Cake - King Arthur Flour Cooking Class

I signed up for a cake class at King Arthur Flour (KAF) in VT, and the class was this past week.  First, if you have been thinking about signing up for a class at KAF, you should sign up.  It is an amazing experience and the chef baker, Melanie, that taught the class was out of this world.

Every one had their own station (which was set up with all the proper instruments) and ingredients.  Chef Melanie demonstrated how to make Dark Chocolate Cake but before she did that she explained that there were three different types of mixing methods:  Blending, Paste and Creaming.  She also told us that there are different ways to add ingredients, and the Dark Chocolate Cake would use the Dry and Wet method.  She also explained there are different types of cake - moist, with irregular crumb structure; tender, light and fluffy that has a tight crumb structure and then a moist denser cake with a more open crumb structure.  After she demonstrated the Dark Chocolate Cake, each of us made our own.  She then demonstrated the Tender White Cake (traditional wedding cake) and then we each made our own.  Then she demonstrated the Classic Yellow, which we did not have time to make.  We then cracked our eggs for the frosting, and then broke for an amazing and delicious lunch.

After lunch we made our two types of frosting:  chocolate American buttercream and Swiss Meringue buttercream.

After 8 hours of cake, I had learned so much (besides the above crumb structure and blending).

Random other pieces of knowledge:
*  weigh ingredients whenever possible;
*  use a conventional oven to bake cakes and a convection over for breads, vegetables and meat
*  buttermilk can be frozen and used later
*  buttermilk has the acid that re-acts with the baking soda, so you can't substitute regular milk and get the same result
*  when a recipe calls for room temperature ingredients in a cake use room temperature ingredients as it affects the way butter interacts with the ingredients
*  baking powder is baking soda with cream of tartar and cream of tartar is made from the residue inside wine casks
*  Whole wheat flour has a high amount of gluten and makes chewy baked goods.  The most tender flour is pastry flour.