeah, they're
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: the bomb. All I know is get out of my
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: face with any coconut or any pineapple. I'll take that, you'll, you'll,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: I'll just slide that over to your desk. Then. Yes,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: I don't even like German chocolate cake. Really, I love
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: German chocolate al right, Well, have you ever heard that
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: German chocolate cake and red velvet cake are the same.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: It's actually not true. I haven't heard that. I had
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: heard that many times. It's not true. But that German
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: chocolate frosting is like, Man, that's good. I'm not into that. See,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: I think that's what it does. That's what it is
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: that I don't like. I like sort of a tradish
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: butter creamy or just good old fashioned birthday cake icing
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: type thing. Yeah, and and surely you agree. Public is
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: the pinnacle of that. I don't know if I've ever
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: had a public's cake. I go to public three times
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: a week, So next time, I'm just gonna well, now
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: that you say that, it might be best that you
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: stay away because you're gonna start adding as They sell
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: it by the slice, which is dangerous. Oh they do,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: because that was that's the only way I would want
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: to do it. They sell up by the slice, chuck,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Like I can't bring a whole cake in my house.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: Be sure you look closely, because they have. Yeah, it
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: would be they They sell also the same kind with
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: like a cream cheese frosting. You want yellow cake with
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: buttercream frosting, just give it a shot and let me
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: know what you think? All right? The funny thing is
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: we really haven't even started yet. No, do you want
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: to take a break? No, let's let's at least give
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: out like three facts first. Okay, well, I think we
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: just give a lot of facts about what the greatest
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: cakes in the world are. All right, how about this?
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Then I'll start you out with the word cake apparently
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: is an old Norse word, uh coca, which is kind
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: of funny because here I don't know where it came from,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: but you're in America. Coca can mean do do yeah.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: But k a k a is where the original word
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: supposedly came from. Right, Um, And a lot of English
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: words have like Germanic or Norse origin. Did you you
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: know that? Yeah? So cake, the word cake is is
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: of English origins. So's bread And apparently the um bread
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: and the cakes from back in the day, say, during
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: the medieval era. Um, they were very very similar. Probably
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: the only difference was the cake might be slightly smaller
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: and it was definitely sweeter. So cake was like a
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: sweeter version of bread back then. Yeah, they'd had a
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: little honey to it, but it's not like what we
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: think of his cake today. But that's not where the
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: first cake's originated. They actually go way, way, way further
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: back than that, right, Is that true? Yeah, it's true. Uh,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: that may be a little too far back, Yeah, I
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: think so so. But basically around the time, um, I
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: believe Egypt, the Faronic Egypt, they were making cakes using
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: hot stones and honey and some sort of grain mashed up.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: It seems like I bet the Chinese were doing it too.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Didn't say in here, right, but it seems like anytime
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: you're talking about who did stuff first, it's like Egyptians, Chinese, Greeks,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: and Romans pretty much. I mean, you know, ancient civilization,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: but maybe not China because it doesn't seem like a
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: very cakey culture. No, I'm not sure about Chinese cakes.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever had one. I bet you
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: if someone knows, though, and I bet you there's like
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: one of the best things the world, it's probably a
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Chinese cake. You know. One of the other things too
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: that I didn't realize that I learned from this article, Chuck,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: was that, um, a lot of the cakes you see
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: around the world that you would mistake for you know,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: customary or traditional cakes for that culture, they're actually relatively
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: new that the cake that we know and love and
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: understand is is very much a nineteenth century American invention
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: that came out of the Industrial Revolution. That's right. I
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: mean clearly, like in Germany, like you talked about in
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: the fifteenth century, they were making cakes. They were actually
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: even serving cakes at birthdays, and by all accounts that's
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: probably the first people to start the birthday cake at tradition.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: But um, and I think they even put candles on top. Well,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: none of the Greeks put candles on top, but it
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: wasn't like happy birthday cake. It was more like, hey,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: this cake is round like the moon, and we're gonna
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: put candles on it to make them glow. And they're
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: probably huge candles now they think about it. Yeah, the
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Greeks gave us the round cake and putting candles on
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: the cake to honor Artemis, to make the cake look
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: like the moon. And Artemis was the goddess of the moon, right,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: so they were like, look, Artemus, what do you think
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: of this cake? She'd be like, it needs some frosting,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: that's right. And then the Germans and the four hundred
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: started doing birthday cakes, and then the seventeen hundreds were
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: full on like it's a kid's birthday party, it's got candles,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: it's a cake, and we'll sing some depressing German song. Right,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: it makes you reflect on your own existence, that's right,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: and it's eventually and but um there. So by the
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: time people were making birthday cakes in Germany, there was
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: a long, long, long tradition of cakes already, um, And
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: the word cake had started to originate in medieval Britain.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: But um, there was such a thing as a cheesecake already.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: The Romans created that and called it placenta. Yeah, Greeks
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: had created something that was basically a prototype of the
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: fruit cake, plock plock house. I believe they called it
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: feces right. Um. So there were all these kind of
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: cakes and breads and things that we're starting to to
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: be developed. And I think even that that pound cake
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: that you're not so hip on, um came before the
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution too. So there's stuff that you would kind
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: of recognize as cakes. But the idea of a cake
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: what Americans call it cake and no one loves a cake,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: that came out of the Industrial Revolution. The show sponsored
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: by Cake Cake Eat Them Today, Alright, so let's take
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: a break. We definitely gave way more than three fags. Yeah,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: we have earned our keep. Then we're going to come
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: back and talk about a little chemistry right after this.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: All right, so we're back, and uh, we promised talk
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: of chemistry, and I think we talked about this briefly
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: on one show. I have tried to bake. I did
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: a birthday cake for Emily a couple of years ago,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Red Velvet waldor Story of Cake, and it was okay.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: It wasn't pretty, though, what do you mean like it
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: like it was lopsided or there's an out of it.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: It just you know, it didn't look like a cake
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: you would buy in a store. But it tasted really good.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: I bet it was made with a lot of love too,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Oh of course. Um. But my deal is is I'm
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: not a great baker because baking requires you to be
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: very precise with your green dance, because it is chemistry.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: I'm a much better cook because I'm a fly by
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: the seat of my pants and throw a little of
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: this in there, throw a little that in there, and
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: there's a much you cann't do that with. No, there's
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: much more forgiveness in general cooking than baking. Yeah, cookings
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: and art baking is a science for sure. Yeah, that's
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: what they say, right, Yeah, well that's what I say
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: to you. Know, you didn't make that up, right, I
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: think I did. Okay, So, uh, with a with a cake, right,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: what you're doing is producing a chemical reaction, and I
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: knew that, but I had no idea um on this
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: granular level that this article gets into, just how much
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: of a chemical reaction baking a cake is the understanding
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: of it too to me. So you want to start
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: with a levening agent, right, that's right. That's how you
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: get from batter which is kind of flattened, soupy and wet,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: to a nice tall cake. The reason it rises is
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: because of a levening agent. And way way way back
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: in the day, they used to use yeast. They use
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: yeast for everything. They would make some beer, they would
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: make a cake, they make some bread, um, they would
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: throw it into the eyes of their enemy. They would
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: in a fight, the dirty fight um. And then eventually, uh,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: yeast kind of fell to the wayside a little bit
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: as they realized that there's other ways, um, two make
