You Must Pour Hot Water on the Cake Dough
There are very few cake “improvements” that I trust right away. I’m a food skeptic by nature, and I usually look at viral hacks and food tricks with narrowed eyes until I’m convinced. That’s how I was when I rated René Erickson ‘s Hot Sugar Crust Peach Cobbler before tasting it. But after taking one bite, I can happily report that not only is it delicious as hell, but that this method can add a sweet crunch to a number of different baked goods. Just make sure you are prepared for the moment you pour the water on your cake.
The cake is usually topped with some kind of icing or icing, such as crushed nuts, fruit, or ganache. All this is great, but the hot sugar crust is a cake filling, unlike the rest. Instead of adding after baking and cooling the dessert, hot water dissolves the sugar granules and then forms a crust as it evaporates during baking. Do not confuse it with brulee sugar – far from being a hard caramelized shell, the hot sugar crust is translucent, tender, crispy and ultra-thin. Your fork pierces through the crunchy layer of sugar and sinks into the plush crumble of the bottom cake, turning each bite into a delicious combination of textures.
Why you need to pour hot water on cake dough
Some of my initial concerns were about pouring hot water over the dough before baking. (Okay, all my concerns are related to this.) I’ve heard of this method of baking lasagna, but cake? Nope. What if hot water makes butter melt? What to do if it becomes swampy? What if it makes the cake tough? And if there is no crust at all? All my doubts were dispelled for one reason: it’s all about the way of mixing.
The order in which the ingredients are added and how they meet each other ensures that the water you add to the top of the dessert doesn’t interact with any ingredients it wasn’t intended for, such as butter and flour.
The first step for a serving of Erickson’s Peach Cobbler Cake Dough is to mix in the sugar and butter, a fairly standard start for most cake recipes. They are usually followed by eggs and liquids. This does not apply to Erickson’s hot sugar crust – instead, flour is added to the butter-sugar mixture. The flour is pressed into the fat until it is evenly crumbly before the milk is added. This process is called “waterproofing” the flour. This method is sometimes used with pie dough, as in this recipe from Cook’s Illustrated. The idea is that you carefully rub the oil or fat into the flour so that the saturated fat covers most of the flour particles, creating a barrier that water cannot penetrate. This prevents some of the flour from absorbing water, which prevents the formation of gluten bonds, and in the case of a hot sugar crust, prevents excess water from soaking into the dough and breaking it down.
Any fruit can be added to the cake.
My grocery store only sells apparently unripe peaches, so I tried out a peach cobbler recipe with lovely red plums. I liked that this cobbler requires minimal preparation of the fruit – just chop the plums into large chunks and remove the pit. You don’t need to peel or cook anything, you don’t even need to add sugar, just squeeze a lemon and a little zest. Aside from stone fruits, I think a bunch of ripe berries or pineapple chunks would work just as well.
Once I kneaded the dough and spread it evenly over the fruit, I braced myself for a nervous moment—a puddle of hot water. Except it was so easy and simple that I barely had time to worry. I sprinkled the dough with a healthy dose of granulated sugar and then dripped some hot water on it. In my imagination, the cake was supposed to be submerged in a large sea of sugar water, but in fact there was enough water to form a shallow puddle on the shoemaker. However, don’t skip it – it’s very different from just sprinkling sugar without water. This procedure restructures the sugar into a flat sheet, covering every ripple and bump in the dessert.
When it cooled, I saw a thin, shiny, sugar roller on the surface of the paving stones. The resulting dessert consisted of soft, savory pieces of fruit that were just beginning to make my lips pucker as crunchy flakes of sugar swooped down on the soft pie raft to temper the sourness. Incessantly skeptical, I looked at the shoemaker and thought: “in a couple of hours the humidity will turn it into a sticky mess.” Not only did it stay crisp for the rest of the day, but I covered it with a cracked Tupperware lid and, surprisingly, the crust stayed crisp even the next day.
Other uses for hot sugar
Erickson’s recipe was intended for a fruit cobbler, but this candied meal concept could work elsewhere with batter. Try it on a snack tart , bread tart, or make a batch of brownies with icing sugar. Depending on the surface area of the dessert, you’ll need enough sugar to cover the top with a mostly opaque layer of sugar, with some spots disappearing into the dough’s moisture. Spray just enough hot water to dissolve all the sugar, no more than ¼ inch of water in any area. I created the following recipe to build on the fruit cobbler idea. To be honest, I wanted more of the cake. If you like less fruit and more buns, then this recipe is perfect for you; there’s all the lemon flavor without the sourness, and plenty of crunchy chewiness from the hot sugar crust on top.
How to make Lemon Loaf with Hot Sugar Crust
Ingredients:
- 1 pack butter (softened)
- 1 ¼ cup sugar
- 1 ½ cup flour
- ¾ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
- 2 lemons (zest and juice)
- 4 teaspoons sugar (for crust)
- ¼ cup hot water
Preheat oven to 350℉. Prepare a loaf tin, grease it inside with oil and line it with parchment paper. Leave short flaps on the sides so you can easily remove it later. Place the bread pan on a baking sheet. Heat ¼ cup of water and set aside.
Place the softened butter and sugar in a large bowl and mix until a smooth paste forms. Add flour, baking powder, soda and salt to butter mixture. If you are using a stand mixer, mix on low speed with the paddle attachment until the dry ingredients are completely combined. If you are working by hand, use a rubber spatula and slowly add the dry ingredients to the oil, pressing to blend. Once the flour is fully mixed in, the mixture will look uniformly crumbly. Add eggs, zest of both lemons and lemon juice. Mix thoroughly and quickly.
Pour the batter into the prepared bread pan and smooth the top so that it is in contact with the sides. Sprinkle with four teaspoons of sugar to cover the entire surface of the dough. Drop hot water onto the surface of the cake to dissolve the sugar.
Bake immediately at 350℉ for 45 minutes. The edges will begin to brown and a toothpick inserted in the center will come out clean. Cool completely and enjoy plain or with a scoop of ice cream.