man bakes cake

[jimm]

I cooked a banana cake on the weekend - first cake ever. I liked it well enough to cook another.

This is the second cake (the other was plain) - a slight variation on a Nigella banana cake - no brandied sultanas. I have a good supply of frozen ripe bananas in the freezer - I always seem to buy too many.

One of the recipes I looked at mentioned putting the cake into the freezer for 20-30 mins, straight from the oven, to maintain the moistness. So I did this, and while the cake is nice and moist, the outside is not crisp* the way I would have liked. What do you think about putting cakes in the freezer like this?

* slightly crisp but soft - like a good muffin.

Golly I use hyphens a lot.

[poppy]

congratulations on your baking. have no idea on the putting the cake in the freezer straight away, sort of goes beyond my way of thinking.

[Queen]

Well done on the baking.

I've never put a cake in the freezer, and banana cake is typically pretty moist and eaten quickly enough not to dry out.

I have poured a couple of tablespoons of honey-lemon drink over a sponge cake that had dried out... improved it no end.

[brodiebruce]

Nice work.

I think I should bake more as I was ok at it but I'm not doing it just to feed the people I work with!

[riverhorse]

I can't wait until my kitchen is properly finished and I can bake again. The oven is connected up now so I'm thinking maybe next week I might make some muffins or brownies to take into work as a thank you to my wonderful colleagues for picking up the pieces this week when I went into exhaustion-fuelled meltdown.

[sprite]

i've never heard this freezer tip?
i have frozen cakes before, but not as a moisture thing.

[elora]

never heard of the freezer thing.
I like the crispy bits.
I also like warm cake from the oven

Not sure if there was a picture of the actual "man" or "cake" but I can't see it ... please share again if it was a picture of your actual cake!

(long live the hyphen!!) (and elipses) (and exclamation marks!!)

[owlet]

This has inspired me.. it so happens we have a stack of overripe bananas. Baking this weekend methinks!

[Phar Lap]

I don't bake cakes any more because I would eat them. No cake no weight.

[sprite]

Oct 3, 2015 6:39:57 GMT -5 Phar Lap said:

I don't bake cakes any more because I would eat them. No cake no weight.

my partner has a terrible sweet tooth, so i don't bake often, unless i can take some to work.

[jimm]

I'll keep trying to fix the link in the first post, but in any case I'll put it

Well that took a non-trivial fiddle. No matter what I did I could not get the original link to work (it was from my GDrive) although it worked for a couple of days - for me anyway.

I had to copy the file into Photobucket and share from there, and now the pic is bigger.

[Phar Lap]

Oct 4, 2015 4:59:26 GMT -5 jimm said:

I'll keep trying to fix the link in the first post, but in any case I'll put it here.



Well that took a non-trivial fiddle. No matter what I did I could not get the original link to work (it was from my GDrive) although it worked for a couple of days - for me anyway.

I had to copy the file into Dropbox and share from there, and now the pic is bigger.

There is no pic I can see. What is it of?

[sprite]

i usually use tinypics to show my pictures here. it's a faff, but it's straightforward.

[Queen]

The image may show for you because you're linking to a place on a drive that you have access to or to a part of dropbox that you have access to, but neither option is a photo/image sharing platform.

Unless you can upload it to a website somewhere you can't link it in a post here. Your could upload it as an attachment but then I think we'll only see a thumbnail.

[jimm]

Q I'm doing what I always do to put my pics in a forum - make sure the image is marked as sharable. This time I checked several times, tried different platforms (Dropbox "anyone who has the link can view", GDrive "anyone with the link can view" and finally Photobucket - in a public album) and just now only the last option has worked. I'm thinking something has changed - Proboards maybe.

this link is from my GDrive:

[ snipped a lot of stuff out ]

And here is PL's suggestion Tinypics

tinypic.com/r/22xedi/8

[more snipping]

and finally just pasting the link for the 'image' from TinyPic:

[poppy]

your first pic is showing up for me today as are most of the others- well the three above the last one aren't. For me it is usually our internet which is the cause photos may not appear.

[Phar Lap]

Same as Poppy on seeing pictures. That sure is a might nice looking cake my friend. We are of course invited to afternoon tea at your place?

[Queen]

I can see the images when I click on the links for google and dropbox they do not embed here. I think it's to do with how the images are stored, in both cases they're stored as files - and the URL for the file location doesn't end in an image file extension (gif/jpg/png) so the embed function to proboards isn't recognising them as images. (right mouse click on the image and then click on "copy image location - paste this into a new window and the URL there shows you how the image is being stored).

