If youre looking for new ways to amp up your pastry skills, head to your home bar for inspiration. Baking with booze improves flavor, texture, and moisture, and its a fun way to experiment as both a mixologist and a self-proclaimed pastry artist. Whether you have a quality bourbon gleaming proudly on your top shelf or a sparkling wine that never made it to midnight this New Years Eve, theres a recipe that will celebrate their nuanced flavors.
While its easy to follow a recipe verbatim, messing with baked goods ingredients (a.k.a. scientific components) can be tricky if you are new to baking. Thats because baking is precise, and swapping ingredients can yield seriously wonky results. Consider baking a chemically sensitive skill.
That means whatever ingredients you use, or in whichever order you choose to mix them in, will change the final flavor, consistency, moisture, and so much more. So before you dump your favorite liquor into your cake batter, you will want to understand a few things. There are plenty of ways to infuse alcohol into your confections and cakes, and well give you the rundown so you can turn things from traditional to tipsy.
Red wine, port and brandy, on the other hand, add a sweetness that pairs nicely with glazes, chocolate cake and gingerbread. The quality of your alcohol will affect your final product. If your alcohol isn’t something you’d enjoy in a cocktail, it likely will not taste good in your baked treats either.
Substitute alcohol for extracts
One way to accurately add liquor to your cake batter without interfering too much with texture is by substituting alcohol in extracts. In fact, you can make your very own vanilla extract with vodka, bourbon, brandy, or rum.
You only need vanilla beans and booze to make a homemade pure vanilla extract. The best part is it costs much less to make it yourself. After splitting a vanilla bean pod down the middle and exposing those precious seeds, you plop an entire pod in a small bottle of your favorite liquor. Voilà. The only issue with making it homemade is that it wont be ready for at least 30 days, so stick it in your pantry and use what you have in the meantime. Whether you use imitation or pure extract for your cake baking, most extracts contain some amount of alcohol in them. Thats why substituting alcohol for extracts is so easy and practical.
Next time you make a cake consider swapping out the extract for hard liquor. Remember to find a liquor you enjoy and one that balances well with the flavors of the cake you are already making. For example, bourbon often boasts sweet aromatic essences like honey and chocolate, so it would taste lovely in a chocolate cake. A sweet liqueur like Amaretto Disaronno will have you swooning over a marzipan or nut-filled cake.
Feed your cake using cheesecloth
To make a fruit cake, ingredients like raisins, apricots, and figs are soaked in the liquor of choice. Dry and wet ingredients are combined separately and then come together before the macerated fruit is folded in. From there, the oven takes care of the actual baking. However, your fruitcake is far from being finished, as it needs some help from cheesecloth and more booze to age the cake.
Like a fine wine or a quality cheese, youll find nuanced flavors emerge over time, giving these ingredients a quality you wont get before the aging process. Fruitcake is similar in that you want it to age gracefully and develop deep flavors over time. This can be done by wrapping your cooled loaves with liquor-soaked cheesecloth, then placing them in a sealed food-safe container. Over about five or six weeks, youll want to drizzle small amounts of alcohol about once a week. This process is called “feeding” your fruitcake and will help it retain moisture.
Slightly sweet and subtly spicy spirits like cognac, rum, or brandy suit the cake and spiked fruit well. If you are a fruitcake cynic but have never tried a homemade version, consider this your year. Just keep in mind that because you are soaking your cake with liquor and not allowing heat to destroy the properties and “bake it out,” you might find a few too many slices might give you a buzz. Eat with caution.
HOW TO INFUSE A CAKE WITH ALCOHOL /AFTER BAKING
FAQ
What happens when you add alcohol to cake mix?
What alcohol goes well with chocolate cake?
Does alcohol make cake last longer?
Does alcohol bake out of cake?
How much booze do you add to a cake?
The amount of booze you add depends on the type of alcohol and the percentage of alcohol in each type. That’s because alcohol will diminish some of the cake’s structure. When using alcohol, add water to compensate for volume differences. Take this classic white cake recipe, for example.
Can you add alcohol to cake batter?
One way to accurately add liquor to your cake batter without interfering too much with texture is by substituting alcohol in extracts. In fact, you can make your very own vanilla extract with vodka, bourbon, brandy, or rum. You only need vanilla beans and booze to make a homemade pure vanilla extract.
Does alcohol taste good in a cake?
Red wine, port and brandy, on the other hand, add a sweetness that pairs nicely with glazes, chocolate cake and gingerbread. The quality of your alcohol will affect your final product. If your alcohol isn’t something you’d enjoy in a cocktail, it likely will not taste good in your baked treats either.
Can you add liquor to a white cake?
If you want to add hard liquor to your white cake, substitute some of the milk with alcohol. Understand that the cake’s structure will differ with this substitution, but still taste lovely. One way to accurately add liquor to your cake batter without interfering too much with texture is by substituting alcohol in extracts.