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: a cake rise. One of the big ways is to
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: actually introduce air into it. And if you say, you know,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: beat some eggs, um, what you're doing. You're not just
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: breaking the eggs down into their their kind of components
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: are like a mishmash of all of their components. You're
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: also introducing air into that mix, which will eventually, as
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: will see, transfers into the cake to make it rise. Yeah.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: And like when you're when you're following a recipe, if
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: you've never baked a cake before, and it says cream
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: the butter and sugar or sift the flour, you can't
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: just say, like, I don't have a sifter, so I'll
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: just throw the flour in here, like your cake is
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: screwed it, yeah, because it's not just like that makes
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: a flour pretty Yeah. The sifting flour introduces air into
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: the whole mix too. Yeah, this is all very important stuff.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: So you can't. You can't cheat any of these steps. No,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: you can't. You really need to follow a cake recipe
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: pretty closely. I mean, I guess if you're a master
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: baker and you know what you're doing, you can do
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: something in lieu of something else. But if you're just
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: an ordinary, uh non professional baker at home, just follow
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: the recipe and do what they say. Yeah, because you
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: couldn't say, well, I'm going to substitute um this flour
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: for a bunch of salt, like not only would it
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: would it tastes radically different, like you're affecting the chemical
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: composition of the mixture. True, unless you're making a traditional
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: south toward of salt cake, right, which you can also
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: use on those snowy days to clear the road. That's right.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: So you've got yeast as a living levening agent. You've
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: got introducing air through like whipping something. And I found
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: this mention of a recipe that called for four eggs
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: to be beaten for two hours. Holy gal. So you
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: can imagine that everybody was pretty psyched when chemical levening
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: agents were introduced in the mid nineteenth century. So that
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: was an old recipe, yes, yeah, And so in other words,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: you couldn't just put the mixer on with your eggs
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: and leave and go get on social media. No, this
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: was with your arm, and yeah it was not. I mean,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: I imagine if the person you were working for asked
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: for a cake, You're just like, this is a bad day,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: this is gonna be a bad day. For three hours right.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: And the whole reason again you're doing this is to
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: introduce some air, right. But if you could use something else,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: say like sodium bicarbonate also known as baking soda, and
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: you mixed it, which is a base, and you added
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: another ingredient in there, which is like an acid, say
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: like buttermilk or yogurt or vinegar, right, like in a
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: vinegar cake. Um, that sodium bicarbonate, that base and the
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: acid are gonna mix together and form a chemical reaction
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: and release CEO two. And this is how modern cakes rise.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: C O two is released through this chemical reaction and
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: it goes and bubbles up through the cake and makes
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: the cake rise with it. That's what levining agents do,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: is they take air and they expand it and make
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: it the cake. Yeah, Like when you slice a piece
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: of cake. Um, not not so much pound cake because
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: it's way more dense or other non flowered cakes, but
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: your standard birthday cake. You slice it up and you
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: see those it's you know those pockets, those holes that
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: you know, those are air holes. Those were where the
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: bubbles were. And we'll we'll we'll get to that a
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: little more. But it's that's very important stuff. That's a
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: that's a famous chef's apron. Baker's apron asked me about
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: my air holes. Um, fat source very important. Uh. Fats
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: improve the texture of a cake, allow it to be moist, flavorful,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: because we all know if that tastes great. Uh. And butter.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: You know, people can use shortening, which is good, Margarine
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: is good, cooking oil, this can all be used. But
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: for me, just get some real butter. And and I
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: say that for all foods. I went on a butter
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: uh uh, not a kick, No, no, no, I am
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: on a butter kick. I went on a butter a
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: boycott of sorts for a while. Uh, like real butter.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: But now I'm back on butter. Oh yeah, yeah, I
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: know what you mean. I tend to think butter is
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: healthier of all of them too. Um, although olive oil
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: has it beat. It's just such a radically different taste,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: especially when you're baking with it. Although I have you
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: ever had an olive oil cake? I don't think so.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: I don't remember where I had it. But man, they
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: are good, yes, surprisingly good. But it is definitely it's
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: a distinct thing, you know what I'm saying, Like subbing
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: olive oil out for butter is gonna give you a
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: weirdo recipe no one's going to like. But they might
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: pretend they do if they like you, but they don't
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: really like that. Uh. And all these fats sources they
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: can be used sometimes together um or swapped out for butter.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: But but again, you gotta know what you're doing. You
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: can't just say, well, I'm not gonna use butter. I'm
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: gonna just use the same amount of cooking oil as
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: melted butter. Right, And then one of the reasons why
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: he's swapping something out for butter in particular too, I mean,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: butter gives it its richness, it's it's it helps improve
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: it's moisteness and texture. Right, butter is great. But butter
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: also has a tendency to um incorporate air when you
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: cream butter, when you start to mash it around. That's
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: the whole reason. Like they're not telling you to cream
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: the butter just to make it look good before you
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: you add it to the batter. You're actually incorporating air there,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: so that butter is serving both as a fat and
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: as a leavening agent in that that recipe. So if
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: you come across the recipe that calls for butter that
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: must be creamed. There's something else going on besides just
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: getting a buttery taste out your cake. That's right. Sweetener.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: I was about to say sugar instead of sweetener might
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: as well, though, but let's be honest. You can use
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: honey and stuff, you can use agabe artificial sweetener, but
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: sugar is the best thing to use in my opinion.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: It bonds best to water molecules. It's really gonna help.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: That will help everything be nice and moist and soft.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: And you don't want to overdo it though. You want
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: to use again, the right amount of sugar because not
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: only could it could affect the taste, but it could
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: make the texture it could be too tough. Yeah, and
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: sugar is another one too, where if you see sugar
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: and you stub it out for something else, you can
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: have an impact on that chemical reaction because it does
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: all those things you're talking about. Like one of the
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: things that does is that the crystalline structure of sugar
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: actually cuts through the batter to help release c O
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: two more easily. And like you said, it binds to water,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: which means it does two things that locks it in
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: so that it keeps moist you're in. But it also
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: sugar also robs that water from some of the proteins
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: and the starches that give the cake its structure, um,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: which means that they're not going to be able to
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: become tough and dense like you were saying, because sugars
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: already grabbed onto that water molecule, and sugar in particular,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: you're not gonna get the same thing with like stevia
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: or honey, Like, it's not going to have the same effect.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: It's it's crystalline sugar, and it doesn't have to be
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: white refined sugar. You have the same effect I think
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: with like turbinado cane sugar too. Yeah, and you can uh.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you don't want to use sugar and
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: you want to use honey, look up a recipe that
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: is specific to honey, and they will help account for that,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: uh in certain ways, but it's still to me. You know,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: white sugar do it right? Um. And then they sugar
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: also gives it that nice golden brown color through the
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: mayard reaction that in the eggs for sure. Yeah, well
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: we're at eggs. Sugar and eggs are big. Yeah, especially
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: they're ostrich eggs, eggs. I know, eggs have proteins in them, right,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: and there's a couple of things in there. Um, those
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: proteins help give structure to the cake. I believe, yes, absolutely,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: the most fires in the yolk. They help. It's also
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: kind of serves as a binding agent. There are a
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: lot of things, including flour that helped bind things together,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: but those eggs and those yolks very much do because
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: there are certain things in cake. Sometimes it don't want
