Cake Baking: Fat vs Foam Families

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Get into it! Today we're leaving the home kitchen behind and stepping into the high-stakes world of a professional patisserie. We're not just looking at recipes, we're going to pull back the curtain on the core principles that every pro baker has to master to get those perfect, consistent results every single time. So what is the secret to a perfect cake? You know the feeling, right? You follow a recipe perfectly. One day it's amazing. The next day, using the exact same instructions, it's a dense, dry disaster.

You have to wonder, is there some kind of magic ingredient? Some secret handshake? Well what the pros will tell you is actually a lot simpler. And there it is. It's not the recipe. For a professional, a recipe is just a shopping list. The real secret, the thing that guarantees consistency, is understanding the method. It's knowing why you're creaming the butter that way or why you're folding so gently. Once you know the why, you're in control. So here's how we're going to break it all down. First, we'll see how all cakes fit into just two families.

Then we'll dive into what makes fat-based cakes so rich and foam sponges so light. We'll look at the pro-level finishing touches, and then we'll round it all up with the one big idea you need to remember. Okay, let's start at the very beginning. I want you to forget about the thousands of different cake recipes out there. Because in a professional kitchen, they all boil down to just two major categories, two families. And understanding which family a cake belongs to, that is step one to baking like a true pro. And here you are, you've got your fat-based family and your foam-based family.

And the biggest difference, the thing that changes everything, is how they get air inside them, what we call aeration. See, fat-based cakes get their structure from trapping tiny air bubbles in fat, like butter, while foam-based cakes, they get their structure from whipping air directly into eggs. Two totally different starting points. And you know, when you look at professional culinary training, it gets even more specific. Within those two big families, you've got these subtypes. For fat-based, you've got butter-based versus oil-based. For foam, you've got emulsified sponges versus egg-based foams. And these aren't just fancy names. Eat.

I'm playing the studio for everyone, not just a few. I don't know why we're still working on our laptops or what's actually going on, especially the last benches. Each one signals a very precise set of techniques and a predictable result. So, first up, fat-based cakes. I want you to picture a classic golden butter cake, a dense pound cake, or a super moist carrot cake. These are the ones we think of as rich, comforting, and having that soft, tender crumb. And it all comes down to the role that fat plays.

So what's the science behind this? It's actually pretty cool. The fat literally waterproofs the flour. It coats all those little flour particles, which gets in the way of water connecting with the proteins to form gluten. And less gluten means a less chewy, less tough structure. It's what gives you that signature softness, that tender bite. The classic way to make these is called the sugar batter method. And that first step, creaming butter and sugar, is everything. You're not just mixing them. The sugar crystals are physically hammering tiny air pockets into the butter. Thousands of them.

your aeration. After that, it's all about carefully mixing in the eggs and then gently folding in the flour so you don't undo all that hard work. And the result of this method? Well, you get that rich flavor from the fat, a super tender texture because we weakened the gluten, and they stay moist for a really long time. Think of your classic pound cakes, butter cakes, even oil-based cakes like carrot cake. These are the sturdy, reliable workhorses of the cake world. Okay, now let's do a complete 180 and talk about the other family, foam sponges.

If fat-based cakes are all about richness and density, foam sponges are the exact opposite. We're talking incredibly light, springy, almost cloud-like. Here, fat is barely in the picture. The star of the show is the humble egg. With a foam sponge, almost all the structure all overrips comes from whipping air straight into eggs. The egg proteins are amazing. They stretch out and trap all those tiny air bubbles, creating this really stable foam. That foam becomes the entire framework of the cake.

flour is really just there to offer a little support. A perfect example of this is the Genoway's method. You start by gently warming the eggs and sugar, which helps the egg proteins relax so they can trap more air. Then you whisk and whisk and you whisk until you hit what pros call the ribbon stage. That's when the batter is so thick and airy it falls off the whisk and thick ribbon. Only then do you very, very carefully fold in your flour. What I love about this is that it's basically a professional's cheat sheet. This method is all about precision. If your eggs get too hot, they scramble and you're done. If you don't whisk them enough, the whole thing will collapse when the flour goes in and if you mix that flour too much, whoops, you just deflated your cake. Every

Every single step is a critical point of failure. It's high risk, high reward. All right, so you've baked the perfect cake base. You've mastered the method. But a truly professional creation is just getting started. It's all about the finish, the fillings and decorations that take it from a simple cake to something spectacular. When a pro chooses a filling, it's not random. It's strategic. You might use a light chantilly cream to keep an airy sponge light. Or maybe a rich pastry cream to give it some weight and texture. Fresh fruit isn't just for flavor. It's for acidity to cut through sweetness.

