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The skill of making cakes at home can be learned very quickly, even if you had no previous experience in making pastries and baking. But this is possible only if you listen to the advice of experienced chefs. Then you will not only learn how to cook beautiful and delicious cakes for your family, but also bring additional income to your family’s pocket with your hobby.

  1. You need to start with a simple recipe, or even better with cupcakes or simple pies. Having honed your baking skills on them, you can proceed to more complex recipes and baking cakes for cakes and pastries.
  2. Having chosen a cake recipe for an experiment, you do not need to immediately rush into the kitchen to check for the availability of necessary products, run to the store for missing ingredients, etc. Sit down, open your computer and carefully study all the subtleties of cooking, techniques and techniques used by more experienced pastry chefs … It will not be out of place to pay attention to the mistakes they made, because here you can do without personal experience, and make cooking your own cake a pleasure.
  3. The moment of decoration is also very important. You should not immediately rush to extremes and take up complex techniques – decorating with mastic, mirror glaze and curd cream. If you want to make a pleasant surprise, but are not yet very friendly with the creation of cakes, then choose a simple cake recipe and find out what kind of icing for a cake is easy to make. Having evaluated your capabilities objectively, you will make your cake the main decoration of the table.
  4. If you have free finances, then you can take a master class. With a few lessons from a pro, you will have knowledge that took a long time to get through trial and error. Plus, baking your first cake under the guidance of an experienced chef is worth a lot. So you will deprive yourself of unnecessary hassle and a lot of spoiled food. And by the way, you can save money on school if you have a grandmother who bakes delicious cakes from your childhood.
  5. The process of making cakes is a kind of philosophy, therefore, choosing such a hobby for yourself, ask what they bake in different countries on different holidays. At the same time, this way you can diversify your family’s festive table.
  6. You need to learn to bake gradually. It doesn’t happen that unexpectedly you bake croquembush. And don’t be upset about small failures. Remember, every professional was once an amateur. Simply, he has already passed the thorny path of training, and you are at the beginning.
  7. Buy a good cookbook with baking recipes. Even in the cheapest edition, you can find many useful tips.

With these secrets, you will definitely get the most delicious cake!

  1. Compotes, jelly and jelly should be stored in the refrigerator at a temperature of 2-14 C.
  2. Puff pastry must be baked at a temperature of 210-230 C. It is more difficult to bake at low temperatures.
  3. You can grind yolks and whites only in enamel, porcelain, earthenware or earthenware dishes.
  4. You can beat the egg whites much faster if you keep them in the cold before that.
  5. The more fat in the dough and less liquid, the more crumbly the product is.
  6. If you add starch to the biscuit dough, it becomes more crumbly.
  7. Shortcrust pastry can be stored in the refrigerator at 10-12 C and taken as needed.
  8. When preparing shortcrust pastry, flour must be mixed with other products for no longer than 2-3 minutes, otherwise the product from such a dough will become coarse.

We’ve put together helpful tips and tricks to help you avoid dirtying your dishes, avoid culinary mishaps, and make divinely delicious baked goods.

  1. Do not use glasses for measuring. In recipes, the amount of ingredients is often determined by the glasses. This method is not very reliable, if only because at the exit each chef can get a different weight of the product. In addition, you can be mistaken by measuring half or a third of the glass by eye. It is better to buy a kitchen scale and follow the recipes that indicate the exact weight of the ingredients.
  2. Cover the scale with a paper towel. Ingredients such as cocoa often crumble and stain the surface of kitchen scales. To avoid this, simply cover it with a paper towel and throw it away after weighing. The scale will stay perfectly clean.
  3. Determine the age of the eggs. Eggs of different ages may be required to create certain confectionery products. For example, ice cream is good for fresh eggs, and meringues are good for older ones. You can determine your age with a bowl of water. Put an egg in it: if it falls to the bottom, then it is fresh; if it rises with a blunt end up, it means that it is older; if the egg pops up like a float, it is better to throw it away.
  4. Break the eggs into separate dishes. If you break an egg straight into a bowl of dough, it is likely that shell particles will also fall into it. Therefore, it is better to prepare the eggs separately and then add them to the general container. If a mistake has already been made, you can remove the shell after the cake is cooked and cooled. All the shells will sink to the bottom and can be easily removed.
  5. Be careful when mixing dry ingredients. To avoid a hurricane of flour and other bulk ingredients while using the mixer, add small portions to a bowl and start stirring at minimum speed. Cover your work surface with paper towels for extra protection.
  6. Use different utensils for sweet and savory foods. To avoid odd tastes in baked goods, divide your knives, spatulas, and planks into the ones you use for savory and sugary foods. This way, your cake will definitely never turn salty.
  7. Mix the sticky ingredients with the confectionary sugar. Pieces of sticky ingredients (like marzipan or dates) tend to clump together into a huge sweet bite. You can prevent this by adding a couple of tablespoons of confectionery sugar to them.
  8. Pick up heavy ingredients. Foods like raisins, nuts and frozen berries often end up at the bottom of baked goods. You can fix this by mixing them with a little cinnamon, cocoa powder, or flour. Choose the right ingredient depending on the recipe.
  9. Use butter to remove the stickiness from the dough. To prevent the dough from sticking to your hands, it is often advised to use flour. But there is another way – canola (rapeseed) oil. Lightly wipe your palms and work surface with it – the dough will not stick and no excess flour will appear in it.
  10. Cool the liquid quickly in an ice bath. If you need to quickly chill sweet cream, pour it into a metal saucepan and place it in a large bowl of cold water. Metal helps heat to escape quickly, and cold to penetrate. Note that the larger the pan, the faster the hot cream will cool down.

