Photo: fensterbme / Flickr

You can make baking easier for yourself by following a few simple guidelines. To get started, work with ingredients that have been left at room temperature – a lot of people forget this hint for baking with eggs. If you’re whipping cream, it’s a different story: chill it first, along with the bowl and the beater you’ll be using.

Buttered up

Use real butter. Some recipes work just as well with margarine, but baked goods that need to stay firm – such as fudge – need butter. If you make cookies using margarine, remember that they’ll spread out more than they would with butter, and as a general rule, stick to whatever your recipe dictates.

Get edgy

When making pies, lift the edge, particularly the crust, away from the edge of the dish before you bake it. This’ll make the job of lifting it out of the dish once it’s cooked far easier.

Staying centred

Photo: Sifu Renka / Flickr

Don’t underestimate the value of keeping your cake in the centre of the oven for baking to allow air to circulate around it. Leave at least five centimetres between the cake tin and the edges of the oven.

Spread it out

Cakes that have two fillings between the layers – such as cream and jam – can be tricky when the two ingredients mix together. There’s a simple solution to that problem: spread the jam onto one layer and the cream onto another, then sandwich the two together.

Check it out

Inserting a skewer or knitting needle into a cake and seeing if it comes away clean is a tried-and-tested way of seeing if the cake’s ready. Don’t have one of those on hand? Just use a dry piece of spaghetti. Now, your baking is ready to take out of the oven and enjoy.

Tags: baking, baking ideas