Every choice is about creating perfect balance. And it's the same exact story for decorations. We're talking about professional standards here. Chocolate has to be tempered so it's snappy and shiny. Icing's have to be firm and hold their shape, not run all over the plate. These little details are signals of skill and quality, and you see them before you even take a bite. So, we've looked at the two families, we've touched on the science, we've seen the finishing touches, but let's bring it all home. Let's go back to that original question about the secret to a perfect cake.

What's the one thing you really need to take away from all this? It all comes down to this word, methodology. This is it. It's not about just memorizing recipes. It's about a deep, systematic understanding of how things work. It's knowing the why behind every step so you can get the exact result you want, on purpose, every single time. And here's the crucial point. As soon as you know if you're making a fat-based cake or a foam-based cake, you basically have the entire roadmap. You know where the air is coming from, you know how to handle the flour, you know what the final texture is supposed to be. That single piece of knowledge dictates every other decision you make.

That's the real secret. So now you have the key. You understand the logic that unlocks pretty much every cake recipe you'll ever see. The only question left is, now that you know the two paths, which one are you going to master first? Are you team rich and tender or team light and airy? Thanks for tuning in. All right. We're going through. And we're going-- the last part, this is the cake, so-- Most of it you already covered in the kitchen.

So remember last week we made tiramisu? So what type of cake was it? Spongebob. Spongebob, yeah? Spongebob cake. Light and airy, and we've already covered a few things. How to keep that aeration, don't tap the trays to kill all the aeration, otherwise it's going to be dead.

I only want stuff sorted. Like back doors. I hear you scream. Come on.

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It looks like normal speed, I wonder how to do this Now again, it's mixing fast because of the speed So I'll get a gentle mix here

That's how they end up making Gato's cakes.

like we discussed previously. Now, very similarly, it's not just a process. It's also when you start making a cake. OK, so there are some times we don't realize the small things that can impact. For example, when you're measuring the flour, you know it says one cup flour. And if you take the one cup flour, he's going to talk about it. The density of the flour makes a lot of difference. So if you don't air it, air it, export it, or fluff it, and then take the flour, the weight is going to be different. So a very good example or a very good experiment, you guys can try at home. So just take the flour in a cup, weigh it, and then use a fork, and then fluff off the flour, and then take it, and then see the difference. There'll be approximately 2 to 3 grams of difference in your flour.

*Evil* Really good video guys, make a lot of these folks. Nobody knows.

your oven on so it's nice and hot. Get all of your ingredients out and pre-measure them. So you want your milk, your butter, your eggs to be all room temperature so that they're going to mix nicely and you're not putting ice cold things in the oven. When you put ice cold ingredients in cake batter and you pop that into the oven, the center of your cake takes way longer to bake. So when you're baking your cake layers, you're going to find the edge sets quickly. The middle continues to rise because those ingredients were cold and you have a domed cake which is not fun to decorate.

So be prepared. Coming into number four, we have opening your oven. Why is that a mistake, you might think? This is one of the most common mistakes we in our class have that happens, isn't it? What do you guys think? Opening the oven door very often. Is it happening in the kitchen? Anybody in the kitchen? Why? What could be the reason? Why are we opening the oven door too many times? Like last week when someone had put the sponge and stuff. Do you remember? No.

Why are you opening it? To shake. To shake. To shake and? Is there only one person in our class using the oven? Everyone. So some people had their cakes already or they're stuck in the oven and then other few people, they're putting their trays in the oven. So open it again. So the more you open the oven again, that's what's going to make a cake collapse. Okay? So when you're doing your cakes or your sponge, remember guys, Genoa sponge, or not Genoa, Sorry, for the sponge with tiramisu and the banana roll.

important you guys need to make sure you are all coordinated and put it at the same time because if you keep opening it some or most of you guys sponge will end up being really tough and chewy and it will crack you won't be able to roll it okay so please make a note of this mistake. But here's the deal your oven should stay closed for most of the bake if your cake calls for a 35 minute bake time I set my timer for 30 minutes and then I'll start taking a look maybe the 34 minute mark just keep an eye on it.

Don't go in after 10 minutes or after 15 minutes because they're so delicate before the cake is set. So what's going to happen is if you bump it, if it just gets too cold, feel bad that day, your cake will be plate and it's not going to come back. Just don't open that oven too soon. Number three, you followed your recipe to a T. Everything came out perfectly and you're ready to assemble your cake. But the mistake is not waiting until it is completely cool.

doesn't mean not hot anymore. It means no residual heat is left inside of that cake because your buttercreams and your fillings can melt so easily and you're asking your cake to defy gravity if it's a lighter cake, let alone having tears. They need to be cool for room temperature and your icing needs to be properly set as well. You can let me know in the comments if you've had a cake collapse. It's happened to me before. In fact, I'll tell you the video. It was my royal wedding cake video. Number two, this is a battle. Number one and two are really close, but number two is mismeasuring your flour. It is so easy to mismeasure it if you're not using a scale. If you watch my channel, I use a kitchen scale. It's not expensive. It doesn't take up a lot of room, but it comes in so handy.

