Ever bake a cake with steam??

[Tony from Ohio]

I recently started doing an old time favorite of mine, baking cakes with steam instead of oven heat. If you have not tried this you really should, the cake comes out so moist it's well worth the effort.

All you need is a pot, pan, anything you can heat some water in, drop something in to hold the cake above the water level a few inches (you can use cans with rocks in the bottom for weight) and a cover for said pot or pan. At work I used a chafing pan, we put one on the stove Friday night to hold our prime rib. I used a cooling rack to support the cake pan, worked beautifully. I realize most people don't have a chafing pan, but even a roasting pan with lid can be used. Most of the time I use a stockpot since most are fairly deep. You do need something that when covered isn't right on top of the cake if your pan or pot is tall enough you can even cover it with foil. The lid or cover need not fit tightly, as long as you use several inches of water in pan so it doesn't go dry, some steam loss is not important.

After assembling your steaming chamber on the stove and heating up, mix your cake batter as you normally would, I still grease and flour my pan altho only greasing may be needed, I've never tried it without the flouring. Place pan in cteaming chamber, walk away, if you have intense steam coming off you can lower the heat a bit so as not to boil the pan dry. This method usually take as long as baking with heat but one of the pluses is you don't get a hard edge as with baking so it's not a battle to get someone to eat an edge piece lol.

OK, there ya go, give it a try and see, this can also be done over an open fire outside, what a great way to make a dessert camping out, I usually take the canned frosting, warm it up and glaze the cake with it, some reason it's better than icing the cake and you don't run the risk of ripping a section out like frosting a cake with a knife. LoL, remember those old commercials where the housewife was frosting a cake with a paper knife? Anyways, enjoy, I recently did a pumpkin bread mix this way, it was sooooooo moist, so yes, you can do your pumpkin and zucchine breads this way too.

[joyce1954]

This is great! I have been looking for bakings types for when there is no oven. Think this would work with any quick bread? Biscuits? Yeast Breads?

[Saul Mine]

Steamed bread is an old tradition, often called "hobo bread". There is a trick: it works best with batter recipes, not dough. There is a special danger: the can tends to turn over and dump the batter. You have to think of some way to keep the can upright, either by using a can that is too tall to turn over in the pot or by using several cans side by side. Oh, and cover the can with foil to keep out large drops of water.

[roamal]

Thanks for the idea Tony!

One of my issues here is the elevation-baked goods just never seem to come out quite "right". Going to try and see if I am more successful with the steam method.

Thinking my canner would be a good pot for this-do you think the canning rack is high enough or is that not going to allow for enough water?

[Tony from Ohio]

Roamal, I think your canner would be an excellent device for making this and your canning rack should keep it high enough. If the water level does seem to be getting close to gone you can always add some hot water to it, it won't effect the cooking process, just slows it down a tad.

Saul is right, this isn't a good method for dough type breads, I think you'd wind up with something closer to a steamed dumpling in the end, some things just require dry heat to aid in cooking/browning. Any kind of batter type breadstuff or cake will work nicely though, you could even try muffins, I'm sure they'd turn out really moist if dryness has been a past issue with dry heat baking.

On the other hand, if you're brave and making a yeast product, you can always try just a small sample and see what the results are Joyce, like I said tho, I fear it will be more like a dumpling in the end since one of the desired qualities of bread/biscuts is the browning.

I hope all of you that try this method like it, any other questions I'll try my best to answer, God bless and enjoy!

[roamal]

In the canner now....will let you know how everything goes! Thanks again Tony