Baking Tips and Tricks

Baking Tips and Tricks

Recipe Ingredients:         

1. Ingredients for cakes should be room temperature (can take out of refrigerator approximately 60-90 minutes before needed).

2. To check freshness of eggs, put in a bowl of water–if they sink, they’re fresh. If they float and stand on one end, they’re not.

3. ”Eggs” typically means Grade A, large eggs.

4. “Milk” typically means homogenized.

5. You can substitute milk with yogurt or sour cream, to experiment with different textures.

7. Weighing ingredients with a digital kitchen scale is the most accurate method of baking.

8. 1 large egg white = 37 grams, 1 large egg yolk = 20 grams. Eggs separate best when cold, but whites whip best when room temperature or warm.

10. For best results, use pure vanilla extract (not from grocery stores)–what a difference! Heck, don’t even be afraid to double the vanilla quantity.

11. To bring cold eggs to room temperature quickly, you can put the whole eggs into a bowl of lukewarm water (not hot) for 30 minutes.

12. To bring butter to room temperature quickly, you can cut into small cubes on a plate for about 15 minutes.

13. Semisweet Chocolate = Dark Chocolate.  Bittersweet Chocolate = Extra Dark Chocolate.

14. Semisweet & Bittersweet Chocolate are interchangeable.

15. Unless otherwise listed, use unsalted butter for cake recipes.

Mixing:

16. Incorporate dry ingredients together with whisk before adding to wet ingredients.

17. When creaming butter and sugar, get the mixture very pale yellow and fluffy–will take several minutes (around 5).

18.  Always start and end with dry ingredients when alternating with wet ingredients (3 dry additions, 2 wet).

19. Don’t overmix once dry ingredients are added. Just mix on low speed until incorporated.

21. Be careful with your sugar–too much can cause a dark crust (one of several possible causes), too little can cause too light a crust or tough texture.

22. Watch your flour–too much can cause a cracked top (one of several possible causes).

23. Beat egg yolks with fork before adding to batter.

24. To retrieve stray eggshells in mixture, use the emptied half-shell–eggshell sticks to eggshell. If you don’t get them all, they will sink during baking, so you can turn baked cake over when cool and retrieve them.

25. A pinch of salt brings out the flavours in sweet baked goods.

26. When folding, you should always add the lighter of the two mixtures on top, using a gentle folding motion, to avoid deflating batter.

30. If incorporating more than one flavour into a batter or icing, always start with the vanilla; vanilla enhances most flavours.

Baking Cakes:

31. For evenly-baked cakes, no domed tops, and no-fuss assembly, bake “layer-by-layer.”  This means if you’re baking a 3-layer cake, use 3 of the same size/shape pan, and bake 3 shorter layers at same time.

32. Use a small offset palette knife to spread batter evenly in pans. Don’t fill more than 1/2 full–2/3 at the most.

33. Get a separate oven thermometer for an accurate temperature reading–most ovens are either “hot” or “cold.”

34. Always wait for oven to reach necessary temperature before putting cakes in oven.

35. Keep cakes away from sides of oven, and if possible a few inches from each other (when more than 1 baking at once).

36. Rotate cakes after 20  minutes in oven (don’t disturb before 20 minutes).

37. Use middle rack, unless otherwise stated in recipe.

38. Typically, when in oven, cakes are nearing done when you can smell cake in the kitchen. Sounds weird, but you’ll see!

39.  Leave cakes in oven when testing for “doneness.” When a skewer comes clean from center of cake, it’s done.

Source : http://sweetapolita.com