Dehydrating cake?

Question

I've recently purchased a book on desserts. Many recipes involve baking a cake and then dehydrating it over night (at 50° C) using the appropriate equipment. I wonder: What kind of kitchen equipment can be used to dehydrate cake?

I am referring to various recipes from the book "Elements of Desserts" by Francisco J. Migoya. (It was originally in English, but I purchased a translated copy.)

For example, he created red velvet truffles. The outside of the truffles is covered in dry red velvet crumbs, as seen on the cover of the book: Amazon Link

These crumbs are created using a "dehydrator". I only know this kind of equipment for drying fruit, not cake. Can I use the same thing for cake?

I have never heard of this technique can you provide more details? And what do you mean by kind of kitchen? — SAJ14SAJ, Apr 27 '14 at 20:57
50C sounds like a dehydrator, maybe? Are you translating from this book or did they actually call it desiccating, without mentioning equipment? — Cascabel, Apr 28 '14 at 02:15
50 C is about 125 F. I am now wondering if these are recipes for meringue or dacqoise layers, which often are dried overnight. — SAJ14SAJ, Apr 28 '14 at 03:05

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 28 '14 at 19:28

For the specific application of creating dried cake crumbs to use as a coating on the outside of other cakes, or confections like truffles, no specific equipment is required.

A low oven is sufficient, perhaps by heating to a moderate temperature like 250 F / 121 C, then turning it off. The remnants would be crumbled and spread out on a sheet pan, and placed in the oven until quite dry to the touch. Overnight would be quite common; the crumbs would dry out in the cooling oven.

The specialized equipment to do this is called a food dehydrator and is no different than the one used for fruit. It would certainly be effective, but is not necessary.

Dehydrating cake?

1 Answers1