Welcome back lovelies!
I hope you all are doing awesome and enjoying the decent weather outside! I have been baking for almost a decade...that has given me a lot of time to figure out the do's and the don'ts of baking. In this blog I would like to share some of them to you guys for your baking at home! Let's get started!
Let's start off with the baking instructions. Now whether you are making your treat from a box or from scratch it is very important to not to guess when measuring. Baking is a science which requires special attention to measuring. Now you don't have to be spot on, but don't just eyeball it either. If you were to add too much liquid for example, it could cause the inside of your cake/cupcakes to become mushy and deflate due to the heaviness of the extra moisture...and trust me...there is enjoying a nice moist and fluffy cupcake...and then there is a soupy paperweight.
Another tip for following instructions, and this mainly applies for when you use a stand mixer (but should still be utilized in any form of baking), always scrape down the side of your bowl. My rule of thumb is whenever I turn off the mixer then the sides of the bowl are getting scraped...no questions. If you don't then your dessert will not turn out right because some of the ingredients may be at the bottom/sides of the bowl instead of incorporated. An example I had of this is when I was making my vanilla cupcakes one day and I had already scraped the bowl like 3 times. Well, not all the butter and sugar got mixed in so when they were done baking the tops of the cupcakes had crystalized bubbles on top. Those bubbles would be the unmixed sugar that had just been baked and crystalized. I don't know about you but I don't want my cake to be crunchy lol. It is a good habit to just take the extra couple seconds to scrape the bowl so you don't have to start completely over.
A good rule of thumb to have also is do not over mix your batter! This is key when trying to achieve light and fluffy cakes. What happens when you over mix is you end up building up the gluten molecules and gluten is what gives things like bread their elasticity and chewiness...not what we want for our cakes...unless you do...then you do what makes you happy! :) These are just tips, you have free control on your baking! When you are mixing your batter I like to alternate my wet and dry mixes. I start by adding half of my dry, mix just until I don't see anymore flour, scrape the bowl, and then add all my wet ingredients. I repeat that same process till my wet ingredients are just combined, scrape the bowl, and then add the rest of the dry mixture. Now for this last time of adding and mixing the dry, this is where you really don't want to overmix. Just mix in all the flour until you don't see anymore, after that, you are done mixing. Make sure there are no clumps of flour not mixed in...I like to fold in my batch of dry ingredients...I find it makes it smoother and I have a less chance of overmixing the batter.
Before I even start baking a take all my needed ingredients out of the fridge to warm up to room temp. Most batters require you to cream soften butter and sugar together, and if you add a fresh out of the fridge cold egg...well...that will solidify you butter again and not only will it cause your batter to be weird...but it won't bake in the oven properly either. Your batter will have little clumps of butter and when that butter bakes it will cause big air bubbles in you cake/cupcakes. I always just take my ingredients an hour before I start baking. I have some other tricks up my sleeve so if you need the ingredients to be warmed up quicker but just be careful when doing so. The first is for when you need soften butter quick, I stick the cold stick of butter in the microwave and I do it in 5 second increments...no more than that...you do not want melted butter. Melted butter will change your whole batter and baking. I just do the increments till when I touch the butter, it is not hot nor warm, but I can leave an indent with my finger, Depending on how warm your butter already is, then you may have to adjust how many times you put it in for 5 seconds. For eggs, I have found if I take a bowl and put luke warm water in it and submerge the eggs for about 5-10 minutes then that helps warm them up. Depending on how cold your eggs are, you may need to change the bowl of water a couple times because the cold eggs will cool the water down quickly. I just leave them in there till when I hold the egg for a few seconds it doesn't feel cool at all. Don't use too hot of water or you will cook your eggs! Also, always crack your eggs in a separate dish. That way if any eggshells fall in then you can get them out before it being all throughout your batter. It's not yummy biting into a piece of eggshell in your cupcake. If you need to warm up liquid ingredients, you can do the 5 second microwave thing in a microwave safe bowl, but just be careful not to curdle your milk or anything. I would not recommend using the microwave method for ingredients like yogurt or sour cream, because you don't want those to become runny. Overall, it is just best to take them out a little bit prior to baking. Trust me, I understand that last minute baking where you need them now lol.
A big tip that I discovered throughout the years of baking, and I live by this, is to double line your cupcake tin! I can't tell you how many burnt bottoms I have had from not double lining. Growing up we had an older oven, so it didn't bake the most even. It would be a hit or miss if the bottoms were burnt. I would find the bottoms are cooked fully, but the middle isn't...and when the middle was cooked fully...the bottoms were overcooked. So I started experimenting on how to prevent that, and I noticed all the ones I accidently had two liners on rarely burnt on the bottom. Since then I have been double lining my pan and it has worked WONDERS! I always double line if using the paper liners, but when using the foil ones (like I use now for my cupcakes) they are much thicker and don't really need to be double lined. Also I know when you get the silver foil liners and it has the foil piece and the paper piece...some throw out the paper piece, but I use both. I put the paper piece on inside where it will bake with the cupcake and keep the foil piece on the outside when baking. Double lining also helps when the cupcakes are done baking, the paper liners can tend to soak up oil from the batter and the second liner helps hide that to make it look pretty! If you get a designed paper liner I have found that after baking it can be hard to make out the design anymore, so once again double lining helps keep the pattern prevalent.
Whenever I place the cupcakes in the oven, I always bake it 5 minutes less than what the recipe calls for. Every oven is different, and every time something bakes my be +/- a couple minutes when baking then when you baked it last. Each time you bake the same recipe, your baking times may still vary. You eventually will get to know how your oven likes to work. For example, you may find it bakes faster on one side than the other, or the recipe said to leave it in for 20 minutes but it was overcooked by then, or leave it in for 20 minutes but it took me 15 more minutes for it to fully bake. It's all just watching and trial and error. You're gonna have some overcooked ones, that's fine, those are the ones that will show you if your oven just bakes hotter and you need to bake at less time. So whenever something calls for a certain time of baking, I always do 5 minutes less and watch from there. I always bake with the oven light on also...just so I can keep and eye on them to make sure they are baking right and not overflowing or the tops are burning. Once your timer goes off, stick a toothpick in the middle of the cupcake/cake and if it comes out clean, then it is done! I always take my cupcakes out of the pan and onto a cooling rack right when they come out of the oven. I don't want the hot pan to keep baking the cupcakes once they are out. PLEASE BE CAREFUL if you do this!! They are just out of the oven and you can burn yourself badly! Once they are on the cooling rack, I put that rack in the fridge to cool them down completely and stop baking...it also lets me frost them quicker too! Feel the top of your cupcakes once they are cooled for a bit, if they are still warm then leave them in longer. Only frost them once they are completely cooled or your frosting may melt off.
That is all the baking tips and tricks I have for right now! If I think of any more then there may be a part two, but I also didn't want to make this too terribly long lol! If you have any questions or can think of any tips you'd like to find out, then please feel free to ask me! I love answering any questions about baking!! (any excuse I can get to talk about baking or veterinary medicine then I am in!) Thank you guys so much for reading and I will talk to you in the next one! Continue having a wonderful day!!
xoxo, Cupcakes & Canines
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