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: to mix the water, yeah, and the egg comes together
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: and says, well, you know, can we all just kind
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: of stick together here? Literally? Yes, that wasn't meant to
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: be Upunhi meant that. And I think the two big
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: emostifiers are actually in the egg yolk. Um, cholesterol and
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: less a thin are found in egg yolk, and they're like, hey, everybody,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: come on, let's let's hang out. That's right. And there's
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: also fats and egg and we also we already mentioned
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: that fats are are some and taste delicious. Plus also,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: if you're using whole eggs, most of the egg white
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: is water. The vast majority is water. And as we'll see,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: water and liquids play a big role in the cake too.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: So it's all like the the idea of people figuring
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: all this out through millennia of little contributions here there.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: It's just it's just a blessing on humanity. It is.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: It's a really neat accomplishment that everyone had came together
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: to figure this out over the span of time and
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: wonderful kitchens on cold winter days that we're like, you know,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: you've got like a nice cake baking in the oven,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: and you're contributing to humanity's knowledge of being great. Yeah,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of bad the carcasses of a lot of
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: bad cakes have been left in its wake, sure to
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: get where we are today, a lot of unhappy families
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: and a lot of unpleasant conversations about those cakes. But
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: still in a bed in the olden days when times
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: are a little tougher, they probably still ate those cakes.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I would guess. So, you know, you probably
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: just toss it out to the mules. No, you gave
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: them the sailors who are glad to have them. All right.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: That brings us to flour, very very important ingredient in
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: most baked goods, and flour is what is going to
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: really be the binding agent it's really good. It's gonna
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: hold everything together, give it its structure. Yeah, a lot
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: of structure and strength. And uh, this is when when
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: you mix these proteins with water, it's gonna form gluten
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: and gluten. I know a lot of people hate gluten,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: my wife being one of them, but gluten is a
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: pretty key ingredient here. Although I will say they've come
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: a long way now with gluten free cakes they have.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: It doesn't make you quite as sad to eat one. No,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: they're pretty good now. If you get a good gluten
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: free cake, it's um. Well the cheesecake is gluten free,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: So that's I mean, you know, your standard substitute flour. Uh,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: they've they've just gotten a lot better, I think. Ye.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: So in a standard glutenous cake, um that that gluten
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: from the um from the flour mixing with the water
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: forms of gel and it gives it that structure, It
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: gives it that um consistency, the texture that you're looking for.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: But again, the sugar is robbing the the um, the
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: proteins and the starches from getting too much water. Because
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: the more water it gets, the more um, the tougher
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: the cake is going to be. The more gluten, so
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: you actually want to make sure that your sugar is
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: taking away some of the liquids. But also the type
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: of flour you use UM has a lot to do
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: with how tough your cake is gonna turn out. So like,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: there is such a thing as cake flour that's something
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: like seven percent seven and a half percent protein, which
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: is going to translate into less gluten when you mix
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: it with water, right, so it's gonna be a lighter,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: fluffy your cake. Um. And then there's all purpose flowers
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: ten and a half percent bread flowers. And depending on
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: what kind of consistency you want in your cake, you
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: would use these different kinds of flour, And all of
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: it comes down to the um the amount of gluten
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: that's going to be produced when it interacts with the liquids,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: that's right. And finally that brings us to the liquids.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: The liquids are obviously gonna help keep things moist, they
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: hydrate those proteins, they allow all those chemical changes to
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: take place. But that liquid does when you actually bake
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: the cake, when it comes time to put in the oven,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: which we're gonna get through here in a sec uh,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: that creates a steam like that liquid cooks out and vaporizes,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: so that steam expands the air cells and that volume,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: and uh, it really lends itself to the light, airy
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: structure and texture that you're gonna get. Yeah, it blows
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: up the CEO two bubbles in it even further, which
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: helps make the cake rise. Plus it also chuck fosters
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: that chemical reaction between the acids in the bases that
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: act as leavening agents that release CEO two in the
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: first place. The presence of liquids in the presence or
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: water specific I think in heat really make that CEO
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: to go berserk. All right, well we should talk about ovens. Yeah.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: I was about to say you can't bake a cake
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: without an oven, but apparently you can. You can in Egypt,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: ancient Egypt. All right, so let's say we're not in
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: ancient Egypt. Um, let's say we're in in in regular
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: North America and Europe. In the eighteenth century is basically
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: when the semi closed oven came around. And before this,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: if you were baking cakes, well you were probably a
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: professional baker, because these ovens weren't in every household, right,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: and even in the eighteenth century they were in every
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: household either, but they tried to become a lot more
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: prevalent around that time. That was a big first step
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: towards people baking at home. Um, not his cakes, but
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: anything you know in cake history. That was a huge
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: monumental moment when enclosed of and became kind of ubiquitous
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: among the households for sure, because what you get there
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: is um consistency. You get a consistent even temperature, and
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: of course that just got better and better over the
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: years with advances and ove in technology. Uh and more
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: than anything, you get a reliable temperature ideally, right, And
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: if you have those things, you can make a cake
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: after cake after cake that your family won't be mad about.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: The sailors will stop coming by and being like, you've
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: got any more of them terrible cakes you made, sailors? Yeah,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: that's who you give the terrible cakes to us, sailors? Sure,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: all right. Um, So with the oven in particular, I
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: didn't realize this, but you know how the the liquid
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: and the heat and the sodium bicarbonate and the acids
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: are mixing together to make the cake rise. That is
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: actually a really fragile state of affairs. While the cake
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: is baking and the structure, the proteins and the starches
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: and the gluten are actually solidifying and making this this cake. Um,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: And if you mess with the oven, meaning like you
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: open and close the door too often, or you slam
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: it shut too hard, you're gonna the change in temperature
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: on the one hand, can cool those gases and make
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: your cake fall, and it makes you want want sound
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: as it does, as everyone knows. And then um, the
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: air pressure from slamming the door can burst those c
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: O two bubbles and again you're the proteins haven't had
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: a chance to like solidify and make the cake structure,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: so the cake can fall from that as well. And
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: if you'll notice, um, once the cake gets to a
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: certain point, if it falls, it falls in the middle.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: The outside usually stays up because that part has solidified already.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: The stuff in the middle hasn't quite cooked through, so
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: that would be the part that falls. And that also
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: proves my point, that's right, you also want to put
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: your cake in the middle. Where you place your cake
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: in the oven can even cause problems. It's very finicky
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: cakes are sure. Well again it's a science experiment. Yeah, basically,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: like do do this right? Jerk or I might just
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: take a nap here in the in the middle of
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: the in the middle of the cake. Maybe he'll burn.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Maybe I'll stick up your whole house. But like you
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: said about opening the door, like, ideally you know the
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: temperature your oven, you know how long it takes, and
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: maybe don't wait till literally you think I can pull
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: it out, although if you're a good baker, you're not
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: sweating it. You pull it out and you know it's
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: pretty much ready. But definitely don't keep opening it. Try
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: at least wait till the end. And if you have,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: they're not quite as in fashion now, I don't think.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: But ovens with a window and a light, um, you
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: can obviously take a little peak that way. Sure those
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: are kind of out of fashion, right or are they?
