Another Secret To Great Cakes

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with any of the products or people I have mentioned in this, or any of my blog posts. I do not receive any financial contributions from any source or company. These are purely my own views.

Welcome back to Another in the series : The Secret to Great Cakes.

If you haven't read the previous post, you should, it's great!

Now you know lots of tips to get you started with your baking, but how do you choose the right recipe in the first place?

Your choice of recipe can make a huge difference to how your bake will turn out.

Here's some more helpful tips about how to get the right recipe for you.

How I choose a recipe will differ from most other peoples.

In my previous life, when I worked for a living, I developed new recipes for Food Manufacturers. It involved a lot of recipe research, very much like you do when looking for a cake recipe, and then altering those recipes to suit the factory they were going to be made in, at the cost they wanted to make them.

This is how I developed the recipe for Millionaires Shortbread that you will find at the end of this blog.

Jump to recipe.

Alternatively, if you would rather watch a video then you can view it in the following group on my Facebook page - How To Bake with Helen.

There's a good reason it uses the word Million in the title, and it doesn't refer to the number of calories associated with said bake, but the sheer number of recipes available.

In the olden days when I was looking for a recipe, I was forced to buy loads of cake books or visit my local library and borrow loads of cake books, because Google had not yet been discovered.

I found the initial recipe in Nigella Lawson's Book : How To Be A Domestic Goddess.

I was very much into Delia Smith and Nigella Lawson so it was logical for me to go to their books first, well I did own them all!

However I didn't like her recipe for the shortbread base. So I went to a recipe in Delia Smith's Book : The Delia Collection Baking, for Shortbread biscuits because I had made it before and liked it better.

But Delia's recipe still wasn't 100% right for me because of one of the ingredients in the mix : Semolina.

When I was a kid we used to be given semolina pudding for dessert at school. I didn't like the texture. When I saw this ingredient it took me straight back to those school dinners. Not a pleasant memory so it put me off using it.

I had to find an alternative that would do the same thing but make it less gritty. (It's ok if you like that kind of texture in your shortbread, but I don't).

I read a lot of shortbread recipes!

One alternative I found was using Cornflour : Easy to get hold of and not too expensive. But the recipes required a lot less than Delia's.

When you are looking for a substitute ingredient, you want to swap the quantity as close to the original as possible otherwise you throw the recipe out of balance. Based on this I rejected Cornflour.

Another ingredient I had seen used was Rice Flour.

It's not a very common ingredient but I knew that it was used as a gluten free alternative. But, gluten free flour is quite expensive and some brands are mixed with Potato Starch. I found a supply in my local supermarket in the alternative ingredient section, then later in a local Asian shop. And the price was right for my recipe.

I swapped the Semolina in the recipe to Rice Flour.

It gives a lovely light feel to the biscuit and it's not gritty.

Perfect.

That's the recipe I put together, complete with the alternatives, and I have to say that it's liked by lots of my customers. They would definitely let me know if something was wrong with it!

Here are my tips for choosing the right recipe for you:

Start with who you know.

Have you watched Marry Berry and you like her way of explaining things, or did you watch The Great British Bake off and remember liking some of the things they made on there.

These are all good sources for your recipe.

Read the recipe.

Do you like how it's set out?

Do they explain how to make the cake or bake, in a way that you can understand?

Do you have to get any specialist ingredients?

Can you see yourself making that recipe?

Do they provide lots of pictures to show you each stage, if you are a beginner?

Effort.

Once you have read the recipe you need to decide whether you are willing to follow that recipe as it's set out.

Some recipes have so many different stages to them you really can't be bothered. Or they have so many different techniques in that you actually feel overwhelmed before you've even cracked an egg. Or ingredients you have absolutely no idea how to use, let alone where to find them. If I have to order ingredients from a specialist supplier I am less likely to want to make that cake.

What I am trying to say, in a very roundabout but entertaining way, is that if you can't find the recipe that is exactly what you want, change it.

Look for alternatives.

Experiment.

Be brave. This is how family traditions are started.

Here's the final recipe:

Tips for success with this recipe.

1. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE BE CAREFUL WHEN MAKING THE CARAMEL. THE TEMP CAN REACH OVER A 100C AND IT WILL SPIT IF YOU DON'T STIR IT ALL OF THE TIME. DO NOT MAKE THIS STAGE IF YOU ARE AT ALL DISTRACTED.

2. Use a good quality chocolate to top with as it will reduce the chances of it blooming.

3. Follow this video by The Chocolate Company (the makers of Callebaut chocolate) to see how to temper your chocolate in the microwave. This is who I learnt to do it from as i am not a chocolatier. I spent years doing it incorrectly until I saw this video.

