Episode One: White Buttermilk Cake and Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

How to Bake in 8 Weeks is a digital first social video series highlighting the fun elements of baking with vibrant teacher, host, and sugar flower foodie expert Alex Narramore. Learn not just how to bake, but how to build soulful flavor for your desserts that will make your guests or clients eyes' roll back in their heads, even with ZERO baking experience. In this course, Alex reveals her closely guarded secret cake recipe, the backbone of her luxury cake business, The Mischief Maker. Based on her Appalachian Granny's White Buttermilk family cake recipe. This class is for all levels. No prior baking or cooking experience is needed and you will leave with the ability to impart love into what you're feeding people. Learn to make silky smooth Swiss Meringue Buttercream in an easy no- fuss manner along with a special soaking syrup, and a method for no-fail perfect sides on your cake tiers every time. Delight your friends by putting together a dessert they will remember. Learn 15 years worth of experience, tips, and techniques in only one hour. Join us for the next seven episodes and in lesson two where we will explore two new cake fillings, a cream cheese buttercream, and a coconut cake recipe, so that you can begin to explore your own creativity by making more of your own creations. Your friends will be asking for your recipe. 

Equipment and Ingredients Overview

- Brief review of essential cake baking tools: mixers, measuring tools, baking pans, baking release spray, salt, building flavor with soul, etc.

- Overview of key ingredients used in cake baking: flour types, leavening agents, fats (butter, oil), sugars, eggs, and buttermilk. Discuss their roles and effects on cake texture and flavor.

Projects Detail

Week One 

1. The Mischief Maker's Granny's White Buttermilk Cake 

   - OBJECTIVE- Learn the creaming method, where butter and sugar are beaten together to incorporate air, resulting in a light and fluffy texture. Understand the role of buttermilk in cakes and how to work with a delicate, white cake batter while building incredible flavor along the way.

   - FOCUS- Emphasis on the importance of creaming butter and sugar properly, choosing the right type of flour, and the role of eggs in the mixture. The acid in buttermilk tenderizes the gluten, giving the cake a finer crumb and softer texture. Discuss how to prevent overmixing, which can lead to tough cakes. Discuss importance of salt and seasoning in baking. 

   - ACTIVITY- Bake Granny's traditional white buttermilk cake, a rich, buttery cake with a tender crumb, demonstrating the classic creaming method and focusing on achieving a moist texture and even crumb, perfect as a base for layered cakes. Learn to make simple syrup and Swiss meringue buttercream.

Join us for Week Two:

PREVIEW:

Week Two Cake Fillings, Coconut Cake, and Cream Cheese Buttermilk Frosting

1.  OBJECTIVE - Basic introduction to making a coconut cake that shows how you can change the white buttermilk cake recipe into a coconut cake, make a new cream cheese buttermilk frosting to add to your recipe box, and applying simple cake fillings to complement the baked cakes.
2.   - FOCUS- Demonstrate how to prepare a basic fruit (passionfruit and lemon) curd fillings. Discuss the principles of layering cakes and spreading fillings evenly.
3.   - ACTIVITY- Students will practice applying the fillings to cake layers, focusing on achieving a balanced cake-to-filling ratio and learn how to start making and combining together their own fun flavors.

How To Bake In 8 Weeks Shopping List for the Whole Course (Base List for all 8 Classes):

https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/2DUJYQQLF911O?ref_=wl_share

Episode One Shopping List:

https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/ILTFYWOPH193?ref_=wl_share

Lesson Summary

How to Bake in 8 Weeks is a digital video series with Alex Narramore, a sugar flower foodie expert, focusing on baking. This course is suitable for all levels, requiring no prior experience. The first lesson reveals a secret white buttermilk cake recipe, key for luxury cakes. Alex teaches to make Swiss meringue buttercream and soaking syrup for flavorful desserts.

Key highlights of the lesson include:

• Learning to cream butter and sugar for a light texture
• Understanding the impact of buttermilk on cakes
• Importance of ingredients like flour, eggs, and salt for flavor and texture

In Week Two, students will learn about cake fillings with a focus on fruit curds. They will apply these fillings to cakes, understanding ratios and flavor combinations. The preview also hints at upcoming lessons on cream cheese buttercream and coconut cake to inspire creativity.

