Baking Advice

IF YOU’RE BAKING AT HOME AND WONDERING HOW YOU CAN IMPROVE YOUR SKILLS, THERE ARE A FEW KEY QUALITIES THAT CAN HELP YOU TO PROGRESS AS A BAKER.   1) Organisation Baking is a juggling act. This means organising everything from your ingredients to forward-thinking your way through the stages of the recipe.   Lots of thinking ahead is required when you’re a baker and you need to be considering what needs to be done in advance so that everything is ready when needed. It also means incorporating steps that aren’t necessarily in the recipe, such as cleaning down your kitchen as you go.   Weigh out your ingredients before you start, check that everything is ready to use (e.g. chopped chocolate, butter and eggs at room temperature) and that you have all the necessary equipment prepared.   It might help to write a quick timeline if your recipe is particularly complicated,

SUGARPASTE ICING IS A GREAT WAY TO ADD FLAIR AND FUN DETAILS TO YOUR CAKES WITH SUGARPASTE MODELLING. This sweet fondant is a sort of edible sugar dough and it can be used to cover cakes or to model decorations such as flowers or cut-out shapes. Tips for using sugarpaste icing   You can buy ready-to-roll white sugarpaste icing from specialist cake shops and you can add food colouring until you reach the desired shade. Use a pair of disposable kitchen gloves to knead the colour in and avoid staining your palms. Alternatively, to skip this step just buy a ready-made coloured sugarpaste. Be careful not to over-knead it. Gel or paste food colourings work much better than liquid colourings to colour sugarpaste fondant. This is because they mix more smoothly and give a more even colour without making the consistency of the sugarpaste too wet. Add gel colourings with a cocktail stick until you have the right shade of colour. Always dust the work surface and rolling pin lightly

DISCOVER THE TOP FIVE KITCHEN EQUIPMENT ITEMS NO HOME BAKER SHOULD BE WITHOUT. If the flour flies frequently in your kitchen, you'll appreciate the importance of good equipment to back up your baking. Whether you're a casual baker or a seasoned devotee, having the right kit can help you turn out the best results. Here are our top five kitchen essentials for the budding baker: 1. Oven thermometer Capable of calibrating temperamental oven temperatures, you need never worry about your oven being too hot or too cool with an oven thermometer to hand. Cheap and available in all good cookware shops, every baker should own this indispensable little oven buddy. 2. Digital scales Too much of one thing and not enough of another can have any number of effects on the final outcome. The precise science of baking relies heavily on a carefully measured ratio of ingredients. For this reason, a reliable set of digital

BEING ATTENTIVE TO THE PREPARATION STAGES WHEN BAKING CAN MAKE OR BREAK YOUR CAKE. FIND OUT HOW TO BREEZE THE PREPPING PROCESS WITH HINTS FROM THE HUMMINGBIRD BAKERY. Far from coming together in the final stages of a recipe, baking actually begins long before your cakes reach the oven. For airy sponges, chewy-to-the-bite cookies and perfect pastry, preparation is every bit as important as your baking techniques. Buy quality ingredients You might not realise it but a trip to the supermarket to gather your ingredients is as much a part of the baking process as weighing out the flour, sugar and eggs. Investing a little time in sourcing the best quality ingredients you can afford will go a long way towards producing beautiful baked goodies. Organise your work area Having a clutter-free space where you can mix, whisk, fold and roll to your heart’s content is essential. Bring out your bowls, mixers and equipment

SALTED OR UNSALTED, BUTTER OR MARGARINE? THINGS EVERY HOME BAKER SHOULD KNOW ABOUT BAKING WITH BUTTER. Without this vital ingredient, cake as we know it would cease to be. Sponges would be dry and unpalatable and fluffy whipped frostings would be non-existent. We’re talking about butter! Used by the slab in baking, basted over a roasting chicken or stirred into creamy sauces, butter is one ingredient no cook should be without. Too many spoonfuls of the stuff, however, may expand your belt by a few notches. This is because most butter has around 80 per cent fat content, so it is best not to eat too many foods that are made using lots of it. But when it comes to taste, it’s butter that gives pastry its melt-in-the mouth flakiness, sauces and gravies their glossiness and sponge its moist buttery crumb. Butter is made when cream is churned; this action separates the solids from buttermilk, which is another useful baking ingredient in its own right,