One cup of flour, depending on the kind of flour, should be 120 grams. But look what happens when you just scoop up the flour. I'll even level it off. I'm even going to level it off for this. That's 150 grams. So I packed 30 extra grams of flour in there. And just because the flour was misinterpreted, your cake is going to be dry, it's going to be bready, it's going to be denser, and it's not going to be delicious. You're going to be disappointed. If you don't have a scale, that's totally fine. You can fluff and spray.

So, fluff the flour up. Fluff, fluff, fluff. Sprinkle it in. You want to preserve all those pockets of air in between those little granules of flour. And measure it out. 121 grams. So one gram extra doesn't matter at all. Much more accurate to fluff and sprinkle. Just don't scoop it. Don't do it. The number one mistake making cakes. I love my mixer, I love my hand mixer, but the

The biggest mistake you can make is over mixing your batter. If you look at most recipes, they'll say mix until combined. My recipes often say mix until almost combined. You still see a couple pockets of flour hanging out here and there. Because even when you're mixing on low, even when you're mixing on low, you don't have the ultimate control like you do if you mix it by hand. So when you make your next cake,

Mix those ingredients until they're almost all incorporated. Then switch to your hand and just fold the ingredients in until all the flour has disappeared and it's stuck. If you overmixed your cake batter, you're going to develop the gluten, which is a protein in your flour. And gluten is necessary in bread, for example, because you need to have not that chewy texture that makes bread so amazing, but cake is supposed to have a milk-in-the-mouth texture. Don't over mix your batter. Mix it until just combined.

We're gonna make the other mistakes and we're gonna have a great time in the kitchen. I hope you enjoyed this video. It was a really fun steak. If you have more questions, leave them in the comments below. Alright, let's do this on the cake mistakes. Alright, and coming up, close up. And just have to finish off. Meringues. We've already done the brits. It's quite a big topic.

Yeah, meringues. What are meringues? Have you guys used meringue or something? Did we make meringue? Yeah, what is it for? Egoid and sugar. Egoid and sugar, yeah. What did we use it for? Who can remember? What dessert we made? Tiramisu. Did we make meringue for tiramisu? We just foam the soft pink, but that's not really meringue.

Red velvet cake? So the one we did for our cakes, the egg white sugar is just whisking egg white sugar to soft peep, but it's not really a meringue. Meringue is where you actually have the shiny stiff peep, that's meringue. So if you guys remember, we made one dish before, a small one with a little lemony. What is it? Yes, they're going.

Lemon meringue pie. Do you guys remember? No. Did you not? No. It's a little lime and it's not the top. Are you sure we have not made lemon meringue pie yet? No. Maybe it's in the dessert. Are you going to rest your people? Ours is just after the assessment. Ah, can I read for Scott Chay. For the previous release to move to home. It's not very special.

Again, very similar to what would -- the steps are pretty similar when you make the egg white and the sugar. Okay, now, meringue is out of three types. Okay? Yeah. Yeah. French, Italian, Swiss. Okay? So, major difference between three. Yeah. Okay? One is where you have the egg white, okay? And add sprinkle sugar little by little. That's the only reason.

Then you have a French version where you have a double boiler, and you put it on a double boiler, the egg white, and then you put sugar in it. It's basically helping the egg whites to come to room temperature or warm it up so you can fluff up or rip up better. And lastly, your Italian meringue. Do you know what's an Italian meringue made with? It's a hamburger. I'm sure.

That's right. Yeah. Sugar syrup.

So you boil the sugar syrup, make a sugar syrup, heat it up, and then pour it into egg whites. And the hot sugar syrup is what kind of cooks up the egg whites. Okay? French and Swiss, you actually bake the meringue in the oven. So you kind of pipe it and bake it in the oven. So that's how you have different meringues in it. So let's have a good look of how different meringues are made.

meringue is stiffly beaten egg whites and sugar. There are a few styles of meringues. Here are two of our favorites. French meringue is an unheated meringue that should be cooked on top of pie, such as in lemon meringue pie or as the bacon. - This is what you guys will be doing after your assessments on the session, actually. - Is a meringue cookies and shells. Get ready. Make sure your egg whites and equipment are clean. - We'll bake this. - Even the smallest drop of yolk or oil - Okay, I'm gonna take this back.

