Why Some Bakers Swear By Reverse Creaming For Ultra-Tender Cakes

When mixing together a cake, there are a few essential steps you know by heart: stir together your dry ingredients, whisk together the wet, and thoroughly cream your butter and sugar until light and fluffy. But reverse creaming is here to revolutionize how you make your cakes.

Popularized by Rose Levy Beranbaum in 1988's "The Cake Bible," the reverse creaming method (also called the paste method or the two-stage method) does exactly what it describes. Instead of creaming together your butter and sugar, then adding your eggs, liquids, and dry ingredients step by step, you start with your dry ingredients (including the sugar) in the bowl of your mixer. Mix them well with a spatula or your paddle attachment, then add in room temperature butter and beat together until the mixture looks sandy. Here's where you'll have to have a little faith — your cake batter will look impossibly dry. But, after slowly beating in your liquid ingredients, followed by your eggs, your sandy mixture will suddenly transform into a smooth and glossy batter that's ready to bake.

If you're wondering why bakers have bothered to change up a tried-and-true creaming method, there are a few factors at play. First, this method cuts down on time. Second, it creates a lusciously tender crumb structure that tastes expertly baked. And third, your cake will come out of the oven as flat as your cake stand — no pesky doming for you to deal with here.

The best part of the reverse creaming method is that you can apply it to any recipe that asks you to beat together butter and sugar. Apart from creating a slightly denser cake, there's virtually no downside. The reason reverse creaming works so well comes down to science. When you add your butter to your flour mixture, you're coating the flour in butter fat, which will prevent too much gluten development. When making a cake, gluten development is largely the enemy because it will make your finished product quite tough. Typically, when mixing up a cake, over-beating is the biggest risk. With reverse creaming, you basically can't over-beat your batter. As a note, you can under-beat your reverse-creamed batter. You do want some gluten to form, otherwise the center of your cake will start to sink. 

Once your reverse-creamed cake is out of the oven, you'll notice its super even texture and tender crumb. In fact, you might even find the consistency similar to a boxed cake mix. The even surfaces and dense consistency are perfect for decadent buttercream frosting aspirations and simple syrup soaks. Honestly, there's no reason not to give it a try.