We shared 5 of our top 10 baking tips with you in our last post, so here are our final 5 tips that will help you be a better baker!
6. Never Rush
Subscribe or buy a SoBakeable baking box so that you can enjoy the baking experience without any fuss! Your ingredients arrive pre-measured, individually packaged & clearly labelled for ease. There’s a recipe card with clear step-by-step instructions for you to follow & a baking tool/gift to help you decorate! If you just don’t have the time, you can always bake another day! Here at SoBakeable, we think baking is all about the experience of having fun in the kitchen, learning new techniques & sharing beautiful bakes with friends & family. When you’re pushed for time, baking can become stressful & that’s when mistakes are made.
Always give yourself more time than recommended by the recipe, because you never know where things might go wrong, or when you might need to pay a little more attention. Don’t take shortcuts because that’s when disaster can strike & try limit the distractions around you, so that you can really focus on the steps of the recipe.
7. Mix It Right
We’ve mention in previous blog posts how important it is to read your recipe! This is important in making sure that you are combining your ingredients correctly. Never throw all your ingredients into a bowl. There is usually a very precise order in which your ingredients should be mixed & this will most definitely affect the outcome of your bakes!
It is also important to mix your ingredients using the correct technique, whether it be whisking, mixing with a wooden spoon or an electric mixer. When the recipe requires you to mix for 5 minutes, it most likely means you’ll need to mix for that entire time to get the correct consistency. While your arm might think you’ve been mixing for long enough, we usually use a clock or timer (just use the one on your cellphone) so that we have a better idea of how long we have been mixing for.
8. Testing For Doneness
The fastest way to tell if your cake is ready to come out of the oven is by inserting a skewer or toothpick into the center of your cake. If the skewer comes out clean or with just a few crumbs clinging to it, your cake is done & ready to come out of the oven. If the skewer comes out sticky, or with batter on it, continue to let it bake for 2 min. increments at a time, checking for doneness again.
It’s also good to do a few other checks to know for sure you cake is done. Your cake should be light golden in color, if not - it’s not cooked. You can tell for sure, by placing your hand on the top of the cake and pushing gently, the cake should spring back. If it doesn’t it will need to bake for longer.
9. Ingredient Temperature Matters
This is so important, we’ve written an entire post dedicated to it! When a recipe calls for room temperature ingredients, it means room temperature ingredients! Using cold ingredients will seriously effect the outcome of your bakes, as the mixture will not combine as it’s supposed to. So, always remember to remove your ingredients from the fridge 1-2 hours before you begin to bake.
If you forget, fear not - we have some handy tips to help your ingredients get to room temperature faster.
10. Use The Correct Pan
When a recipe calls for a certain pan size, it’s probably best that you stick to the size that is recommended. Using a different pan size, will probably require a different bake time & temperature to what is listed in your recipe, which means your cake can undercook, burn or overflow.
To determine the width of a cake pan, measure across from the inside rim to the inside rim.
We hope you find these tips useful! If you have a top tip for baking, we’d love to hear it!
Here’s to your baking success!
Xoxo
The SoBakeable Team