Very carefully, very very very carefully. Okay? What did he just say, you know? When you're doing your egg white and egg yolk separate, you only use egg whites. You don't use egg yolk to make the meringue. But listen to what he's saying. Even the smallest drop of yolk or oil will keep them from reaching their full volume. What did he say? If you like a tiny drop of the egg yolk, you only separate the egg yolk. Yeah? If the egg yolk, even the smallest drop falls into the egg white,

won't fluff up, it won't work, okay? And it's going to make it collapse. So it's very important, there shouldn't be any water, shouldn't be any water droplets or oil or fat or any yolk. It's going to be pure protein. Start with room temperature egg whites. They whip higher. Add a pinch of cream of tartar. It's acidic and that adds stability and volume to the egg whites. Whip them until they're moany and starting to get thicker.

Then, slowly add confectioners' sugar. It melts easily and won't weigh down your meringue. And whip on high speed, until it's thick and foamy like shaving cream. If it's glossy and is tripled in volume, you did it. No need to take it further or the texture will change. A Swiss meringue is a cooked meringue and it's also more stable, meaning it won't collapse.

This meringue is used in buttercreams, or can also be poached for the classic dessert floating island. Combine egg whites and granulated sugar over a double boiler. Keep whisking, or you'll have scrambled eggs instead. Whisk until the sugar melts and you hit 130 degrees Fahrenheit on a thermometer. Once it's hot, it goes into the mixer.

You want it to be foamy and thick when you're done mixing. You'll also notice that as it thickens, the bowl will get cooler.

until you get stiff peaks that should stand up on the end of the whisk. And your desserts will receive a standing ovation.

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How to make Italian meringue. Bring your sugar and water to a boil, swirling the pan to dissolve the sugar. Washing down the sides of the pan with a wet pastry brush will help prevent crystals from forming. Let the mixture boil until it reaches 230 degrees. Meanwhile, whisk your egg whites on low speed until foamy. Add a pinch of both cream of tartar and salt. Raise the speed to medium and mix until soft peaks are high. So if peaks are formed.

the mixer running slowly pour the hot sugar syrup down the sides of the bowl without letting it touch the whisk attachment. Mix until stiff glossy peaks form and the mixture is partially cooled.

Alright, so that's how pretty much minor differences, you know, for instance you add the sugar, whereas in Italian you add the sugar soda So we will do the meringue when we reach up to that stage Any questions guys so far? Alright, some custard based desserts, so again when we do our desserts, we can use the week after What are some of the custard based desserts that we did when you guys started off, or you already made an assessment on a custard

What's one of the custard we made already? Or custard based desserts. What's the mother sauce of pastry? English sauce. Honglays, very good. Honglays sauce, which is nothing but an English sauce. That forms your base mother sauce for pastry only. So based on that, we can use that base mother sauce to make fillings, ice creams. ice creams, toppings, pretty much anything.

Then we also made a custard filling, do you remember? Creme patisserie? Yeah, what did we use it for? - Choux. - Choux, to fill up the profit rolls. So that's one of them. And then there's one more we're gonna be doing is souffle, which is basically a dessert, a custard-based dessert. Do you guys do creme caramel as well? Yeah, that's again a custard-based dessert, baked custard. I don't know.

In the next few weeks, or probably next week, we're going to be doing this as well. So it's good that you don't know how it's done. We're going to be doing exactly the same one.

- Yes.

I mean...

We made fish and chips, what did we make to dip the fish? Batter. Okay, so that's the pancake or the crepe batter. So these are basically batter products as well, so again, you can make crepes, pancakes, and then can be used for desserts.

souffle that they're making so that's just a bio which is sugar and egg yolk okay that's just a bio similar technique and then you're gonna make a quite and sugar air it up and then come fold it in gently

the prepensory that we made.

So a quiet medium peak.

like rising up? How did that happen? There's no yeast, there's no baking powder, there's no soda. So what made it go fluff, fluff? Egg white. Yeah, the foamy egg white. Yeah, it started to rise a little bit. Okay, now the thing with souffle is when you guys make souffle, again make a note, it must be served straight away. If you leave it sitting on the plate for too long, it's gonna collapse. Okay, and it's gonna become flat. All that aeration is gonna collapse. So that's why you'll see most of the restaurants when they serve souffle in Remikins.

they bake it just before it's ordered, like just when it's ordered, they don't pre-make it and keep it. 'Cause as soon as it comes out of the oven, you have to serve it in the plate and serve it to the customer. 'Cause slowly it'll start sitting down otherwise. So that's a tricky dessert to make souffle. And that's basically how you make souffle, orange crepe souffle. All right. Any questions so far? Yeah? Okay. Of course, there's still a lot more for us to go through, which I'll go through, how to minimize waste and all the things in the kitchen tomorrow.

But other than that, if you guys have any questions, please do ask. No? I think everyone's all good. Okay. If you guys are all good, then you're more than welcome to start on your knowledge base