How to set yourself up to fail

AdaptAndAchieve

AdaptAndAchieve

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1) use a test recipe which turned out less than perfect last time
2) combine this with testing the bake setting in your air-fryer
3) use that silicone cake mould that you spotted in the shop last week.
4) forget to look for any info on silicone mould use or air fryer cake baking until it's time to put the mixture in

A super fast web search said baking in an air fryer is quicker with the convection effect.
But ... it later occurred to me that I already use a fan oven normally for my baking, so I should probably ignore the faster cooking thing.

And again a super fast web search seemed to say if using a silicon mould the cake would cook quicker.
But a more in depth search today indicated that reducing the temperature by 10 Celsius and cooking a bit longer was more likely to work better. I found 100% conflicting info, but the reduce temperature and cook a bit longer seemed to be more popular (unlike my fast search results on the day I cooked them *sigh*).
I suspect the thickness of the silicon mould also comes into the equation.

Does anyone have any thoughts / experience using an air fryers bake setting for a cake mix / time or temperature adjustment for silicon moulds?

For background info I tend to put fresh fruit in my cakes, so they either need eating fairly quickly, or need to be frozen. Being able to slap 4 small cakes together and bung them in the air fryer would work well for a ready supply of fresh fruit cakes.

This is the handy mould I picked up - with tabs for lifting out of an air fryer basket. This was my first test, cooked in a regular oven.
eggless strawb-a.jpg
 
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The less than perfect recipe test is one I am adapting from a french yogurt cake
I have already cracked issues in a butter free and egg free cake which included some yogurt, but I wanted to crack this adaptation of a specific yogurt cake with no egg.
I eat eggs, and cook with eggs, but as regards making 4 small air fryer fruit cakes then not dealing with 1 egg = x amount of flour means total freedom to scale a recipe down.

This is the recipe I am playing with (I converted it to grams with what appears reasonable accuracy) Gâteau au Yaourt (French Yogurt Cake)
It's clearly considered doable as the recipe FAQ section has this info
"How to make a yogurt cake without eggs?
Remove the eggs from the basic recipe and add one more yogurt container."

Being the overthinking type I checked yogurts - the french yogurt is most likely a set yogurt with approx 3.4% fat, but I use a thicker greek style strained yogurt with 5% fat, which means I will need a bit of experimentation in how much yogurt to dilute with how much milk to get the correct thickness.
I think the fat content will be less of an issue as mine would lack the fat in the egg yolk.

The annoying thing is I probably invalidated my second test putting it in the airfryer and leaving it slightly underdone (the top looked done), grrr
 
I'm not a baker, but a remark like "swap 1 egg with 1 yoghurt container" makes me cringe
What size container? Ours are 1 litre, 500 ml, 125 ml, 100 ml, 75 ml ;)
I'm a metric person and definitely when it comes to baking.

Yoghurt cake sounds good by the way :)
 
badjak said:
I'm not a baker, but a remark like "swap 1 egg with 1 yoghurt container" makes me cringe
What size container? Ours are 1 litre, 500 ml, 125 ml, 100 ml, 75 ml ;)
Click to expand...
It also makes me cringe a bit based on quantities/ratio's, tho as I read it you would remove 3 eggs and add 1 extra pot of yogurt

That specific recipe says they used an 8-inch round cake pan and a 4 oz. (113 g) plain yogurt container ... but even I am NOT going there on trying to convert 3 yogurt pots of flour to grams, so I translated pots to cups (half, one and 1.5 for the various quantities).
This results in the original recipe ........ with a conversion using bakers percentage to base it on 100g flour
122.5g Yogurt ........................................ bakers % = 65g
100-200g Granulated sugar ............. bakers % = 53 to 106g
165g egg (lets say large are 55g) .... bakers % = 88g
108g olive oil ......................................... bakers % = 57g
187.5g flour ........................................... bakers % = 100g

For me, that amount of oil seems high (especially remembering something like butter is 80% fat, and oil is basically 100% fat). I reduced the oil by about 25% (my yogurt includes 5% fat anyhow)
I know from my test that reducing the oil, removing the egg and lobbing an extra 65g of my brand of yogurt in results in a mixture which is far too firm and in dire need to a good amount of milk to loosen it up.
Next test will be a yogurt adjustment that (hopefully) includes enough milk to thin the yogurt sufficiently.

