| MadSci Network: other |
No, you can't. You would end up with a burned outside and soup inside. Most people think that, while a cake is in the oven, nothing much really goes on. But, there are a lot of things that happen in the oven when a cake is baking. For example, the fat (shortening or margarine or butter) that was added has to melt and then coat the flour - this helps make the cake tender. There is a chemical reaction that takes place to produce gas into the cake batter - this is what makes the cake rise. And, the water that was added (either as water or milk) has to heat up enough to evaporate. The final structure of the cake is from all the proteins that are in the batter - things like eggs, the protein that is in the flour, milk perhaps. These eventually are cooked enough to be a permanent structure - this makes the difference between having a springy cake and soup. All of these things take time, so baking only 20 minutes just wouldn't be enough. The other problem would be the high temperature. It would burn the outside of the cake before the insides could be cooked. The higher the temperature, the faster this would happen. At 350 f, there is enough time to get all of the things I mentioned above completed before you would burn the outside. At 650 f, the cake would burn too quickly and the rest of the stuff wouldn't be able to get done. So, you pretty much have to stay with the temperature and time mentioned in the recipe if you want to have a good cake. Thank you for a good question. Jill Irvin Ohio State University
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