How to Give Your Quick Bread a Cute Little Booty
Loafs and quick biscuits taste pretty good no matter how they look, but sometimes you want the perfect, professional looking line down the center, signaling to anyone looking at it that you are a baker who knows what you are doing.
Mash cakes and the like, because the dough is very thick. In fact, it would be weird if they didn’t. First, the outside of the cake freezes and the inside continues to cook, eventually lifting up and pushing the crust. Some people try to prevent cracks from cracking by baking their cakes at lower temperatures or in a pipe pan instead of a bread pan, but I’ve always thought the crack looks pretty pretty – take it, folks! appear right in the center.
Without your direction, the baker, the appearance of this line may be unpredictable and may not appear right in the center. (I don’t know about you, but I prefer symmetrical, evenly baked baked goods.) The key to line control, like so many other things, is butter. As Edd Kimber, winner of the first season of the Great British Bake Off, explains on his Instagram (@theboywhobakes), applying butter to the top of the cake creates a “gap” in the dough, encouraging splitting there.
You can use a knife or workbench for this. Simply dip or grease any tool in ghee and then dip or stretch it through the dough. Some people put thin strips of cold butter directly into the dough, and this works too. I suspect olive oil or other fat will also work if you don’t want to consume dairy products. Once the strip of fat is in place, bake as usual. Your cake or quick bread will shape a cute little ass, and there are plenty of pictures you can take to showcase your skills.
h / t The Kitchn