Long time, no post!

It's been quite some time since I've posted anything to the blog due to a little person occupying every second I have, but I would like to get back to writing about the cake discoveries and tips I have encountered along the way. I thought the best way to start off is reflecting on how far I've come since I started this whole cake-venture. A lot of things I have perfected from pure and utter repetition. Learning from mistakes is invaluable. Some other tricks I've picked up from Youtube tutorials which, if you are a visual learner like my good self, is a fantastic way to learn any new technique. I've put together my top 5 basic lessons I've learned that I think would help an baker of any level:

Lesson 1: If in doubt, go all out!

This is in reference to going from a round cake to a square cake. My gorgeous mammy gave me her family-famous Christmas cake recipe to me one year and we spend ages doing all sorts of calculations (in Rainman-esk style) to make her square cake recipe in to a round one. She deduced that you need 25% more mix in a 12" square than a 12" round so we took this away from her 12" square recipe. Now that sounds easy, doesn't it? Well taking 25% of an egg is not so easy let me tell you! This is where changing recipes to suit your needs gets tricky. I have found that if you divide by 2 and multiple by 3 it will bring all the ingredients up to a little bit more to give you a taller cake. If you find a large recipe and want to reduce it.........don't bother, just throw the extra mix in a loaf tin, bake and keep the extra in the freezer (all cakes frozen fresh last a good few months) or sit down and relax for yourself with a cuppa and extra cake! You deserve it!!

Lesson 2: Plan like Stan

I am not a natural planner, or overly organised person, or like overly planning and organising things in general (all my family and friends will vouch for this), but my wise old years have thought me it is best to plan ahead with baking so you are not caught out. I still slip up on this every-so-often, so it is something I have to remind myself to do. When you are designing a novelty cake/treat you want to get your vision in to cake form as much as possible, especially if it's a completely new design. If you want to make an exact replica of a logo or cartoon character, it's best to Google the image and print it out to the size you need so there is no "odd" looking look-a-likes in the end!

Lesson 3: Low and Slow

This is my mantra for baking ANY cake. Low temperature, approx 150°C, baked for a long time. Now we all know the saying "a watched cake never bakes" but I have found that the more you rush the bake, the worse it turns out. There's lots of tip and tricks online about wrapping the outside of the tin with wet newspaper or, if you've a few spondoolies to hand, baking strips! Don't forget that you have a domestic oven, and it bakes things very differently than a professional kitchen's oven, which is in a more steamed environment. Some people try to get this effect by placing a large pan of water at the bottom of the oven and letting it steam away during the bake. I tried to do this once and burnt the pan of water!! I know it can't be possible to burn water, but it happened. True story. I didn't realise you had to keep refilling the water if it evaporates, but a major rule of baking is DON'T OPEN THE FRICKIN' OVEN DURING THE BAKE! So all in all I have found that just sticking to baking low and slow generally gets the best bake in the end.

Lesson 4: Room to improve

I'm talking about the temperature of your ingredients. I always keep my eggs in the press as room temperature eggs act as a better, lighter, raising agent in your cakes. I make sure the butter is taken out the night before (and left out of direct sunlight in summer) to ensure it is nice and soft. The less you have to beat the cake batter, the lighter the cake will be. Of course the opposite applies for pastry, the butter needs to be chilled because if the butter is already soft in pastry it will burn, or give you those burnt pockets when cooked, as the wet to dry ingredients ratio is higher than cake mix (a bit of fancy science for ya!). It's amazing the effect the temperature of your ingredients will have on the finished product so this is one not to be skipped.

Lesson 5: Spoon licking gooooood

Much like cooking, it is very important that you taste what you bake. I mean you wouldn't want to give someone cake that doesn't taste good, would you?? So stick on your "quality control" badge and start licking! I usually have sugar coated teeth after a day's baking. Niiiice
On a serious note, home baking is all about good wholesome tastes and natural flavours. Therefore you need to be sure those flavours are coming through. A lemon cake recipe may indeed have lemon, but does it have the right ZING of lemon you want? You're not going to know this without tasting and worse still it will be too late when baked. Be careful of really strong flavours like coffee or mint. Play with flavours, push the boundaries. Anyone can buy a vanilla cake mix in a box, what makes your vanilla cake different? Go for really good flavourings instead of extracts, so less liquid gets added to the mix but more flavour comes out. You can also bring out more flavour in the toppings; such a buttercream or frostings. I've always said time and time again, never ever compromise on good quality ingredients.

And last of all......