The tinypic image will if I use the URL to the raw photo - ie; a URL that ends in .jpg

[Queen]

To shrink the size of an image

(1) insert it in a post in the usual way

You will see this;
img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_YTnR7yeTK5Y/TGv_tYe6ebI/AAAAAAAAA6Y/S9bH7ymKQNo/s1600/happy_baker+olos+xeg.jpg" alt="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_YTnR7yeTK5Y/TGv_tYe6ebI/AAAAAAAAA6Y/S9bH7ymKQNo/s1600/happy_baker+olos+xeg.jpg"

but with a square bracket on each end

(2) then click on "preview" below the tab, take a look at how wide the image is and estimate how wide you'd like it to be - eg; half (50%), a third (33%), a bit smaller (80%)

(3) click on BBCode

You will see this;

img style="max-width:100%;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_YTnR7yeTK5Y/TGv_tYe6ebI/AAAAAAAAA6Y/S9bH7ymKQNo/s1600/happy_baker+olos+xeg.jpg" alt="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_YTnR7yeTK5Y/TGv_tYe6ebI/AAAAAAAAA6Y/S9bH7ymKQNo/s1600/happy_baker+olos+xeg.jpg"

but with a square bracket at each end.

Change the 100% width for the percentage you want. (you can make it more than 100 if you want a bigger image but may lose resolution of the image and it will appear blurry)

In this way you can go from

to a 30% scaled version

[sprite]

jimm--last photo shows, and i can click your links. you're right--i'd forgotten that tinypic offers two options, and the one that looks like it should work isn't the one that does.

that is a fine-lookin' cake. you may find that 'baking' shows up on your side of the household chore list.

q--thanks for the reminder.

[jimm]

I'm not going to bother with Dropbox etc now - TinyPic works just fine.

As for cakes, yes I'll try other things eg peanut cookies, but for now I've still got 4 ripe 'nanas in the freezer, so maybe it's muffins next.

[elora]

wheeee - I see cake!

[whortleberry]

I'd never heard of putting cake in the freezer either, and then I came across this cake recipe: theviewfromgreatisland.com/banana-cake-with-spiced-vanilla-buttercream/

I may well make it this evening to take to work tomorrow. It looks pretty good. Not sure if it will go in the freezer or not!

[romily]

This post I found whilst googling confirmed what I would be worried about - the stress of putting hot items into your freezer, both on the appliance, and the potential to spoil other frozen goods in there. Not to mention the crazy build up of ice if you don't have a self defrosting freezer!

"IMHO, it's fine to wrap a hot cake so you can catch all the escaping steam and moisture and then let it cool to room temp before freezing it, but it is never a good idea to place a hot cake into a freezer - especially in a residential freezer.

I recently bought a new high-end, large upright freezer and the instructions were very, very specific about how many room temperature things you can put in the freezer at once in order to not decrease the temp in the freezer - and it stressed NEVER to put hot things in the freezer.

When you put a hot cake in the freezer, it takes much longer to cool and freeze that cake, due to the 'igloo' effect. The outer layer of cake cools down and thermally insulates the inside of the cake, keeping it hot/warm longer. This just stresses your freezer and does NOTHING for the cake itself. It also lowers the overall temp in the freezer, which could decrease the quality of the other other items in there."

[fishface]

Oct 3, 2015 6:39:57 GMT -5 Phar Lap said:

I don't bake cakes any more because I would eat them. No cake no weight.

I have taken to making them, taking a piece, slicing it into individual or double portions then straight into my freezer. Reduces the temptation to have all of it AND I have something available for treats. Carrot and zucchini cakes do well this way.

[poppy]

Nov 25, 2015 2:50:47 GMT -5 fishface said:

Oct 3, 2015 6:39:57 GMT -5 Phar Lap said:

I don't bake cakes any more because I would eat them. No cake no weight.

I have taken to making them, taking a piece, slicing it into individual or double portions then straight into my freezer. Reduces the temptation to have all of it AND I have something available for treats. Carrot and zucchini cakes do well this way.

Fish, you still need willpower with that way, a cake defrosts on a sunny window ledge in no time, the same with being put in the microwave.

[fishface]

I tend to use the memory of a sieve route. I forget I have the cake.