Gold Cake
Cake is one of my very favorite desserts, and I would probably choose it over pie most of the time. The star of this episode is a gold cake, which is a relative of the classic pound cake. This recipe uses cake flour because of its low protein content, which results in a cake that is more tender. Alton also explained that he often prefers to use butter-flavored shortening when baking, as he thinks it gives more of a buttery flavor to baked goods than does actual butter. You can swap shortening for butter in any baking recipe, but you will need to make a couple of modifications because shortening is 100% fat, while butter is 20% water. This means that you will need to use 20% less shortening than the amount of butter called for, and you will need to increase the liquid in your recipe by 20%. Now, on to the cake.
Before starting this recipe, weigh the empty bowl of your stand mixer, noting the weight for later. In the stand mixer bowl, beat 140 g of butter-flavored shortening on low for about a minute.
To the beaten shortening, add 300 g sugar and a pinch of Kosher salt, and beat this mixture on medium for at least four or five minutes.
Next, with the mixer running, slowly add 130 g of egg yolks (about 8 yolks).
Once the yolks are incorporated, prepare your remaining wet and dry ingredients. In one vessel, combine 180 g of milk with 1 t vanilla extract.
180 g of milk with 1 t vanilla.
In a separate bowl, sift together 350 g of cake flour and 14 g of baking powder.
Alternate adding the flour and milk mixtures to the batter by adding half of the flour, half of the milk, the remaining half of the flour, and the last of the milk.
The final cake batter.
Once you have a smooth batter, again weigh your mixing bowl. Subtract the empty bowl weight you took earlier from the weight of the bowl+batter, and divide this number in half; you now have the weight of batter you should have in each cake pan for baking. Using this number, divide the batter evenly between two greased/floured 9-inch cake pans (my batter weighed 1070 g, so I allotted ~535 g per pan).
Bake the cakes in the top third of a 350-degree oven.
Cakes in the top 1/3 of a 350-degree oven.
Check the cakes after 12 minutes of baking, rotating them if one cake is browning more than the other. The cakes are done when a toothpick inserted in the center of the cakes comes out clean, which took about 30 minutes for my cakes. Let the cakes cool in their pans (on racks) for 10-15 minutes.
Cakes after baking until a toothpick came out clean – about 30 minutes.
Remove the cakes from their pans and let them cool completely.
Cake removed from pan.
Now, you could eat these cakes plain, or with whipped cream and fruit, but I did what Alton did and frosted them with his cocoa whipped cream (recipe below).
Cocoa Whipped Cream
To go with his gold cake, Alton made this cocoa whipped cream. You will want to make the cream once your cakes are completely cool. While your cakes finish cooling, chill the mixing bowl and whisk attachment of your stand mixer by placing them in the refrigerator. When the cakes have sufficiently cooled, place 2 T of cold water in a small saucepan and sprinkle 1 t gelatin over the water’s surface; set aside for 5 minutes.
Place the saucepan over low heat, just until the gelatin has melted.
Gelatin, heated until just melted.
Meanwhile, in your cold mixing bowl, beat on low 2 C whipping cream, 1 t vanilla, and 1/2 C cocoa mix (you could probably use any cocoa mix, but Alton used his Good Eats mix, of which I still had some).
Slowly drizzle the melted gelatin into the cocoa/cream mixture and increase the speed.
Cocoa mixture after all of the gelatin was added.
Beat the cream until it forms medium peaks.
The final cocoa cream, beaten until it had medium peaks.
Use the whipped cream to frost Alton’s gold cake, or any other two-layer cake.
We thought Alton’s gold cake and cocoa whipped cream paired nicely together. The cake is a bit of a dry, crumbly cake, but has nice buttery flavor.
The cocoa whipped cream is a nice alternative to traditional frosting, having a light, airy texture and being less sweet than many frostings, but it also necessitates refrigerating your cake.
A slice of Alton’s gold cake with cocoa whipped cream.
All in all, I would be more likely to make the cocoa whipped cream again over the cake. The cake had good flavor, but was just a bit too dry.
Allison Cooks Alton's Good Eats 
hello! do you think the dryness you experienced had anything to do with the 30 minutes in the oven? or, do you think it’s because Alton accidentally told us to use too much flour? notice that in the episode he says “equal sugar and flour” and then uses 350g flour and only 300g sugar, but in the recipe for his Gold Cake on FoodNetwork.com, they say to use the 300g flour and 300g sugar. either way, your looks fantastic! excited to try to make this tonight 🙂
That’s a good question! I did notice the discrepancy in the amount of flour used, but for this project I have chosen to always do what Alton does in the episode. I have to wonder if the 300g of cake flour would be better, though I can’t say for sure! It might be a good idea to start checking the cake for doneness after 20 minutes also, checking every several minutes. Hope your cake turns out well!