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: I don't not that I know. I feel like I
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: don't see those a lot. Do you have a window
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: in your rubbing? Sure? Of course? What am I a communist?
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: Do you yes? With a light? Man? What do you
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: have just a stainless steel door that's a dishwash shirt? Man?
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: Oh that's my problem. Yeah, like my cakes always come
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: out wet and soapy. Wait a minute, do I have
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: a window? Sure? You do. I think everyone does. I'm
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: literally cannot picture my kitchen right now. Jerry, he's got
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: a window, right, I've been baking in the dishwasher, Jerry,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: and I say, yes, you have a window, and you're up. Yeah,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: that might be. I might have just said something very dumb.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: So so it's staying in. Well, I do know, you
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: know what, I think. I do have a window, but
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: I don't have a working light. That's why I think.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: I don't know. You need to replace the light bulb. Yeah,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: but an he wants a bottom of that. For all.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: You can go to like any any big box hardware store,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: hardware store off the internet. I don't replace light bulbs
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: at my house. A matter of fact, I think they
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: probably sell them at the grocery store. Even you go
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: find yourself some golf wax, and you're probably near the
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: refrigerator oven light bulbs, alright. The heat of the oven
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: is very important. So depending on how good your oven is,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: it maybe a little off, maybe a little hotter or cooler.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: So you might want to you purchase an oven thermometer
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: just to give it a double check. Because baking a science,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: and when you think that that cake is done, take
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: a little peek your window that everyone has, or open it.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: If you really think it's done, give a little tap
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: in the center. If it springs back, then it's probably done.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: If you're an experienced baker, you just know by looking
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: at it. Or you can always do the old toothpick trick,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: which is sticking that toothpick woulden toothpick in the center
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: of the cake and pull it out. And if there's
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: no cake on it, then it's pretty much done. Right
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: if it's if it's covered in goo, that means it's
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: not done. Uh, that is correct, chuck. But then you
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: can also lick that goo off that toothpick. That's not bad, No,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: you can, but you're it's just never quite as good.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: And I think it's it always tastes like disappointment, you
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: know what I mean, because you all you want it
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: to come out clean. Anytime you're doing that, you're never
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: really putting it in expecting it to come out battery.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: So even though you do get to lick it, that's
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: like the one plus side of that that experience. I
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: think that's true. Uh. And if your cake is done,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: you're not finished baking it yet, even you need to
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: let it cool in the pan. Yeah, that's a big one.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: You don't just pull the cake out and and turn
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: it upside down in your sink and eat it with
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: your hands while it's still hot, Right, that's not the
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: way to do it. No, No, you want to let
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: it finish in the pan, cooling, because it's still doing
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: a little bit of baking, and it's getting used to
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: its new room in the kitchen and saying, all right,
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: this is a different temperature in here. I can I
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: think I can hang with you guys. Yeah, I'm alive.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Ten or fifteen minutes later, get out that wire rack,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: flip it over and ideally it comes out all in
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: one nice thing. And the other good thing about letting
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: it cool in the pan first two is when you
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: cool it on the wire rack, it won't get those
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: wire indent indentations in the cake because it is stable enough.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: I never thought about that. Nobody likes us. Sure you
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: can fill it in with a little extra frousting. Actually,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: now I think about that's great. Those those invitations are
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: just fine. The frosting grooves. In other words, yeah, should
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: we take a break, Yes, all right, we're gonna talk, um, well,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: just about other Kiki stuff. Right after this. Okay, Chuck,
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: you remember I was talking about baking soda and how
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: that changed everything. That was a big one that was
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: from the forties. Baking soda sodium bicarbonate. UM, just good
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: old fashioned, regular old baking soda. Sorry to be added
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: to it, but at the time you needed to, um
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: also add another ingredient that was an acid, so that
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: the two would react and form C O two or
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: produce C O two. Right, somebody about twenty years after
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: baking soda was developed said, oh, I got this, Um,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: We're gonna come up with something called baking powder. And
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: I never knew this, but this is the difference between
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: baking soda and baking powder. Baking soda is just sodium bicarbonate.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Baking powder is sodium bicarbonate and two other dry acidic
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: minerals that when dry, they don't do anything. You can
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: mix them together all day long and they just sit
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: there like what. Um, But in the presence of water
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: and heat, then they start to react chemically with one another.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: So you can add just a little baking powder and
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: you don't need an extra ingredient like yogurt or vinegar
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: or some other acid. It's got the base and the
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: acid that's going to produce the CO two in there.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: That was a huge, huge advancement for cakes, but it
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: actually came, um, kind of towards the end of cake
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: advancements prior to that. Um, just the the mass production
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: of the Industrial Revolution had a big impact on cakes,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: among many many other things, but definitely had an impact
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: on the spread of cake baking, especially in the United States. Yeah.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: And then so just you know, leave that baking soda
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: in your fridge to soak up the stink. Sure, that's
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: all that's good for. Well that now you can use
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: a baking soda for a lot of stuff. Yeah. It
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: also gets stink out of like clothes too. Oh yeah, um,
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: you can use it to uh well that's it. You know,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: like school science projects. You want to make a volcano. Yeah,
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: vinegar and baking soda and tried with your parents help. Yeah. Uh.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Pre packaged cake mix was a very big deal when
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: it came out in the nineteen thirties. But it was
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: it was a company named p. Duff and Sons. And
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: they said, here, we got a problem here, we got
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: too much molasses on our hands. So and then this
