Foreign influences have greatly shaped our modern-day cuisine. One of the best food items we received as a result of these influences is cake and now no birthday celebration is complete without it.
Before baking a cake, you should have at your disposal certain tips which may prove essential and rewarding. These tips for baking are as follows-
1.Understand the Ingredients
Try to understand the ingredients that you are working with and the science of baking that can make a whole lot of difference.
Baking Soda and Baking Powder:
Baking powder has baking soda in addition to an acid in it. Baking soda is alkaline in nature and needs an acidic ingredient going in the recipe to react with. So, you need to add baking soda only in a recipe that has acid going in it otherwise you will get a horrible soapy taste. You can use it with chocolate cake, carrot cake or any dessert with citrus in it.
source: youtube
2.Sugar
The chunks are too big in granulated sugar and they don't always melt in the oven, giving your cake an unwanted crunch. You can however use it to make anything on the stove such as caramel. There are two other types of sugar available, that is, powdered sugar and caster sugar. The best out of all the three, for baking, is caster sugar.
3.Ingredients at Room Temperature
You might have heard about this before. All the ingredients that you are about to use for your recipe should be at room temperature, especially the ones you store in the refrigerator such as eggs, butter and milk.
If the eggs are not at room temperature, place them in a bowl and submerge them with normal water. After 5-6 minutes, they will be ready for your use.
Butter:
You should not add butter straight out of the fridge because it is too cold and hard and it becomes almost impossible to emulsify it. However, you can use cold butter for pies and crumbles. You should not use melted butter unless the recipe calls for it. Melted butter does not have enough structure.
What should the butter look like?
For baking, the butter should not be completely hard and completely cold. It should have some structure that is soft to touch.
4.Precise Measurements
Be very precise with the measurements while baking. The most accurate way of measuring is by using a weighing scale. However, not all of us have access to a weighing scale. You can get your hands on some measuring cups and spoons.
Whenever you are using a measuring cup to measure the ingredients, use a spoon to transfer the ingredients into your cup and then use the back of the spoon to level it.
While you are measuring flour, never pack the flour into the cup because in that way you will end up getting more than you actually need for your recipe.
5.Prep Your Pan Correctly
There's nothing more disappointing in a baking process than a cake getting stuck and not coming out of your pan. Always use a brush or your fingers to grease your pan generously with butter or vegetable oil. Whenever you are prepping your pan for baking, parchment is your best friend and it makes sure that you get your cake out perfectly every single time.
Parchment Paper vs Butter Paper
Always use parchment paper to line your pan because butter paper is not heat resistant and does not hold shape in the oven. Butter paper is great to wrap the food once it's done.
source: youtube
6.One Egg at a Time
Whenever you are working with eggs, always add one egg at a time. If you add all the eggs together, you run the risk of splitting the batter. Add one egg and mix it thoroughly before you add the next egg.
7.Never Over Mix
This is the most important baking tip out of all the others. Never over mix while you are combining the dry and wet ingredients. Carry out the cut and fold method using a spatula. Continue doing this process slowly until every ingredient is well combined.
If you overmix at this stage, you will end up knocking out all the air that you have incorporated into the batter so far. This will give you a dense cake. You have to stop mixing once no large flour pockets are visible.
8.Preheat the Oven
Time and temperature upset the texture and flavour of the baked goods and starting in a cold oven affect both of these variants. Always place your baking goods in the middle rack. The time taken to bake a cake may slightly be longer or shorter than the time mentioned in the recipe.
Keep an eye but don't open the oven quite frequently because every time you do that, you disturb the baking process.
You now have the tips that will help you with baking but do you know the recipes? Do you know about the various possibilities baking provides? With the help of our baking classes, you can become a master in the field of baking.
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