Why Sunny Anderson Adds A Sprinkle Of Sugar To The Top Of Her Cakes
Whether there's a birthday party or other celebration coming up, baking a cake can be an exciting yet daunting task. While lots of people enjoy decorating cakes — especially since they can serve as a blank canvas for creativity — before you can get to that fun part, you've got to nail the baking part.
Whether you're planning to make a cake from scratch or from a boxed cake mix, it's still a multistep process. This means preparing your cake ingredients, making sure you have the right baking pan or pans, buttering and flouring them, mixing the cake to the right consistency, then baking it well, icing it, and potentially layering it ... It's a lot, but there are some tricks that can help. This tip from Chef Sunny Anderson will not only give your cake a delicious flavor and fun texture but can also make sure it comes out of the oven looking good.
Sugar will prevent your cake from rising too much
On an episode of the Rachel Ray Show, Chef Sunny Anderson explained her trick for having cakes come out of the oven perfectly. She likes to sprinkle her cakes with a bit of sugar just before popping them into the oven and it's not entirely about flavor.
The reasons behind Anderson's sweet cake hack are three-fold — flavor, texture, and shape. The sugar will add a bit of sweetness to the cake and also a nice bit of crunch when eaten. She also explains that the sugar will prevent the cake from rising too much while baking, which means you don't need to trim the top of the cake after it comes out of the oven. This trick is especially handy if you're making a multilayer cake and want nice even rounds that you can stack. Looks like a spoonful of sugar does even more than help the medicine to go down.