So .. anyone around that knows if temperature/cooking time vary when using silicone cake molds?
Or if the temperature of an air fryer (using bake setting) needs reducing if you are already basing your temperature on a standard fan oven (in uk) :peekaboo:
 
Tried this again, I think I'll switch to regular bakeware in an oven next time. That will rule out any influences caused by the air fryer and silicon mould.

Edited the recipe a bit and again used the silicon mould and the air fryer bake setting (which I turned down 10 degrees celcius). These were an improvement on the 1st air fryer test, but had a heavy/dense texture - a long way from light and fluffy.
I diluted the yogurt right at the start while keeping the wet / dry ratio about the same as the original recipe, but I'm thinking that I may just need to use less yogurt as it is a thicker than in the original recipe
yog-airfryer v2.jpg.jpg
 
So moving swiftly on, I got a good rise and an airy crumb. Cake is still heavier than normal, but that may be a mix of the yog and 50% of the flour being wholemeal
I'll probably test further
They definitely got blown around by the fan while rising
1742513566940.png

1742513593881.png
 
Thanks :) btw, the darkness of the cake is due to cinnamon, light soft brown sugar, and 50% of the flour being wholemeal.

What I have to work out now is how to turn that airy crumb into a lighter, airy crumb while still primarily being a yogurt cake.

I made a eggless cherry cake - after doing a bakers percentage, the primary difference was the larger cherry cake had a bit more sugar, and had less yogurt and milk in it. But the crumb was a better texture and lighter
1742520258155.png


Gonna have to have a think about this
 
karadekoolaid said:
Albert Einstein said:
"If you've never made mistakes, then you've never tried anything".
He was spot on. Trial and error, trial and error, until you get it right. "Right", by the way, means how you like it.
Click to expand...
This is true :okay:
I definitely want a texture/crumb more like the cherry cake, at this point I'm thinking I need to play with my flour ratio's next 🤔
 
AdaptAndAchieve said:
This is true :okay:
I definitely want a texture/crumb more like the cherry cake, at this point I'm thinking I need to play with my flour ratio's next 🤔
Click to expand...
So, how many of these cakes have you made so far and who's eating them??? I know when I was perfecting potato dumplings Ozzie dog got *really* tired of potatoes. Took me 8 lbs. to nail it...
 
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Barriehie said:
Bruce Lee said

So, how many of these cakes have you made so far and who's eating them??? I know when I was perfecting potato dumplings Ozzie dog got *really* tired of potatoes. Took me 8 lbs. to nail it...
Click to expand...
You can get a lot of potatoes for the price of a large yogurt container.
 
Barriehie said:
So, how many of these cakes have you made so far and who's eating them??? I know when I was perfecting potato dumplings Ozzie dog got *really* tired of potatoes. Took me 8 lbs. to nail it...
Click to expand...
I made the original strawberry ones, they came out dense. Since then, 3 tests bakes (I'm not counting the 1st lot yesterday, they went into the food bin). No dogs here, and they tasted ok, so I just ate them as breakfast buns.
I'm specifically doing small test batches, only 100g flour per set, so provided they taste ok and the only issue is they are a bit dense they can be munched through quite quickly.
The last 3 sets I did had cinnamon and brown sugar in them. Normally I'd throw in fresh fruit, but I wanted to not add anything which may influence the cake itself.
I may ring the changes on the next set - a bit of orange essence, and a few choc chips for a chocolate orange vibe. I've had enough plain cinnamon for now
 
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