For those inclined to start baking, Alex provides detailed recipes for White Buttermilk Cake and Swiss Meringue Buttercream:

White Buttermilk Cake Ingredients and Instructions:

• Prep Time: 15 minutes, Cook Time: 30-50 minutes
• Ingredients include cake and all-purpose flour, butter, salts, vanilla extract, egg whites, and buttermilk
• Instructions involve mixing dry ingredients, preparing batter with butter, sugar, and eggs, baking, and soaking with simple syrup

Swiss Meringue Buttercream Ingredients and Instructions:

• Yield: 8 cups for 2 9-inch cakes
• Includes granulated sugar, egg whites, salts, butter, vanilla, and almond extract
• Instructions cover dissolving sugar in a meringue, adding butter, and flavorings for a fluffy texture

Simple Syrup Recipe:

• Ingredients: sugar, water, vanilla, and almond extract
• Instructions involve boiling ingredients to dissolve sugar
• Note: Simple syrup can be stored in the fridge for later use

Hot Tips and Tricks from How to Bake in 8 Weeks Episode One :

20:41 (Video timestamp) Once you have a cake recipe that you are confident and happy with (hopefully, the one included in today's lesson!) you then know the dry ingredients and you leave them always the same. That is not where to play around at this time. However, once you know that the total liquid you need in your cake is for example 1 1/2 cups, you can change that liquid to absolutely anything you want. Whole Buttermilk, some liquor. Heavy cream. You can do whatever you want to add flavor within that 1 1/2 cups as long as you keep it at 1 1/2 total cups of liquid. Freedom to play!

28:10 (Video timestamp)- It doesn't really matter the width or height of your cake pan. The thing to remember is that no matter what the pan is, you always only fill it up with batter internally halfway up the pan.

28:33 (Video timestamp)- Beat your cake pans by lifting them up and dropping them onto the counter to eliminate air bubbles. This produces a lighter and fluffier cake.

31:04 – (Video timestamp). After you have soaked your warm cakes in the simple syrup, wrap them in layers of cling wrap, press and seal, and finally aluminum foil. I call it the freezing unthawing moisture trick. The steam rising into the cling wrap from the warm cakes sends that moisture back into the cake and it does something magical. The warm wrapped cake then goes into the freezer. I never skip this step even when I only have very few hours. However, overnight is preferred. The flavors stew together something similar to a crock pot, a zip lock bag, and really develop amazing flavor.

40:44 (Video timestamp)- The salt you add both to the cake and the buttercream adds so much complexity to what you're baking. Salts come from different regions around the world. Depending on the sea, (the country they're scraping the salt off from a rock etc.) the mix of salts adds a depth to your final flavor. I believe in using a mixture of at least 3 salts. Usually, Kosher, Maldon sea salt, and Fleur de Sel, but there is room to play here.

43:10 (Video timestamp) There is no need to spend time cubing your butter before adding it to your warm meringue mixture for the Swiss Meringue Buttercream. It is true that you need to add it slow as you start and at a slow speed, but you can simply snap your butter in half and then add it to the bowl. As long as it won't fly back out at you, you're good! You learn tips to make things faster when you are doing crazy amounts of buttercream batches for wedding cakes.

48:24 (Video timestamp) – It is important to note that this buttercream will never be a pure white color. It will be a mocha sort of shade (a little like my beloved Irish setter Mocha). This is due to the use of the pure vanilla extract, which is brown. The only way you will get a pure white frosting is to use a clear imitation extract. And you could not pay me enough to do this! I would not sacrifice the flavor. The arguments about buttercream vs. fondant are moot to me when the ones that use clear imitation extract, you can't pull it off. It's just a really bad fake flavored frosting. I prefer to use my mocha colored buttercream and really be generous in my icing, and then cover in fondant for my professional work. Otherwise, I'm fine with the tinge of color for all the flavor you get by using a pure vanilla extract!

52:49 (Video timestamp)– This doesn't matter, but a cake layer is one baked cake in a pan. A tier is when you put several layers together to make a "tier". Now, the tier consists of all these "layers". Doesn't matter, I just hear this get confused a lot, and I'm sure half the time I get it mixed up too.

1:01:00 – (Video timestamp) Put a little bit of buttercream on a cake board to keep the cake from sliding around everywhere before you begin stacking your layers together. It also allows you to be able to pick up the cake from the bottom to move it around (the room, the cake stand etc.) Use cake boards to move your layers around to avoid breaking them in half.

1:07:28 (Video timestamp) This is the best method for getting a cake with perfect sides in the easiest manner possible. After stacking your cake layers, you put another cake board on top. Level all the way around with two bench scrapers to get the cake board on the bottom of your cake level with the cake board that is now on top. Once these are level with one another, the top and bottom cake boards. Use your level to make sure the little bubble is in the middle. Chill the cakes if you'd like to make sure the top board is set. Or hold it and go for it if you're running behind. Fill in the in betweens of the two boards with buttercream. Once you've filled in all the in betweens with buttercream. Holding the bench scraper even with the top cake board and the bottom cake board, scrape all the way around to remove the excess. Chill the cake to let the butter harden and set. None should come off on your fingers when you touch around on the cake. Run an icing spatula under hot water from the faucet, slide the spatula in between the top cake board carefully until the board pops off. Once it does carefully fill in the divot in the middle, being careful not to knock your perfect edges on the top. Even out the buttercream on top with the flexible spatula and then pop it in the fridge. At this stage you can leave it, ice it with another thick layer grandma style, or cover it in fondant.

1:12:20 (Video timestamp): Learn to cut cake slices, for a wedding, or anytime! We show you how to cut them wedding cake style.