Delicious, delicate and fragrant pie, charlotte, familiar to most of us from childhood. Traditional charlotte is made from apples. Antonovka is rightfully considered the best apple for charlotte. Incredibly aromatic, with a pronounced sourness, Antonov apples perfectly set off and complement the taste of sweet biscuit.
These tips, multiplied by your skill and imagination, will more than once help you please your friends and loved ones with a delicious and fragrant charlotte.

  1. Making a biscuit for charlotte is very simple. To do this, you need to separate the whites of the four eggs from the yolks, cool them and beat them separately until a stable foam. Continuing to beat, gradually add 1 glass of sugar and 1 glass of flour to the proteins. At the very end, add four yolks and beat together again. The biscuit prepared in this way will not settle, but will turn out to be fluffy and tender.
  2. It is important not only to properly prepare the dough for the biscuit, but also to bake it correctly. Charlotte is baked for 30 – 40 minutes at 180 degrees in a preheated oven. This is where the first common mistake lies. Be sure to preheat the oven at least 15 minutes before placing the charlotte in it!
  3. In an insufficiently preheated oven, the charlotte will burn on top, but it will not bake inside. The second important note – never open the oven when baking! From any draft, the biscuit will settle and turn into a sticky, dry and hardly edible substance.
  4. Additional shades of taste and aroma will add spices to charlotte. Don’t be afraid to fantasize Try adding some vanilla sugar or lemon peel to the biscuit dough. Add ground cinnamon, nutmeg or cardamom to the apples. Even a pinch of ginger or ground black pepper will not spoil the taste of the cake at all, but will give it a mysterious charm and light piquancy. But when adding spices, try not to overdo it.
  5. It is important and correct to serve charlotte to the table. Like any other sweet cake, charlotte can be served with tea or coffee, or it can be served as an independent dessert. It is best to serve charlotte hot, 10 to 15 minutes after cooking. A ball of creamy ice cream or sour cream will perfectly set off the taste of a fragrant, hot pie. Making sour cream is not at all difficult. Beat a glass of sour cream with a high fat content (25 – 30%) with a mixer until firm peaks. Mix four tablespoons of powdered sugar with a packet of vanilla sugar and add to the sour cream. Mix everything thoroughly and beat again, as it should.

Some homemade baking tricks.

  1. Do not put the cake in a very hot oven right away, otherwise the top of the dough will be hard and the middle will not bake.
  2. The dough will become gelatinous if the oven is not hot enough before baking or the dough does not rise well.
  3. The finished cake, if it is not baked, will surely settle, so it must first be baked in the oven at a moderate temperature, unless otherwise provided by the recipe.
  4. When baking a cake, if possible, do not open the door of the oven or open and close it very carefully, without slamming it, otherwise the middle of the cake will immediately settle and the cake will turn out to be “tempered”.
  5. The finished cake will not settle if it is kept in a warm place immediately after the end of baking or if you remove the fire from the oven, let it cool slightly without removing it from it.
  6. Cut a fresh cake into portions with a sharp long knife, dipping it into hot water each time and wiping it quickly. At the same time, the product does not condense, does not crumble, and the pieces of cake are smooth.

These tips will definitely come in handy!