4. Leave the caramel to set overnight to ensure it isn't too soft to slice.

5. Enjoy every last mouthful!

The Secret To Great Cakes

The Secret to Great Cakes is ................................

You.

What?

Yes, you are The Secret to Great Cakes.

Let me explain.

You have convinced yourself that you aren't a baker. Every time you try to bake it never turns out the same as the picture. You look at the results and wonder what the hell did you do to it this time. You tell yourself that you are a failure.

Am I right?

That voice in your head is holding you back from being the baker you want to be. If you stick with me I will hold your hand through each recipe, making sure that you avoid the pitfalls, and help you on your way to baking great cakes.

When you get the basics right you will have cracked the Secret to Great Cakes.

Let me tell you a little story.

I don't enjoy cooking meals. I can do them but I am not a fan. I am very lucky that my husband does and is a great cook, so I rarely have to cook dinner. Sometimes he can't cook so I have to. I immediately dread it and my nemesis meal is Yorkshire Puddings. No Aunt Bessie's allowed in this house! They never work. They are always flat and stodgy, not light and fluffy and reach the top of the oven like the Hubster's puddings.

Last week something different happened.

I made Yorkshire Pudding for a roast dinner. It rose to the top of the oven. It was light and fluffy, just like the Hubster's puddings.

What was different this time? Me.

I wasn't dreading making it. I did everything without a negative thought about how the pudding was going to turn out. I gave myself plenty of time to make it so I was relaxed too.

And Bingo!! Fantastic Yorkshire Pudding.

What's that got to do with baking?

If you give yourself plenty of time to make a cake, if you don't think negative thoughts about how it will turn out accepting that it will turn out fine, if you relax, then that is the first lesson. You will be surprised by the outcome.

Practice the recipes I am going to share with you. These are the foundation to my cakes whether it's a cupcake or a 5 tier Wedding Cake.

Image courtesy of Kelly Cotter Photography.

With every recipe I publish, my goal is to help you become a better and more confident baker. Baking from scratch doesn’t have to be intimidating or difficult. Let’s reverse that and put the FUN back into our kitchens. Dirty mixing bowls and all!

The first cake I learnt to bake at school and the cake my Nan used to bake every Sunday morning: The Victoria Sponge Cake.

The classic sponge cake that every baker learns to make first. Think of it as the foundations of your baked house.

Here are my Tips for Success:

1 Read the recipe.

From beginning to end. This is the step that most people ignore. By reading the recipe first you will see which ingredients are mixed together in what order. This can be the key to your bakes working or not.

2 Gather all of the ingredients.

Not only will you see if anything is missing, but you won't have to leave your cake batter at a vital stage to go searching for the next ingredient. This delay could ruin the batter because an ingredient isn't added at the correct timing.

3 Weigh the ingredients accurately.

Baking is a science and the weights used have been carefully tried and tested to get the perfect balance. Too much of one ingredient or not enough of another sends the mixture off balance and the cake won't turn out how you want it to.

4 Oven Temperature.

Always preheat the oven.

Too low and the cake won't cook through properly causing it to sink in the middle.

Too high and the cake will burn and be very dry.

5 Use the right cake tins.

Use the size given in the recipe as the baking time and temperature will change with the size. Using the correct size will make sure your cake turns out how it should.

6 Keep your oven door closed!

Step away from it right now. Don't touch that door whilst the cake is in there. It's important to maintain the correct oven temperature throughout the baking process but if you open the door part way through you let the heat out and the temperature will drop. the result is that your cake will sink in the middle.

7 Apply sprinkles liberally!

Always.

This should probably have been my first tip as sprinkles help anything look better.

But they will also mask any breaks or tares in your baked goods making them look instantly better.

8 Breath.

At the end of the day it's only a cake. It's not going to solve world hunger or change the path of global warming so relax and breath.

Enjoy the process as well as the results.

To Decorate the Cake.

Make sure the cake has cooled completely. If the cake is still warm the buttercream will melt as soon as you start to spread it.

Turn out the cooled sponges onto a presentation plate or cake board.

Spread a thin layer of jam or curd over the bottom half of the cake.

Spread a layer of buttercream to the underside of the top layer and then sandwich the two layers together.

Finish with a light dusting of icing sugar

If you don't want to use buttercream you can use freshly whipped double cream and sliced strawberries, just be sure to keep it in the fridge and then eat it on the same day.

This is the first in the series of recipes that guide you through how I make my wowtastic cakes.

For more recipes and videos join The How To Bake group on Facebook to watch me demonstrate my baking skills live every fortnight, or you can watch later when you have more time.

If you make this recipe or have a question about any part of it then comment below, I'd love to see your bakes.