You head into the kitchen to bake, but your bread or cake comes out dense, flat, hard or unevenly cooked, even though you weighed every ingredient exactly. The culprit may be that your oven temperature was not set correctly.
Today we share tips for using your oven to bake treats that look great and come out soft and fluffy rather than hard.
1) Preheat the Oven Before Use
To bake bread or cake that is as delicious as the recipe intends, it must bake at the right temperature from the very first second it goes into the oven. Preheating the oven to the correct temperature is therefore crucial. If you don't preheat, the surface of your bake may not dry properly or the cake may not rise.
2) Using Top and Bottom Heat
The baking temperature determines whether you use bottom heat only or top and bottom heat together, but there are subtle tricks to using top and bottom heat for better-looking cakes and bread. Cookies, brownies and cakes, for example, need top and bottom heat throughout baking so they cook evenly. When baking a cake, you can start with bottom heat only to stop the centre from cracking, then switch to top and bottom heat, or top heat only, towards the end to give the top a deeper, more appetising colour.
3) Using Baking Tins
Baking tins come in many types, sizes and shapes. Choosing the right tin for each bake gives it an attractive shape. Always grease the tin all over so the bake doesn't stick, and don't place tins too close together in the oven, or the bakes won't cook evenly.
4) Tap the Tray to Release Air Bubbles
Tapping the tray or tin 2 to 3 times knocks out air bubbles in the batter, helping it bake evenly for a softer, fluffier result. After taking the tray out of the oven, tap it another 2 to 3 times to help the bake set more quickly.
5) Baking in a Water Bath
Some bakes need a low but steady temperature, especially those based mainly on eggs, such as custard, cheesecake or crème brûlée. Baked the normal way, they cook too quickly and turn dry. Baking in a water bath solves this: the water spreads heat evenly around the tin so the bake cooks uniformly, and the steam helps stop the top from cracking.
With these tips, baking treats that look and taste great is no longer difficult.