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: is kind of how a lot of great things have
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: been invented. They had too much of something. They said, well,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: what can we use this for? So they got to
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: work and they said Mr John duff the owner, said,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: you know what, the little weie flour in there with
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: this molasses, little shortening. Some spy says, we got a
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: gingerbread mix that we can sell to the public. All
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: you gotta do is add water, dumb, dumb, and you
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: can bake yourself some gingerbread cookies. Yeah. And the public
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: went hooray because remember they had um ovens now in
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: their houses, um, and they had this. The idea that
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: you could just get a mix from the store and
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: just add water was huge. It was a huge change.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: And what's interesting is this this whole like p. Duffin
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Son's story there out of Pittsburgh by the way, from
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: them coming up, because I think they quickly went from
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: just gingerbread mixes to cake mixes themselves as well. But
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: that busts uh several myths actually, some some like longstanding
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: food myths. One of them is that UM cake mix
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: came out of a surplus of flour in from World
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: War Two. That's where the cake mix came from. Yeah,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: I mean cake. Pre made cake mixes did get way
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: more popular after World Wars. But it wasn't because there
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: was so much flour. No, it was because that a
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: lot of the food companies started getting into pre mixed
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: foods that that you could make pretty easily in your kitchen. Um.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: But then the other one, I'd love this one. There's
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: this longstanding myth or this story about a guy named
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: Ernest Dichter who back in the nineteen fifties, Ernest dictor,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: he was a psychologist. I believe he came up with
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: the term focus group. He came up with the whole
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: idea of focus groups, um, to help companies figure out
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: why their new product wasn't doing so well, or how
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: to make a product that they hadn't launched yet even
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: more appealing. Um, this guy came up with that whole
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: idea of focus groups. Right. So he's also credited with
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: being the man who saved cake mixes because cake mixes
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: came out, everybody kind of loved him, and then supposedly
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: sales went flat, and Ernest Dichter got a focus group
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: together and found out that women who made cakes using
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: these cake mixes felt guilty, but they weren't contributing anything
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: to their families. They were just adding water and making
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: a cake and then quietly sobbing while their family ate it.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: Talked about the patriarchal brainwashing. Right, So dickter Um realized
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: that the best thing that these cake mix companies could
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: do is to remove the dried egg ingredients from the
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: mix and tell the consumer to add her own eggs,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: so then that way she was contributing. Well, it was
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: a huge success, and cake mixes took off and became
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: part of the American pantheon from that point on. Right.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Not true? No, yeah, that is a total urban myth. Uh.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: Most of these pre made mixes for years had said
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: to add your own eggs because it just was better
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: to add fresh eggs. It tastes better and perform better.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: So I don't know how that get started up the myth.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure either. I don't know, but it is
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: a long standing food myth that you can find, like
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: some very credible sources who say like, oh, this is
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: this happened, Um, it's just everywhere, But it turns out
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: that's not true. But I think the reason why it
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: has had legs for so long is because Ernest Dickter
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: is actually rightfully credited with saving the cake mix market
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: UM through a focus group, and he did find that, UM,
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: women were kind of not they didn't feel guilty about
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: it about you know, not contributing more to the cake mix.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: They think they were more bored by it. So he
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: advised companies to um figure out a way to make
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: cake baking about way more than just baking the cake.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: And so companies decided that um, they were going to
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: start promoting cakes as just the beginning part. That the
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: real point of baking cakes was to make these elaborate,
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: amazing cakes that you decorated and and it took you
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: hours and hours to make these things and it was
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: like a scene of like Humpty Dumpty on a brick wall,
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: but the whole thing was made out of cake. UM.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: And that was fostered by the introduction of frosting, and
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: that came from Ernest Dictor and that actually is what
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: saved the cake mix industry. That's right. You want to
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: know something about my mom? Yeah, champion cake decorator, is
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: that right? Not literal champion, like she never want to
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: contest because that is out there. But yeah, I mean
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: as far as the home the home cake baker goes
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: like she she couldn't go on one of these uh
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: shows now where they make like the British Bake offf
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: like giant submarines and stuff how to fond it. But
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: um just for like mom making special cakes every year
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: for the birthday. Every year she would say what kind
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: of cake you want this year? I'd be like, I
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: want a Star Wars cake. I want to Atlanta Falcons cake,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: and lo and behold, I would get my Atlanta Falcons cake.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: That awesome, very cool stuff, you know. Um. I had
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: an older sister who she died actually when I was sixteen, uh,
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: in a car accident. But she um used to be
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: the equivalent of your mom at making cakes. But she
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: didn't even need to ask. She would just she just
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: make something up, right. And there was this one year
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: I'll never forget this cake. Um. We were all big
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: time into Howard Jones. So it must have been seen it,
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: but yeah, it must have been like my ninth or
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: tenth birthday. My whole like, both my sisters and me
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: were totally into Howard Jones. And Karen, my sister, my
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: oldest sister, made a Howard Jones keyboard cake. And it
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: was a couple of cheat cakes put together frosted so
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: it looked like one big thing that like the black
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: keys were kick cats, like the the knobs on the
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: synthesizer were rollos, And I was I just looked around
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: at all my friends, like, does everyone see my cake?
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: This is the greatest cake anyone's ever had? And no
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: one couldn't have any but me. No, I shared, of
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: course I wanted to everyone did partake in the bounty?
