Baking the Cake: Exploring the Effects of Temperature on Cake Taste Rating

Now that I’ve got my hands on
the source of the cake
dataset I knew I had to attempt to
bake the cake too. Here, the emphasis is on attempt, as there’s no way
I would be able to actually replicate
the elaborate and
cake-scientifically rigorous
recipe that Cook
followed in her thesis. Skipping things like beating the eggs exactly
“125 strokes with a rotary beater” or wrapping the grated chocolate “in
waxed paper, while white wrapping paper was used for the other
ingredients”, here’s my version of Cook’s Recipe C, the highest rated
cake recipe in the thesis:

~~ Frances E. Cook's best chocolate cake ~~

- 112 g butter (at room temperature, not straight from the fridge!)
- 225 g sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla, extract or sugar.
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 96 g eggs, beaten (that would be two small eggs)
- 57 g dark chocolate (regular dark chocolate, not the 85% masochistic kind)
- 122 g milk (that is, ½ a cup)
- 150 g wheat flour
- 2½ teaspoon baking powder

1. In a bowl mix together the butter, sugar, vanilla, and salt
   using a hand or stand mixer.
2. Add the eggs and continue mixing for another minute.
3. Melt the chocolate in a water bath or in a microwave oven.
   Add it to the bowl and mix until it's uniformly incorporated.
4. Add the milk and mix some more.
5. In a separate bowl combine the flour and the baking powder.
   Add it to the batter, while mixing, until it's all combined evenly.
6. To a "standard-sized" cake pan (around 22 cm/9 inches in diameter)
   add a coating of butter and flour to avoid cake stickage.
7. Add the batter to the pan and bake in the middle of the oven
   at 225°C (437°F) for 24 minutes.

Here’s now some notes, photos, and data on how the actual cake bake went
down.

Some notes from a cake bake

If you do attempt this recipe, I must warn you that this cake is baked
at an unusually high temperature, as this resulted in the best rated
cake in Cook’s thesis. However, at that temperature my cake came out
just a tiny bit scorched. Otherwise, I do believe this is a fairly
standard cake recipe.

But! I could not be satisfied with baking just the one cake recipe
above. As the whole point of Cook’s thesis was to explore the effect of
baking temperature I, of course, had to explore the same! Cook baked 150
different cakes over six different temperatures, but that was too
ambitious for a Saturday afternoon, so I picked just three of those:

• 175°C (347°F) for 39 minutes
• 200°C (392°F) for 31½ minutes
• 225°C (437°F) for 24 minutes

And then I baked the same cake three times. I was planning to make a
nicely staged photo of all the ingredients, but forgot about that
completely, so here’s instead how my real-life messy cake bake looked:

Even though I did bake three cakes at different temperatures, I cannot
stress enough that there’s no way I even came close to replicate a
crumb of Cook’s original study. But, that didn’t stop me from making
some pretend-comparisons with her work. One graph from the original
study I particularly liked, was the photo of actual cakes baked at
different temperatures:

And below are the results of my endeavors where, sadly, all my cakes
looks like Cook’s no. 1 above.

In
the cake
dataset the main
outcome variable is the angle at which the cake breaks. But lacking the
advanced breaking angle apparatus Cook used, there was no way I could
get a good cake break angle measure. Well, at least I broke my cakes:

What Cook did, and what I actually also could do, was to rate the
three different cakes. As I celebrated my birthday, I had a small panel
of cake eaters readily available. Six participants (average age 29.0,
SD=28.7) were given a nibble of each of the three cakes (baked at 175°C,
200°C, and 225°C). The participants were asked to rate the overall
eating quality of each cake on a scale from 1 (“completely awful”) to 10
(“cake perfection”). After the rating session concluded, the
participants were awarded with more cake.

Unfortunately, the results were somewhat inconclusive, as the
participants rate all cakes fairly highly, with no clear preference for
cakes baked at higher temperatures:

subject,age,temperature,score
1,72,175,5
1,72,200,6
1,72,225,6
2,69,175,4
2,69,200,5
2,69,225,6
3,5,175,8
3,5,200,7
3,5,225,9
4,8,175,9
4,8,200,10
4,8,225,8
5,35,175,7
5,35,200,6
5,35,225,7
6,39,175,7
6,39,200,7
6,39,225,7

But, to give a positive spin to this result, it seems like Frances E.
Cook’s best chocolate cake recipe results in highly rated cakes at any
baking temperature!

Continue reading: Baking the cake dataset cake

Analysis and Future Implications of the Cake Dataset Experiment

This document explores the long-term implications and potential future developments of the cake dataset experiment conducted, where the author adopted Frances E. Cook’s Best Chocolate Cake recipe and modified the baking temperature to test its effect on the cake’s taste rating.

Key Observations from the Experiment

The experiment employed different baking temperatures as in Cook’s doctoral thesis. However, unlike Cook’s experiment, which explored 150 different cakes over six different temperatures, the number of cakes and temperatures were limited. Three cakes were baked at 175°C, 200°C, and 225°C each for different durations.

The results were gauged based on a panel of six participants who rated the three types of cake on a scale from 1 to 10. This rating scale does not provide conclusive results due to participant bias and a small sample size.

Implications from the Experiment

1. The examination reveals that irrespective of the temperature, Frances E. Cook’s cake recipe reliably yields highly rated cakes. The results indicate that precise temperature might not be a crucial factor in baking a delicious cake using this recipe.
2. A small variance in temperature does not appear to significantly affect the cake’s final rating. Instead, the ingredients, their quality, and the right proportion seem more important.
3. The study also opens up an area for more comprehensive future works – extending the experiment to a larger sample size, exploring more temperatures, or even including other variables like baking medium could yield more conclusive results.

Future Developments Based on the Insights

In terms of potential future developments and research, there are several pathways to consider:

• Implementing a broader sample for testing to secure more substantial and reliable data. Higher participation will provide more varied points of view and a clearer understanding of variables affecting the rating of a cake.
• Diversifying variables, such as different types of ovens (gas vs. electric), alternative ingredients (gluten-free or vegan substitutes), and deviation in baking times, to understand the interplay of these factors on the final product.
• Moreover, using varying equipment, ingredients, and measurement devices across different environments may also result in unique findings.

Actionable Advice

For Bakers:

1. Based on these insights, bakers can feel confident that minor temperature variations shouldn’t dramatically affect the outcome when using Frances E. Cook’s recipe.
2. Bakers should prioritize the quality of ingredients and adherence to their appropriate proportion in the recipe rather than over-focusing on baking temperature.

For Researchers:

1. Future researchers can build on this initial work by incorporating more variables into their experiments for a deeper understanding of complex interactions in baking.
2. Potential researchers could also explore the effects of various oven types, altitude differences, or ingredient modifications on baking outcomes.

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