Creamed cake batter and simple cakes

In short: Creamed batter (Rührteig) is a soft batter of fat, sugar, eggs and flour, usually raised with baking powder. It is the basis for classics such as marble cake, Bundt cake, muffins or tray-baked fruit cake.

In more detail: Creaming soft butter with sugar works in fine air bubbles, and the eggs bind the mixture. Together with the raising agent, this produces a light, fine-textured crumb. A well-known basic recipe is the pound cake, with equal weights of butter, sugar, eggs and flour.

In detail

• Room temperature: Butter and eggs should be at room temperature before baking. Cold eggs can easily make the mixture curdle.
• Creaming: Beat the butter with sugar and a pinch of salt for a few minutes until creamy and pale. This is the basis for a light texture.
• One egg at a time: Beat in the eggs one after another, incorporating each well. If the mixture curdles anyway, a spoonful of the weighed flour often helps.
• Flour last: Mix the flour with baking powder, sift it and stir it in only until no dry flour is visible. Mixing too long makes the cake dense and tough (backpulver-hefe-und-natron).
• Liquid: A little milk makes the batter smooth. It should drop heavily from the spoon.
• Preparing the tin: Grease the tin and dust it with flour or breadcrumbs, or line it with baking paper. Preheat the oven in good time.
• Skewer test: Insert a wooden skewer into the thickest part. If no moist batter sticks to it, the cake is baked through.
• Cooling: Let the cake rest briefly in the tin, then turn it out and leave it to cool on a rack.
• Variations: With cocoa for marble cake, with nuts, lemon zest or fruit. Heavy fruit sinks less if you toss it lightly in flour first.