  1. Cold whites whisk much more easily than at room temperature.
  2. Do not beat egg whites using aluminum dishes (spoon, fork, bowl …), the whites darken.
  3. It is better to bake thin cake cakes not on the baking sheet itself, but on cooking paper. So the cakes do not break, it is convenient to remove them from the baking sheet.
  4. After baking, the sponge cake should cool well. If you try to cut a warm or hot sponge cake, the cakes are crumpled.
  5. Cool well before whipping the cream. Cream should be fresh, fat content of at least 30-35%. Low fat cooking cream is not suitable for whipping.
  6. The cream is whipped with a frame mixer. Cream is considered well-whipped if its mass has increased several times and at the same time holds well on the broom.
  7. For Tiramisu cake, expensive mascarpone cheese can be replaced with whipped cream with sugar.

These secrets are very important in cooking.

  1. A cake with a filling will be better if it will stand for at least half a day.
  2. Peeled apples and pears for filling will retain their color if wrapped in a vinegar-soaked napkin before cooking.
  3. Walnuts for cakes and baked goods will taste good if they are lightly roasted before cooking.
  4. To prevent walnuts from going rancid, they must be stored in a dry and cool place.
  5. If you use only whites from eggs, then the yolks can be put in water, then they will last longer. You can also pierce the egg from both sides and blow out the white, leaving the yolk inside.
  6. You need to brew tea only in porcelain or earthenware dishes.
  7. Tea will become much more aromatic if you put a piece of orange peel, lemon or vanillin in the box where it is stored.

Have you always dreamed of making the perfect cake by decorating it beautifully? But are you not a professional pastry chef? Then these tips are for you.

  1. Baking the cakes in advance and freezing them will make it easier to decorate the cake. Frozen cakes do not crumble so much, this greatly facilitates the application of the cream. These cakes will stay fresh in the freezer for up to a week. You can also prepare the cream in advance and store it in the refrigerator, in an airtight container, for up to a week.
  2. It is no coincidence that the stands are used by professional pastry chefs. This allows the cream or glaze to be applied easily and evenly on all sides. And also make any decor without mistakes, apply drawings, decorative elements, and so on.
  3. Leveling the cake layers is important as they must be completely flat. Otherwise, they may tilt when you stack them on top of each other, making the cake uneven. A serrated knife is ideal for this purpose. Just make sure the blade of your knife is longer than the diameter of your cake. The goal is to cut off any domed top. To make it perfectly flat.
  4. The next step is assembling the cake. Lubricate the first crust with a spatula. Place the second cake on it with the bottom side up and apply the cream again. Do this with all the cakes. Now apply a layer of cream all over the cake and refrigerate for 15-30 minutes. This allows the layers of cream to cure completely before applying the last layer of cream.
  5. Place the collected cake layers on the turntable and apply a layer of cream using a spatula. A pastry spatula is a flat piece of metal with one flat edge and one serrated edge. To use the tool, drag an edge along the sides of the cake, rotating it in the opposite direction.
  6. Making decorative flowers and other decorations using a piping bag and various pastry attachments takes practice. This also applies to decorating with royal glaze. A great way is to practice on a piece of wax paper instead of the cake itself. Small single flowers can be transferred from wax paper to cake. Practice is key. And over time, everything will turn out perfect for you!

For a delicious cake, it is very important to bake the base correctly. This is exactly what we will help you do!

  1. The exact oven temperature is very important, so if you do a lot of baking, an oven thermometer is a good investment. Ventilation ovens are hotter than conventional ovens, so reduce the temperature by 10-20 ° C.
  2. Place the pan in the bottom third of the oven with the top of the cake in the middle of the oven.
  3. The cake is ready when it starts to move away from the walls of the form, and its top becomes springy.
  4. As a final check, insert a toothpick into the center of the pie – it should come out dry. If no crumbs adhere, bake for another 5 minutes, then try again.

Some tricks for making homemade baked goods.

  1. If necessary, the warm base of the cake can be cut into horizontal layers using a thick thread or nylon fishing line: take it with both hands and carefully separate the horizontal layers or pieces of dough; cakes when cutting will turn out to be even and of any desired thickness.
  2. After removing the cake pan from the oven, put it on a wet cold towel or put the cake pan in hot water for a few minutes: the steam will help the dough to separate from the walls and bottom of the pan and the cake will be easy to remove.
  3. If the cake stuck to the paper laid on the bottom of the form, you need to take the thread with both hands and carefully draw it between the cake and the paper.
  4. It is best to chill the finished cake, taken out of the mold, by placing it on an overturned sieve or wire rack – then its bottom and sides will not get damp.
  5. If the base of the cake is slightly burnt, let it cool well and carefully clean the burnt layer with a fine grater or knife. Then lightly soak it with syrup, grease with cream or a thin layer of jam and sprinkle generously with powdered sugar.
  6. Before preparing any pastry dough, especially biscuit, it is imperative to sift the flour: it is saturated with oxygen and loosened, and the dough is more airy.