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Was it a key tar or a keyboard? It was
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: a keyboard, okay, yeah, you never know. Strap a yeah,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: trap a guitar strap on it. You might could have
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: held it. I would not have put it past her
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: to make it a key tar. Man. That is very
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: sweet story. Yeah, literally and figuratively. Thank you. Hojo fans Huh, Yes,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: isn't that his nickname? I don't think so. Did I
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: make that up? Yeah? I think that's the hotel chain.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: I think you're totally right. Um, all right, Well another
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: tip here for baking a cake. If you were looking
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: at recipes and it says use this kind of pan,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: and you think, wow, I don't have that kind of pan.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: I've got this kind of pan. It's aluminum and square
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: and they're calling for a round dark pan. Uh, It's
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: it makes a big difference, like it can literally ruin
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: your cake. Yeah, you supposedly want to reduce the heat.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: I think not the heat or the cook time, one
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: of the two. Yeah. It says a dark non stick
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: pan cars reduction and temperature, so you want to knock
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: that heat down. Yeah, but also like google that stuff.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: Don't just say Josh and Chuck said this should work,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: you know, like, you have to have this the right
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: pan for that recipe and they will tell you in
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: the recipe and if you don't have it, just look
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: up the cheat for it. Basically, Yeah, two things you
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: don't want to take our advice blindly on medical stuff
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: and baking stuff. Yeah. Everything else is fine. I don't
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: know about that, but those are the two leading ways
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: that we will miss your life up. Um. All right, well,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: I guess we need to talk about the different methods
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: we're getting super wonky into cakes here. Well, I mean
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: that's what we do, all right. Well, let's talk about
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: creaming then, because that is one kind of method of
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: making a cake, and creaming is what we talked about.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: You may not have known exactly what you meant. But
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: when you combine like the butter and sugar, and it
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: says cream it with an electric beater, that's what you're doing.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: And it's it's really tough at first to get it going,
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: but just hang in there because that butter will start
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: to break apart mixing it with that sugar, and you
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: you've got a nice, a nice creamed um mix of
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: ingredients starter mix of ingredients on your hand there, right,
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: But you don't skimp on that that that first step. No,
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: and that's like that. I think the creaming method, um,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: that's that's that's the one that best gets across this
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: point that this is like, this is there. It's a
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: chemical reaction. I know we've kind of been beating that horse,
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: but it's really true. Like if you if you don't
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: follow the steps correctly, the chemical reaction is not going
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: to come out correctly. And when you step back, you're like,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: but I'm making a cake. That's true, but do you
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: want your cake to to be good or do you
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: want to just waste your time? Yeah? So in the
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: creaming method, when it says then mix ingredients in this
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: order wet then dry, do that right to say just
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: throw it all in there, right, Yep, it makes a difference.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: And uh it says that pound cakes are like a
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: variation on the theme. I looked in the pound cakes. Man.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: Do you know so that the idea that pound cakes
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: called for a pound of each ingredient. That's actually true. Yeah,
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: I know. But the reason why it called for a
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: pound of each ingredient was because a lot of the
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: British people at the time, in the early seventeen hundreds, um,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: couldn't read, so it was just an easy way to
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: remember the recipe. Interesting, yeah, all right, I'll buy that
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: they'd be like what's the tips? And also pound cakes
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: to the reason, um, why you're not going to find
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: a pound cake with a big butter cream frosting is
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: because that will that will send you into sugar shock
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: in a second pound cake is already really dense and sugary.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: Like that's why you just have it like a little
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: glaze on top. I do like that glaze. Actually, I'll
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: eat a pound cake. I think that glazes. What's it
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: called something icing? Imperializing? Oh, I don't know, I can't remember. Okay,
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: So the next one is the not the no aeration
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: method to where you're not really you're not whipping anything up. Um. Yeah,
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: you probably don't even have flour in this in this
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: this is probably a flower less cake, right, So this,
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: this is the kind of thing that you use to
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: um make like a cheesecake or a flowerless chocolate cake. Yeah,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: this can be very good. Sure, um. And you are
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: probably going to need to add some sort of moisture
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: because cakes like this tend to crack while they're baking,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: which is why a lot of them, cheesecakes in particular,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: you cook in a water bath in the oven because
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: that water vaporizes and steams around it and helps keep
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: that moisture in. Yeah. I never knew that the reason
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: for the water bath. I didn't know that you use
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: a water bath. That was news to me. Made a cheesecake, yeah,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: they can be quite good. Oh. I love cheesecake. I
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: don't think I've ever had any bad cheesecake. That's always good.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: That's another thing too. Um Public cheesecake is incredible and
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: they need to sponsor us, and they sell it by
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: the double slice for those like you get two slices
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: and they have a key lime one to chuck. That's
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: just man. Although if you don't like lemon stuff. You
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: might not like that. Oh no, I love key lime
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: in Okay, try their key lime cheesecake. Yeah, they really
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: should send us some stuff. Frankly, at uh Al of
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: Palms for my vacation that I've spoken about, they had
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: one of the I can't remember which one, but one
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: of the seafood joints where I would get all the
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: fresh seafood had a homemade key lime pie and I
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: bought an ate one of them with my friends that week,
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: and I bought two to go home with. Did they
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: make it home? Huh? Did they make it all the
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: way home? No? Yeah, I stopped in, stopped at the border,
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: just put my face in it. No, they made it home.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: I think there's still one in the freezer actually, And
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: then one of them was consumed, nice good key lime pie.
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: And finally, with a non aeration method, you are you
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: are not doing the the beating, you're not creaming that stuff.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: You're folding the batter. And we could describe it here,
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: but if you don't know what folding is and making,
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: just just look it up on the YouTube for a
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: proper folding technique. Generally done with a like a rubber spatula. Um,
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: there's a foaming method to where you are basically using
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: just egg whites usually and you're aerating it by whipping
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: them up, which makes a merangue. You can just stop
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: there and incorporate sugar and you've got marangue, which would
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: make a Pavlova cake, which apparently Australia and New Zealand
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: have been fighting over the origin of for close to
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: a hundred years now. But doesn't New Zealand win supposedly,
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: although I saw another um article from some researchers who
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: said no, it came even earlier, a decade earlier out
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: of America via Germany, so who knows, but yes, out
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: of Australia New Zealand. New Zealand's apparently won that fight.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: But that's merangue, and Pavlova cake is like a marangue
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: cake with um like fruit in the middle of it.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: Um and then uh and then um. A listener sent
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: us pavlova once we made it, it was pretty good.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: It is pretty good, yeah, um and then um. You
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: can also take that egg foam and turn it into
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: it like a sponge cake, like an angel food cake
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: or something like me. You don't like those either. No,
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: not big into the angel food cake. Although you can
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: use sponge cake for strawberry shortcake that I will have. Okay,
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: So those spongey cakes, that's that uses the egg foaming method.
