- Hi, I'm Rie.
I'm a Tasty producer.
I love cooking.
I almost cook everyday.
I've seen a lot of baking hacks around the internet lately.
Some seems very practical.
Some seems a little bit crazy.
So today I'm going to try 30 cake hacks in a row,
collected by my friend, Annie.
(upbeat music)
I already made this, and I'm going
to use this as a control cake.
This cake is fluffy, it's not dense.
It's a very good basic cake.
Let's get started.
Hack number one.
In order to soften butter faster,
we can grate cold butter with cheese grater.
Yeah, I think it's already kind of soft.
I'm gonna set this aside and see if this works.
So it has been 11 minutes.
Yeah, I think butter is soft, nice!
I think this hack's thumbs-up.
Make your own baking powder using baking soda
and cream of tartar.
How many people has cream of tartar in your pantry?
Raise your hand.
If you're buying cream of tartar, why not buy baking powder?
So I'm gonna set this aside.
Use paper plate, avoid splatter.
This is kinda become a guard.
Oh, okay.
Got it.
I already don't like this.
We have to cream for five minutes.
Oh.
I have to kind of hold this paper.
Maybe if you are mixing whipped cream, it will help.
Okay, let's take it off.
Yeah, we surely not need it.
And now we have bunch of egg hacks.
Test the freshness of the egg.
If the eggs is fresh, it's gonna sink.
If the eggs is old, it's gonna float.
So we are going to try the fresh one first.
Fresh.
This one is a older one.
It's also sunk.
It's meh.
If you wet your finger with water,
it's supposed to stick to your finger.
I didn't get shell.
Okay, so I'm gonna just put the shell.
Wet your finger.
(ethereal music)
Excellent.
You can use this eggshell, scoop it out.
You could do it, but you also get bunch of egg whites.
So when you separate eggs,
you can use empty water bottle and suck.
(Rie gasps)
Almost.
It just broke.
We got fresh, cold egg.
Come on in.
Yes!
This doesn't work.
I don't think it's called hack, everyone use
so you just kinda,
this works every time.
Now I'm incorporating egg one by one.
If you don't have a measurement spoon you can just use cap.
Let's see if it's really one teaspoon.
Yeah, one teaspoon!
Blow my mind.
I've used this hack all the time,
you might saw it on the Eating Good Feed.
(loud scissors)
You use parchment paper, fold it.
Fold it again.
And again.
See the middle of the pan and cut it.
And you made perfect circle that fits in the pan.
It release cake really nicely.
I saved this butter wrapper, and I can just use it here.
'Cause you don't need a lot of butter,
just grease your pan so this is like, perfect amount.
Next hack is cake release.
Cake release?
Equal parts of shortening, oil and flour,
and make some sort of paste.
You are going to brush it, and it will
release the cake easily.
I don't like shortening.
Why not use just butter and flour?
This is it.
We will see after we did the cake.
So next hack, it's fabric strips.
So this fabric strips is supposed to insulate heat,
and bake cake evenly.
I'm going to bake the cake.
Bake the cake, bake the cake!
Cake is out from the oven.
Next hack, check the cake's doneness just touching cake.
Just like touch, oh it's hot!
(Rie laughs)
If it bounce back that means cake is done.
If it's not done, once you press it it's gonna sink.
Let's see the cake release works.
Ta-daa!
Yeah it worked.
Do you want to see the control cake?
This also works.
Cake release hack though, I wouldn't
use it because you need extra ingredients.
Cake strip.
I feel like it domed a little bit.
Somehow it's browned.
So I'm not 100% sure this only works
in a certain kind of cake.
We made our own baking powder.
I think cake rose perfectly.
We are going to slice cake with dental floss.
We're going to use a ruler, place the toothpick evenly.
We're going to put the floss around
it and you can carve cake evenly.
(Rie struggles)
Oh!
(Rie laughs)
That was fun.
It's pretty even, look at that.