MAKING CUPCAKES AHEAD OF TIME AND FREEZING YOUR CAKES IS A GREAT TIME SAVER FOR THE BUSY HOME BAKER. If you’ve ever wanted to be the baker who miraculously produces a perfect cake stand of baked treats at a moment’s notice, help is here! You may not be familiar with freezing when it comes to cakes and cupcakes, but it is easy to do and can save you plenty of preparation time. While we always bake fresh in our stores and haven’t tested the recipes in our cookbooks for freezing, lots of our home bakers have reported success when it comes to freezing their own baking so we thought we’d share some helpful tips with you here. Baking cupcakes for children’s parties, catering for big events and even supplying cakes for weddings can be made all the more easy with the aid of a freezer. Cakes can be whipped out of the freezer and defrosted in just a few hours and, providing they are well protected from the icy depths of the freezer drawer,

ICING AND DECORATING CUPCAKES WITH A TEMPTING SWIRL OF BUTTERCREAM FROSTING IS ONE BAKING SKILL WHERE PRACTICE DEFINITELY MAKES PERFECT! One question we are asked a lot by our home bakers is how to frost a cupcake with our signature swirl. The simple answer is: it’s easy when you know how! It takes the Hummingbird bakers lots and lots (and we mean lots) of cupcakes before they can get the frosting to look just right, so we thought we’d ask the baking experts at our Soho branch on Wardour Street just how they get their cupcakes looking so good…   How to frost cupcakes:   Timing Speed, confidence and a steady hand all help but don’t feel frustrated if it doesn’t come right straight away – it takes plenty of practice. While our fastest frosters can finish decorating a tray of twenty four cupcakes in just four minutes, it will take considerably longer

WHAT’S ALL THE FUSS ABOUT FLOUR? IT’S THE BAKER’S BEST FRIEND AND WE’LL TELL YOU WHY IT’S SUCH AN IMPORTANT KITCHEN COMMODITY IN OUR QUICK GUIDE TO THIS BAKING BASIC.   Okay, we’ll admit it, flour is hardly the most newsworthy ingredient. But where would we be without it? Our fluffy little cupcakes would be flat, sloppy puddles and our beloved bakeries would be turning out omelettes! Quite simply, if cakes were a building, flour would be the bricks. So, let’s take a closer glance at where flour comes from and how it brings its magic to our mixing bowls…     What is flour? There are many varieties of flour, milled from all sorts of grains, but we use white wheat flour in our recipes. White flour (as opposed to wholemeal) contains around 75 per cent of the original wheat grain, but it has the bran and germ taken out.   How is

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BAKING POWDER AND BICARBONATE OF SODA: IT’S A QUESTION WORTH RAISING! Baking powder and bicarbonate of soda - forget these magic ingredients at your peril. They may only be required by the teaspoonful, but these small additions pack a mighty punch when it comes to your sponge. Miss out your raising agent and your cake will be dense, stodgy and lacking in lightness. The trouble with raising agents (also called leavening agents) is that they all look virtually the same but work in different ways. Use the wrong one in the wrong quantities and you may find yourself with overflowing cake batters or cupcakes that fall flat.   To get to grips the two main raising agents, here’s a brief guide to their properties:     Bicarbonate of soda (sometimes called baking soda) Known to those in white coats as ‘sodium bicarbonate’ and sometimes shortened down

STOP STUBBORN CAKES FROM STICKING WITH OUR SIMPLE GUIDE TO CAKE TIN PREPARATION. Preparing your tin properly takes a matter of moments and is one little job that’s worth the effort. Sticking sponges can make it harder to prise your cake from the tin without it breaking into pieces but thankfully there are a few things you can do in advance to smooth the way for easy removal. Greasing and dusting your tin with flour is essential if you’re baking something with a large surface area that's liable to stick. Use a clean piece of kitchen towel with a little butter on it to lightly grease around the inside of the tin. This will create an extra layer of oil which when heated by the oven will prevent the cake mixture from sticking to the surface of the tin. Lining the base of your tin with baking paper is particularly helpful if the cake has a wide base and shallow sides, such as a layer cake. Applying a thin layer of grease to the tin