Blender Cake – the Easiest Cake You’ll Ever Make
I always prefer complex dessert recipes – I love a challenge – but there is a special satisfaction that can only be achieved by not trying too hard and still being rewarded with cake. This is where cakes made with a blender come in handy. If you’ve given up baking because of the whipping, creaming and folding requirements that some cake recipes call for, this could be the perfect trick to get you back in the saddle. Dust off those blenders; it’s time to bake the cake.
You’ve heard it before. Beat the butter and sugar until fluffy, add the eggs one at a time, alternate the dry ingredients with the wet until just combined—no, it’s too mixed. These detailed and overwhelming cake instructions are due to the process of emulsifying the water and fat in the cake batter. It’s a precarious balancing act and is usually achieved through a slow and steady temperament.
For those of us who lack patience, a blender can help. This post from Milk Street explains how a blender’s vortex slowly incorporates liquid fat into eggs and other ingredients. With the press of a button, the blender blades create a tornado of fat and water, quickly and efficiently emulsifying liquid ingredients so you don’t have to.
High-end blenders to consider when making cake batter:
What kind of dough can be used in a blender?
Not every cake recipe is suitable for use in a power funnel. Recipes in which the egg whites are neatly folded or in which the beaten eggs act as a leavening agent in any way are best not used in a blender. Instead, look for cake recipes that use chemical leaveners such as baking powder or baking soda.
Then there’s the issue of gluten. Gluten is a protein in wheat flour. When mixed with water, the protein strands join together. It’s not that bad; after all, your bread and cakes need structure. However, the more the gluten is mixed, the stronger the network becomes and the structure can become overdeveloped, resulting in a rubbery cake. So, use the blender strategically. Let me explain.
How to mix a cake with a blender
For gluten-free cakes, you can mix all the ingredients at room temperature (except the add-ins) at once because there is no risk of overworking the gluten. Scrape down the edges a couple of times to ensure even mixing and pour into the prepared baking dish.
For cakes that use all-purpose or cake flour, use a blender to quickly emulsify the fat and liquid, but keep the dry ingredients aside in the bowl. Then simply mix the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients before pouring the batter into the baking pan.
Gluten-free brownies blend easily in a blender
I decided to try the Milk Street Gluten Free Chocolate Cake because I haven’t yet met a chocolate almond cake that I didn’t like, but they also have blender cakes that are full of gluten. As expected, the cake was easy to make. I blended the ingredients about 10 times, scraped down the sides of the container, and blended again. Any further fiddling would risk scrambling the eggs and would be a waste of time, so I stopped and poured the mixture into the prepared cake pan. After about 35 minutes in the oven the pie was ready. The result was smooth and chocolatey without being too crumbly like some gluten-free recipes. The whole cake is cooked, mixing time is about 30 seconds.
There is no wheat flour in this recipe, so all the ingredients were added ahead of time, but let’s talk briefly about the fat if you are using the recipe with wheat flour.
A note about butter
Milk Street Chocolate Cake uses milk, eggs and butter as the wet ingredients. Since butter is solid at room temperature, it must first be warmed in the microwave before adding to the blender. If you don’t do this, it will simply break down into chunks of fat that will float around in the mixture, never fully emulsifying. First melt the butter. This goes for any cake you decide to experimentally throw into the blender. If your cake recipe calls for butter, great, add it, but you’ll want to microwave the butter first and then let it cool for a few minutes to bring the temperature down a bit. Then add it to the blender.
The extra step of melting the butter is nothing compared to the frustration of forgetting to bring the butter to room temperature. Kneading cake batter is probably the coolest kneading method I’ve tried. It’s so painless that it feels like you can get away with something.