We are going to use simple syrup to keep the cake moist.
I feel like this is not even a hack,
this is something you actually do when you're baking cake.
I usually add rum or brandy, if you know
me I like to use alcohol in my cooking and baking.
Now I'm going to make butter frosting,
and use a butter hack.
You will need hot water, warm up the glass,
dump the hot water, flip it.
So it has been 16 minutes, it's still a little hard
to compare room temperature butter,
it's not as soft as what it should be.
Make your own powdered sugar.
You are going to need two cups of granulated sugar,
and corn starch.
Store bought powdered sugar looks
much finer than the one I made.
Store bought powdered sugar melts in your mouth
much quicker, it's still a little bit grainy.
Crumb coat.
Crumb coat?
Crumb coat.
Crumb get into the frosting so to prevent it,
you are going to layer frosting very thin
put it in the refrigerator and do a second coating.
So it looks much more smoother.
Put a little bit frosting at the groove
so cake doesn't move around.
I baked two cakes, so I'm going to make four layer cake.
(upbeat music)
All right, cake is nice and chilled
so I'm going to coat second layer and finish decorating.
Crumb coat looks, wow, I kinda knew it's gonna work.
And next part, heat up the off-set
spatula to make smooth layer.
You're going to just put hot water.
So you're gonna dip off-set spatula and wipe it.
Ooh, yes!
You're gonna just this hack to finish up your cake decorate.
There's always a hack for make cake soft and smooth.
Which we use paper towel.
Push it against it, supposed to make a smoother surface.
Did it work?
Kind of?
- [Annie] I feel like it got uglier.
- So use hair dryer to make glossy finish.
Is anything happening?
I feel like nothing is happening.
So we are going to start the decorating part.
So use cookie cutter and sprinkle for a cute decoration.
I put the cookie cutter and I'm gonna add a sprinkle,
so it makes perfect shape.
I should have added less.
Let's see.
I put too much sprinkles so this sort of works.
You can use toothpick and write a letter first,
so you have a guideline.
I'm gonna write Annie.
I'm not sure this works.
Am I spelling your name right?
- [Annie] I hope so.
Am I a bad Starbucks employee?
It kinda bunching up.
You can just write skipping this step.
So you can make simple piping bag using parchment paper.
Make triangle, and you kind of make this shape,
twist it and make a small hole, and add chocolate,
and you're gonna close it.
(upbeat guitar music)
Annie.
(Rie laughs)
Next hack, use plastic bags as a piping bag.
Cut the tip, put the piping tip, twist it and put it inside,
put it in your cup, it's easy.
Let's try that.
It's working well, but there is a reusable
bag I prefer to use it.
Saves the earth, saves the turtle.
So next hack is make chocolate topping using peeler.
I think it's longer it's better, kind of long.
I feel like this cake is already cute as it is,
so I don't want to put on top of it.
- Oh my gosh.
- I'm ready for you.
- It's like the cake from "Harry Potter" except prettier.
- Oh!
- You're my Hagrid!
- Is it the compliment?
When you want to cut cleanly,
you can use knife and hot water.
You're gonna dip your knife like this.
Nice and smooth cut, I recommend you to use it.
Another hack is floss.
So if you're using this hack you
have to cut the cake all the way across.
It's difficult to go all the way down.
This is much bigger slice.
Both cut but you know, the line is not straight.
- [Annie] Oh!
- It's everywhere.
(Rie laughs)
Does this all suck?
If you celebrating with a slice of cake,
what you can do is you can use a strawberry
and stab the candle into the strawberry,
put right next to it, it's cute!
Yay!
Thank you for coming along our journey.
Here are my three favorite hacks from today.
One, grating butter hack.
Two, cutting cake with the floss.
Number three, using hot spatula smoothing out cake.
(cheerful music)
- So good!
- Yeah, it's moist.
Why people doesn't like moist?
- Let's not get into this.
- Okay.
(cheerful music)