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?
Best Answer
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.