Victoria Sponge/Cupcakes

[Sai]

Hello,

I am a new novice baker and I have some problems with Victoria Sponge/Cupcakes.

The end result of my bake seems to create something with a "heavy" taste and not like what you buy in the shops.

I tried an American Sponge cake receipe where you create a "meringue-like" mix of egg white+suger which
you gently FOLD into your batter and this worked out perfectly.
I tried this technique on the Victoria Sponge and although the sponge was light and fluffy the taste was still "heavy".

Today I created some cupcakes but I reduced the butter by a third (thinking the issue might be related to the butter since my American Sponge worked and Victoria sponge didn't).

The receipe baking time was 20min-25mins.

However, after 15mins I took a cupcake out tried it. Poking a fork into it, it came out dry but there was some resistance when taking the fork out (so I assume the cupcake was only just baked). The cupcake tasted so-so.

I then left the rest to bake for a further 3min, and tasted another one. This tasted GOOD .

I then left the rest to bake for a further 2min. By this time the cupcakes had a slight crust on them,
and they started to have that "heavy" taste I was talking about.

So 2 extra mins in the oven changed things.

Have I overbaked ?
Can 2mins difference baking make or break a sponge receipe ?

I have also heard that overmixing can cause a "heavy" taste. If overmixing, at what stage is this error done?
(a) when you cream the butter+suger (b) when you add the beaten egg (c) when you fold in the flour ?????

Comments and advice please,

many thanks

 

[Trellum]

Yes, it can. I have experienced this a couple of times, you'd be surprised to learn how the taste of some of my cookies and muffins changed because I didn't take them out of the oven on time. As for the second questions I'm going for C... once the flour is in you have to do your best not to over mix it.

 

[Sai]

On looking into this problem I saw Nigella's receipe for Victoria Sponge and she recommended to use
corn flour to make the sponge lighter and less "heavy". I tried this and it worked. Seems like the
corn flour reduces the gluten (which is the cause of the "heavy" taste).

I wonder why recipes ask for self-raising flour which has "mid" gluten levels rather than cake flour or pastry flour
that has "low" gluten levels ?

Does the brand of flour make a difference (e.g. getting the expensive named brands of flour) ?

Has anyone tried cake flour or pastry flour and know how much difference it makes to Victoria Sponges/Cupcakes ?

 

[connie]

I wonder why recipes ask for self-raising flour which has "mid" gluten levels rather than cake flour or pastry flour
that has "low" gluten levels ?

It asks for self-raising flour because in the UK we don't have cake or pastry flour. Our options are bread flour which is often just called strong flour, then we have self-raising flour which is basically plain flour with bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar added and the only other option we have outside of specialist flours is then plain flour. You get white or wholemeal versions of these three. Away from that you can get all sorts of other flours, spelt, rice, potato, hemp, gram (chickpea), etc, but the idea of /low/mid/high gluten content flour in the UK does not exist in that form.

Self raising is more or less the same as your all purpose flour as I understood it.