Recycling Old Breads and Cakes

Question: What do i do with uneaten cakes and breads?

Answer: for as long as they have no molds, you can shred hard and dry cakes or breads, cookies, crackers and biscuits and add them to any, I mean any baked goodies.

The amount of old breads or cakes you can use is limited though, you can't just throw them in and expect the cake or bread to turn out the same.

My rule is that I only use up to 15% if I'm baking a bread and 10 to 12 % if it's a cake because the extra flour in the recycled cake will dry up your cake. Not a lot but it's better than throwing away a failed cake, un risen bread because you forgot the yeast, someone gave you cookies and you didn't particularly like them etc...

You might ask, but what about the sugar content. Should I reduce the amount of sugar in the recipe if I'm adding old cake crumbs that is already sweet? In principle, yes. But 15%, isn't exactly that much but if you feel like you don't want the added sweetness, you're gonna have to calculate how much sugar is in that 10 or 15% . Good luck with that. 😂

I say, take at least 2 tablespoons. There. Good for your conscience because you know that you did something. If your using breads on breads, don't bother. It won't alter the sweetness, I promise.

The recipe for this chocolate brownie below is from Maya's Kitchen. I tried several of their recipes and they are good. This one is an epic failure. I should have just used Martha Stewart's but anyway, all is not lost because I was able to use up all of the cakes in 4 batches of anything from carrot cake to pancakes!!!

Just make sure you divvy up the failed cake and freeze them.

Because Chocolate cakes have cocoa, it might absorb some of the liquid in the cake batter so I added an extra eggyolk. Or if you want, a tablespoon of margarine or oil.

I'm removing the nuts, then I will shred the cake into a food processor.

Here's the finished banana cakes with some of the recycled chocolate cakes. I'm very happy beacuse ingredients are expensive these days.

Good luck and remember, if you have a bakery, recycling should be part of your SOP. Baking mishaps always happen and not all your products sell. There will always be left overs. Use them up before they stale.

A little creativity will mean less wastage and more profit for you.

Comments

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