I have almost given up pound cakes, or sponge cakes. I get this dense streaks almost every single time. And I have tried every possible method, from reverse creaming to hot milk cake. I did have a period with success with reverse creaming, but suddenly it failed. Today I tried hot milk cake, failed too. I have tried adding lots of baking powder, and less, adding lots of liquid and way less. Yes, I give up, almost. I don't want to give up, so I will try a few times more.

I have tried the creaming method. But since I don't have a proper cake machine like the Kitchenaid, just a Bosch Compact and a Bosch Universal Plus, and a handmixer, I don't have a paddle attachment as they are supposed to look like. When I have used my handmixer for creaming, I'm afraid I have used full speed, and now I learn that is wrong. My other machines can not do really do any creaming, since I have read that I never should use the whisk for creaming (I live in Europe, so paddle attachments don't exist here for the Bosch).

I have used the Bosch Compact for cakes the most. And that is a seriously slow machine compared to the Kitchenaid, so full speed on the Bosch is from what I can judge from Youtube videos, not as fast as a medium speed on the Kitchenaid. And the paddle attachment does not look anything similar, plus that the attachments go around the bowl, so it is completely different, and very hard for me to follow recipes from Youtube and do exactly the same as the do in the video.

I don't have room for another mixer, so instead of buying a Kitchenaid I don't really need for anything else than pound cakes, I wonder if I can change the flour instead? Or change something else? I have not tried the all-in-one method, and not tried food-professor or blender cakes, so that is on my to do list. But what about the flour? If gluten is the trouble maker, would it help to use cornstarch (or potato starch, which is more common in my country) instead of all-purpose flour? Or maybe buy a gluten free cake flour? Would that help, I wonder?

I did even buy the said to be the best pans, just to prevent that the pans were the problem. So I bought two aluminium Nordic Ware pans. Did it help? No, not at all.

I have tried lower vs higher oven temperature. Nothing helps. So I have suspected the mixing method and/or the flour. I have had most success with the reverse creaming method, which makes sense if gluten are a problem, since mixing the flour with butter and/or oil reduces gluten formation. It worked for a while, but suddenly started to fail, and the gluey, dense streaks arrived in every cake. When I think of it, I think I started to mix the batter more and also on a higher speed. So I should go back to that method and mix it way more gentle and for a shorter time, and replace 50% of the flour with a starch, just to be extra sure nothing goes wrong. But if that fail, I either have to buy a Kitchenaid or give up pound cakes completely.

Box cakes never fail, regardless how you mix them. What is their secret? I desperately want to find out. If they add some nasty chemicals, I want those too. Cakes have never been healthy anyway.

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