Why you should be piping butter on your loaf cakes
Cakes rise and crack, it's inevitable. When baking loaf cakes, pound cakes, and travel cakes we want the most uniform and beautiful cake. Piping a thin strip of soft butter down the middle of your cake mitigates any random uneven cracking. Just as a baker scores their bread before baking, when we pipe a thin line of butter along the top center of the cake before baking, we are predetermining how and where the crack will form. This will help the cakes bake uniformly and keep an attractive appearance.
I’ll keep repeating myself, baking and pastry is all about consistency. If we are making a marble cake recipe that yields 6 cakes, we want to make absolutely sure that each of those cakes are baked the same and are equal in size and shape. Each one of those cakes should look identical to each other. Using this technique is a big step in keeping your cakes uniform and consistent with each and every bake.
Below you will find the step-by-step instructions for this procedure. Furthermore, you can find this process used in my Essential Travel Cakes eBook.
STEPS
Prepare your molds as instructed in the recipe you’re making.
Weigh and portion your prepared batter into the already prepared molds.
Fill a small pastry bag or cornet with soft butter. Cut a tiny hole in the tip of the bag.
Pipe a small thin line down the center of the batter.
Bake as directed for your specific cake recipe.
Allow the cake to cool. Unmold the cake and enjoy your beautiful uniform cake.
