Making cakes by melting method is really a piece of cake because it requires minimal effort. This method is specially designed to deal with the extra sweeteners needed to make traditional soft and sticky cakes like gingerbread.

Melting method cakes have a characteristic gooey, gooey texture throughout the cake, and it is this that has made cakes like gingerbread so popular and given them such a high place in traditional baking. This stickiness is achieved by increasing the ratio of sweetening agents to ether ingredients in the cake.

To handle the extra volume of sweetener, a special method is used. With this method, the fat is melted with the sweetener before the flour is added. Before cooking, the cake mix has a good texture and dough-like consistency, rather than the mushy consistency of cake mixes made using the all-in-one or creamer methods.

Like all cakes, the amount and choice of ingredients depends on the method you are using, the flavor and texture you want to achieve, and/or the recipe you have chosen. The average proportions of cakes made by the melting method are one-third fat to total amount of flour; one third of sugar to the total amount of flour; and one to two thirds of sweetener to the total amount of flour. However, these ratios can vary considerably with individual recipes.

An extremely important factor when making cakes using this method is the exact weight of the ingredients for the individual recipes. As long as there is a correct balance of ingredients to begin with, perfect results will be achieved.

There are no hard and fast rules about what type of flour to use. As a basic guide, it’s best to use all-purpose flour, because that way you can control the amount of leavening agent that’s important to the mix. Self-rising flour can be used for certain recipes, but since you have no control over the leavening agent, you can never be sure if it’s too much or too little to make cakes using this method. Certain brown flours can be used depending on your taste. Never use strong plain flour (the kind recommended for bread making), because this will produce a hard, heavy-textured cake. You should never substitute one flour for another in a given recipe, because this could upset the overall balance.

Baking soda is the most widely used leavening agent in this method of cake making, as it is successfully combined with regular flour. When this chemical gasifier is heated, it emits a carbon dioxide that produces the increase. Baking powder, another chemical leavening agent, is used when self-rising flour is included. The amounts are usually small due to the amounts that are already in a self-rising flour. Powdered yeast is added, however, to enhance leavening. If you are using a wholemeal flour, you should use more baking powder than with self-rising flour. Brown flour is much heavier than white flour and needs the extra rise that a larger amount of baking powder will give.