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: But if you're making a true strawberry shortcake, you're going
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: to use an actual shortcake. Yeah. Those are really good.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: And the reason they're called shortcake or shortbread is called
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: short bread is short is apparently a British term for crumbly. Okay,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: so that's where that came from. Not not has nothing
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: to do with the size. Yeah, Emily makes a really
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: good gluten free shortbread. She's kind of gotten into baking
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: a bit in the last five or six years and
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: getting pretty good at it. Um, So she makes a
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: good gluten free shortbread that we've had, a shortcake with
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: homemade whip topping and good fresh strawberries. Those are good.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: But my one complaint with her baking is it literally
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: looks like she came in there and just started throwing
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: ingredients everywhere with her bare hands like a three year old,
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: and then baked right and then said I'm done, Yeah,
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: good night. It is a It is a mess, a big,
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: big mess. And she always just says, get out of here.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: I'll clean it up afterward, don't worry about it. Yeah yeah, yeah,
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: it's funny. The kitchen can be a place of real
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: tension sometimes high oh for sure. Yeah, especially if both
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: of you, uh do different things in the kitchen, right,
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: like ones hovering like are you going to clean that up? Well,
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: I'm the kitchen cleaner. So that's why she's just like,
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: just stay out of here, dude, right, just wait until
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: the end. Yeah, and you show up, You're like, it's
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: Marge's time to shine. Well I'll do this. And this
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: is such a passive aggressive move for me, which is
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: my style. Um, not endorsing that, I'm just saying it's
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: one of my downfalls. I need to porcan. But I'll
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: just go in there and just like groan or something
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: like God, and she'll just say no out right. Again,
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: that's life at the Briant House. Um, that's that's a
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: pretty nice that's always with love though. Yeah, it always
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: comes out. There's always a cake out the on the
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: other end, right yeah yeah, yeah, I mean it's not
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: gonna get in serious fights over the kitchen stuff, right. Um,
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: So what's the last thing here? Uh? Something called the
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: all in one method. Yeah, that's just like a cake
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: makes you put it all all together at once. Yeah, well,
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: we should talk a little bit about frosting and icing. Um,
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: the earliest versions of frosting was just sort of an
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: almond and sugar paste. Uh, not so big on that,
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: but really, I mean it could be okay, but almond
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: croistants are like one of my great joys in life. Like, oh, yeah,
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: they're so good. I suppose that's kind of what a
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: bear claw is too, right, yeah, alright, yeah, but that
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: all that's sweet almond paste inside is man, I know
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: it's it is good, but I'm like, don't put that
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: on top of a cake. From sure, I understand, stuff
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: it in a pastry. Um, a friend chief that was
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: the first person they think that created like the first
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: legit iced layer cake in the fifteenth century, and then
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: about the middle of the seventeenth century is when the
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: first frosting recipe started spreading around on the internet. And
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: fondante is gross. Yeah, I'm not into it. I mean,
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: you can make a neat looking cake, but it's gross tasting,
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: I think. Yeah, I'm then into a buttercream or cream
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: cheese or even Emily's Waldorf History of frosting. Believe it
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: or not. I mean it has a bit of a
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: mouth feel because of the shortening, but um, like a
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: residue on the palate. Yeah, on the roof of your mouth. Yeah,
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: but it's still good. Well, let's talk about cakes, like
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: like the well, no specific cake. It's like the red
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: velvet cake, right, yea delicious. Do you know why it's red?
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: Well food coloring that they use that to make it
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: a little richer, but it actually naturally turns red. It's
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: a chemical reaction between the cocoa, the vinegar in that
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: and the buttermilk. I believe, really, yes, that turns it red.
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: All right, I don't know about that. No, it's true. Okay,
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: I read it on What's cook in America. I'll try
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: it because i'm making Emily. It's her birthdays in a
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks and I'm making another. I'm taking another
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: stab at it. Try the try go find like an
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: original like like recipe. Well, I mean, what do you
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: mean like one if you if you see one that
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: actually uses buttermilk, being like, okay, this one, this is
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: one of the ones. I'm gonna try. No, no no, no,
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: I have to use the recipe she tells me to use.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: Oh I got which isn't the waldor the gluten free Waldorf?
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: The story of version Oh gotcha? I see, But you
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: have cocoa? Does it have like vinegar and buttermilk in it?
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: I can't remember. It's been a couple of year since
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: I tried it. Okay, well, it should turn red on
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: its own, but I don't think there's any harm in
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: adding some more synthetic chemical red dye. Well, and the
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: thing is, to a lot of people that don't try
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: red velvet cake don't try it because they think it
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: doesn't like it tastes like chocolate cake pretty much. Yeah,
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: it just is red. It tastes red. No, that'd be weird.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: It's not catchup cake. There's uh yeah, that's Canadian, isn't it.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: There's a hummingbird cakes. Uh well, what do you mean
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: by the hummingbird? What? Hummingbird cake has like some nuts
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: and some fruit in it, lots of frosting. I think
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: it's a Southern cake. Yeah, like we called my grandmother
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: Bryant called one of the great all time Southern cooks
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: and bakers, like you know, banana nutbread. Yeah, she called
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: that hummingbird, and I don't know if that was specific
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: to her or if they are interchangeable. I don't know.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: I'm not actually a Southern native, so I would not
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: say one way or the other. All my experience with
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: hummingbird cake is it's more like a charity cake with
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: with say like pineapple in it and some other fruits
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: in it, and a thick layer of frosting. And supposedly
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: the reason it's called a hummingbird cake is because it's
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: so sweet it could attract hummingbirds. See maybe, I mean
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: that's sort of like banana upbread. So I don't know
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: if they're interchangeable for variation. But give me some banana nutbread,
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: which is not a cake but it sort of is,
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: and slice it up and flut some butter on it
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: toasted in the oven. Now I'm with you. Our freezer
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: is always chuck full of black bananas blackened with age
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: um because you makes a killer banana nutbread from scratch
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: using I mean, you just can't look at the bananas
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: when she's incorporating them. What does that do? Why? Why
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: is that the key? Do you know? They just are
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: supposed to be mushy? Okay, Okay, gotcha, and and like it.
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: The best way to make banana's mushy is to let
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: them age, let him age freeze age them. All right,
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Indian pound cake. Apparently that's a thing
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: that has corn meal in it and I can't imagine
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: that taste, but I'd like to try it. Well. Yeah,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: and that was one of the earliest cakes in the US.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: And I think what the author Leah Hoyt's pointing out
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: is that like cakes came from all over the place
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: through time and and geography, and that the mass immigration
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: tore into America over say like the seventeen eight nineteenth
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: centuries in twenty to all these people from all these
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: different lands brought their ideas or ingredients of cake and
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: they kind of went through this americanized grinder to where
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: eggs were added, butter was added, and like you've got
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: these ingredients. So it bears a resemblance to its original one.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: But it's been like cake afide in the American way. Um,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: and that that started basically right as as um European
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: settlers got to um North America. Yeah, apparently the the
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: good old fashioned chocolate layer cake came out of Boston
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: because there were chocolate companies there. Even the German chocolate
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: cake is not German, it's American. It's after a man
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: whose last name was German. Oh interesting, well that means
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: he's German. German American could be maybe they should call
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: it the German American Chocolate Cake or just German chocolate cake.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: But it's really American, everybody, is what the real title
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: should be. Strawberry shortcake that you mentioned, that does come
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: from the old world. I'm not much of a jingo
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: list either, I think you might say, but I've never
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: felt more national pride than in talking about cakes. Yeah. Yeah,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: this is where cakes were born. Really. Uh the pineapple
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: upside down cake. Heaven help you if you eat that stuff.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: I love it, do you really, man? It's so good. Yeah.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: I just don't like fruit anywhere near my cake. Yeah,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: that's a strawberry shortcake. You definitely win like a hummingbird
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: cake then even Yeah, maybe that's the difference between that
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: uh hummingbird and uh banana bread. Right, although bananas in there, right,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: that's a well, that's not a fruit cake to me. No,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: you just don't like the juicy fruits in your cake.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: It sounds like no, or coconut, which is in the
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: German chocolate cake in the coconut in the icing. Yeah yeah,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: see that. So I don't want coconut anywhere near my cakes.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: But that pineapple upside down cake apparently that stuff sort
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: of sprang out of a contest. Uh Doll had the
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: Doll Company in the in the mid nineteen twenties. They said, hey,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: bake some cakes with fruit, and so thousands of pineapple
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: upside out cakes came out. So I don't think they
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: were invented for that, but maybe that's just what made
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: them so popular. I don't know. And then there's other Again,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: there's cakes around the world that look like cakes, kind
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: of like tearmy sou um. Is it quintessential Italian cake?
