WE’VE HAD A GREAT TIME SO FAR
BUT WILL BINDING WORK FOR MAKING CAKE?
Can you use cold butter for sponges too? Isn’t that a bit unusual? Isn’t this breaking a golden rule for making sponges? And what would be the point? I have answers to these questions, I did bring it up after all.
When we build upon the basic principles we’ve established within our initial recipes for the “binding method”, it makes using this method for cakes and sponges very plausible. If we refer back to a classic sponge recipe (the Victoria Sponge) and look at how the chemistry works behind the recipe, we understand that when we beat the butter and sugar together at the beginning of the recipe this incorporates air into our mixture. This air expands when heated and it is the inclusion of flour (which contains gluten) which helps to trap the air once heated and establishes the texture of the cake.
Although an absolute go-to classic method; this isn’t the only way to make a cake.
If we were to bind the butter rather than aerate it at the start of a recipe, the function of our gluten in the flour now becomes obsolete. We can FORGO THS USE OF GLUTEN ENTIRELY (!!??) and use gluten-free alternatives, which in the right recipes you can then create deliciously gluten-free cakes! Now isn’t that exciting? Didn’t we just open a massive door for new types of recipes to wander through? To demonstrate this method (show, don’t tell), we’ve got two recipes to explore before we move onto the “binding” method. One which still uses (considerably less) flour than a typical sponge recipe , and the other is a completely gluten-free crowd-pleaser to finish.
