Let’s bake!

Baking a cake, bread and a selection of biscuits can bring about a great sense of achievement but at the same time it is important to do it with perfection. Most of us who bake occasionally often find it difficult to bake a perfect cake. Having that professional touch can’t be achieved easily unless you keep in mind some baking secrets.

1. Balanced ingredients

Well-balanced ingredients are the key to baking. For example, if you have too much fat in proportion to flour, your cake will turn out to be very heavy and greasy, the biscuits might not be crisp and spread on the baking dish. On the other hand, too little fat can make the cake dry and unappetising, unless eaten fresh from the oven. As for sugar, it lightens the heaviness in cakes, if less sugar is used, the cake will be too heavy to consume. For binding the ingredients together, a good proportion of eggs should be added.

2. Best method

Don’t treat the cakes equally. Selecting a method meant for the kind of cake you are baking is extremely important. For example, if the whisking method is used for fruit cakes, it will not be suitable to acquire that traditional fruit-cake texture; therefore the rub-in method is more suitable. If you want to get a light sponge, whisking will be the best method as it gives a lighter texture to the cakes. It also varies from one recipe to another, whether you cream the fat and sugar or whisk the eggs and sugar.

3. Temperature and timing

Individual ovens vary a great deal and the suggested temperature in recipes is based on average ovens only. Always consult the instruction card or booklet the first time you bake a particular type of cake. Quick baking will make the cake over brown and raw from the centre, whereas slow baking will sink your cake and it will become heavier in texture.

4. Turning out

Make sure you let the cake stand for two to three minutes after it is baked. It allows the mixture to bind well and contract and thus make it easier to turn it out. Many cakes break while turning out from the tin too quickly. Certain cakes and biscuits should be cooled completely before handling. Happy Baking!

Published in The Express Tribune, March 20^th, 2011.