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: But it was invented in the nineteen sixties. Black forest
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: cake actually is from Germany. It was invented in nineteen
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: five teen. So what happened was again, cake explosion happened
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: here in the good old US of A, and its
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: spread back out to the world. There was an influx
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: of cake ideas into America. America perfected the cake and
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: it went back out to the world. That's what happened.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: What else, what what about the chase that's great too,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: kinds of milk evaporated, condensed, and whole. It's tough to
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: go wrong with that. Talk about moist and I've like,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: I've had good and bad Tracey Late chase, but I've
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: never had an actual Tracey Late sus like, this is
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: so bad, I'm not going to finish it, right, have
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: you know? And then there's Doda yucky, which is like, um,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: have you ever had this? I don't think so. Uh.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: One of the big things that that people in Japan
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: love is like sweet and red bean paste. You can
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: find it here there in like sweets. But this dory
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: YACKI um, in particular is like between two pancakes. It's
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: like a filling. Sometimes it's not even two pancakes. It's
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: like a hole with like a red bean paste inside.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: It's like this light, kind of fluffy cake like thing
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: with red bean paste inside. It's good. Um, you can
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: they're best like hot off of the street from somebody
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: who just made it. That's when it's absolutely best. But
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: it's like the kind of thing you can also find
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: in a seven eleven or something to like in cellophane. Yeah,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: it's good. It's no cheesecake. No Japanese cheesecake, I'll tell
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: you that. Nope, but it's still pretty good. Man. That
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: was a good one. I think cakes. All right, are
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: you done? I'm done? Okay. If you want to know
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: more about cakes, go eat something. You're gonna love them.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: There's a cake out there for you. Uh. And since
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: I said that, it's time for listener man. All right,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this um a special one man administrative
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: details shout, because we got a box today from a
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: man named Nick Pegan from San Jose Bay area and
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: he sent us just a blotted stuff like good stuff.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: It wasn't a box full of garbage he sent. He
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: said that anyone ever has sent us a box full
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: of garbage. He sent us, uh, framed things, sent me
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: a framed pavement poster, which is great, and sent us
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: CDs of music. He sent bottles of liquid stuff, most
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: notably wine for Jerry, and then bourbon and Scotch for us.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: And he is a whiskey enthusiast that lives in the
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: Bay area, like a big time and just a good dude.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: And beyond that, he uh, he added this, he added,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: he's a he's a list maker, an amateur list maker,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: and he sent us a list, and Nick, if you're listening,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: please send us the word document digital version of this
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: print out that you sent because he said every time
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: you said we should to do a podcast on that,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: he made a list alphabetically of that stuff. And the
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: list is so comprehensive and awesome that we need it
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: to work from. Yes, he made he made a list
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: of films that each of us said we need to see,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: which is pretty good. And then finally he sent us
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: a list and and encouraged us to play a little
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: game here which will do very quickly of see if
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: Chuck can see if Josh can guess how many times
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: we've done the following things. Are you ready well, because
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: I have the list in my hand and you're sitting
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: across from me, and you can't can't do this paper,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: I don't think so. How many c o A s
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: and for people who don't know it means cover our butts?
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: How many c oas have we issued over a thousand shows?
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: I'm going to say seven? Wow, Wow, we are really
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: good at that. How many times have we admitted on
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: the air that it is a take two? Yeah, you're
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: not gonna get anything, or maybe you might it will
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: be totally luck if I do eight seven, Oh so
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: close rare listener mail shout outs, Oh, I don't know
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: what that means, like where we say, hey, can you
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: say hello to my boyfriend? Three st What that's pretty
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: rare though out of a thousand. Yeah, but still it
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: seems like I thought it was even rarer than that did.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: We used to do it more than we do now,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: and I think so. I think that's what It was
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: a little more generous in earlier days. Trips in the
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: way back machine. Oh, there's a lot of those, I'm
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: gonna say, out of a thousand episodes three and twenty,
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: he says, fifty nine. So I don't know about this. Nick,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: think he missed a few. Nick. You're just making up numbers,
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: aren't you. How many can scotch at home and making
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: up numbers? How many paper lists have you eaten? Me? Yeah?
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: One that I know of. Yep, you nailed it. I
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: remember the episode two It was um, how geniuses work?
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: Or what makes a genius? And I said that if
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: this list, if the list of geniuses, if the number
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: one genius was Einstein, I would eat the list. Turned
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: out it was Einstein. How many Glenn Danzig or Misfits references?
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: Those would be all you four. You need to step
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: it up. How many times has Chuck was How many
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: times have I done this? Wow? I think it's literally countless.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: If he came up with a number, it's a lot.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: He says two eight. That's got to be more than that.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: Simpsons references. I'll just go ahead and tell you a
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: hundred ninety seven. Apparently we have high include the two
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: episodes on the Simpsons. No, no no, no, I think um,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: apparently we have high fived once. Okay, I'm surprised we
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: even did that a number of times. Josh has done
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: this a lot? Uh, I don't know. I think a
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: lot just just works for that. Four hundred and twenty
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: six time, almost half our episodes. That's great, um, And
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: then bonus, name all of Josh's nicknames for Chuck. I'll
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: just go ahead and read those. You have called me Chuckers,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: you've called me beautiful, I don't remember that one. The
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: famous Chuck tran Cheach, Rusty Zonkers, and the flash nick
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: is my new favorite listener. This this is all gold plus.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: Thanks for for buttering us up with the care package
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: to Nick, that was nice of you. Yeah, so, Nick Pagan,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: you are now on the guest list for the San
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: Francisco Sketch Fest show. Just hit me up with an email,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: send that list of shows that we need to do
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: via digital document and you are in, like Flynn. Cool.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Nick, Well, if you want to be
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: like Nick, you can tweet to us at Josh I'm
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: Clark or s y s K podcast, hang out on
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know, or slash
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant you. You can send us an
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: and has always joined us at our home on the web,
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is that how stuff Works
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: dot com. H