Tutorials

September 2013 Tutorial: Swirl Cakes

Here are some pics and a short tutorial on how to do a perfect colour swirl in your cakes!

Ooh, colours…..

Step 1: Make your cake batter, and separate out into roughly equal portions in separate bowls, for as many colours as you are using.  Tint each bowl with the desired colour (we strongly recommend using gel or paste colouring, as the quantity of liquid food colouring you would have to add to achieve more intense colours could change the consistency of your batter and give you a sub-optimal final product).

Why is this? Because, if you take two different batters of different viscosity, then they will not combine properly. The thinner batter will be outweighed by the heavier batter and you will not get the effect you want. If you do only have liquid colours, then maybe take out some of the liquid from the recipe, or make sure that all of the batters hold the same consistency. Just remember that if you thin the batters out too much, you compromise the quality of the product.   

Plop, Plop, fizz, fizz, cake-making makes you a whiz.

Step 2: Prepare your pan and preheat your oven.  No science to this next part: just dollop your tinted and original batters in random blobs around the pan; be sure to get some in the corners and try not to build up any one area too much.




It should look a little bit like this:

Blobby goodness right here!

Step 3: The SOOPER SEE-KRIT tool to make the best swirls in your cake is shown below!

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Yes, it’s a butter knife.  Woooo.

Seriously, no special tool is needed.  Simply use something thin and blade-like that won’t damage your pan.

Step 4: Starting from the centre and radiating outwards, gently but firmly drag the knife in concentric circles to the edges, taking care not to damage the pan underneath nor disturb much of your grease-and-flour pan prep.

Round and round…

Step 5:  But wait, there’s more!  After the circles, gently but firmly drag your knife in parallel lines from the left edge to the right edge, top to bottom.  I also like to do one pan “perimeter sweep” (i.e. around the pan edges) for good measure.


The picture below is what your pan should look like before popping it into the oven...

Up and down…

 …and this is what your cake should look like once it comes out of the oven.

The finished Swirl Cake

But wait, don’t panic! You haven’t done anything wrong…at least that we know about, you naughty monkey…
You’ll see your beautiful colours preserved in all their glory once you trim the edges, like so:

Purty, ain’t it?

Look at that gorgeous colour!  You’d think I did this for a living, or something! *wink*

This offcut was so tasty!

And so endeth one of the easier tutorials I will probably post here.  If you have any questions or comments, I'd love to hear from you!