subject: Do You Have The Right Ingredients To Be An Awesome Cakemaker? [print this page] Let me ask you a question who on this earth that does not like eating desserts and cakes, cookies and biscuits, or the smell of freshly cooked bread floating through from your kitchen?
For myself, I do not have the right ingredients which bakers are made of and as a result I rely heavily on good advice and excellent cookbooks.
Baking is an exact science so it really is essential to weigh the ingredients accurately and to follow the recipe exactly too. When you've developed the capacity of baking a number of things successfully, it's at this moment that you may move away from your recipe and embark on adapting them more to your personal tastes.
When it comes to cooking you will realise that baking powder and bicarbonate of soda are enormously handy ingredients to always have on hand. They can appear in the majority of cakes and desserts recipes because theyre chemical raising agents. They give scones, sponges, muffins and certain cookies their delicate texture and baking powder enables you to assert more control when baking cakes.
The type of sugar you use to bake desserts and cakes and the like can have an effect on the end result: granulated sugar has a coarser crystalline structure and therefore traps a lot of air, caster sugar produces more even-sized pockets of air and icing sugar creates a flat but very fine cake. It is possible to use soft, brown, unrefined sugar for baking as it produces a flavour and a consistency that is unique.
By adding baking powder to plain flour separately, as opposed to just using self raising flour, gives you more control. You do not require excessive raising agent in a rich fruit cake, for example.
Heat causes sodium bicarbonate to act as a raising agent by releasing carbon dioxide during baking. The production of carbon dioxide starts at temperatures above 80 C. Since the reaction won't take place at room temperature, mixtures, such as cake batter may be permitted to stand with no rising until theyre heated in the oven.
If baking choux pastry always use a greased tin never baking parchment or greased glass because the eclairs will stick to it. Also when the tray is greased put a drop of water on it and swirl it around prior to piping the pastry out so that you produce more steam, which will help the choux pastry rise more.
Countless books on desserts and cakes may often provide clever suggestions when baking as in using baking parchment to line your tins. This is a non-stick paper which prevents mixtures sticking to the tin when baking. This should not be confused with greaseproof paper, that doesn't have non-stick properties.
Imagine if, after all that trouble and effort you put into baking the flawless sponge cake you cannot remove it from the tin in one piece. Well, in order to remove your nicely cooked cake from your tin merely run a palette or rounded butter knife around the inside edge of the cake tin and gently turn the cake out onto a rack to cool off.
To remove the cakes and not leaving marks from the wire rack on the top, place a clean tea towel over the tin, set your hand onto the tea towel and turn the tin upside down. The cake will come out onto your hand and the tea towel, then remove the greaseproof paper before placing it carefully onto the rack.
There are plenty of cooking books to be had so that you can learn to bake and cook like celebrity chefs. If youve always wanted to bake perfect cakes, its time to cease wondering and begin experimenting! After all, each and every practiced cake-baker needs to begin somewhere.
