This Pro Secret Will Change the Way You Bake (2024)

FAQs

What is the most important rule in baking? ›

#1 Read through the recipe

Make sure to quickly skim the recipe before you start baking to understand the general flow and key steps. You can even make notes on the recipe or highlight key points to help you along.

Sugar easily binds with water, which accomplishes two main things. 1) It locks in moisture, keeping your baked goods from drying out; and 2) It inhibits the development of gluten which keeps your cookies, cakes and sweet breads softer.

Baking requires precision and accuracy when measuring out ingredients; you need exact amounts of each ingredient to get the desired results. Cooking, on the other hand, is often much more flexible as you can frequently taste as you go and adjust recipes to your liking.

Basically, all you need to know about baking is that the longer you mix a dough or batter, the stronger the gluten, and the more gluten, the better the chew. But you don't want the same chew from a beautiful cake as you would a baguette, so you minimise the development of gluten by not over-working the dough or batter.

There are 6 main principles of baking: wet ingredients, dry ingredients, leavening agents, flavoring, heat, and different mixing methods.

Combine ingredients as gently as possible without overmixing. Creamed butter and sugar should be pale and fluffy, never yellow and gritty. Butter temperature is a vital detail that should not be overlooked. Don't open the oven door until goods are done baking.

Eggs play an important role in everything from cakes and cookies to meringues and pastry cream — they create structure and stability within a batter, they help thicken and emulsify sauces and custards, they add moisture to cakes and other baked goods, and can even act as glue or glaze.

In baking, it moistens batter or dough, and adds protein, color and flavor to baked goods. The most common form of milk in baking is non-fat dry milk (NFDM), which is dehydrated skim milk.

Natural sugars, such as honey and agave, can replace sugar in certain recipes. While honey and agave are better for blood sugar levels, keep in mind that they are both higher in calories than sugar. However, they are very sweet, so you only need a small amount to taste the difference.

Toughness in cakes is caused by over-mixing, or the wrong type of flour. Solution: Mix your cake according to the recipe. There is a function to the order in which ingredients are added to create the right texture. As soon as you begin mixing flour with a liquid and a fat, gluten is developed.

What is the most important in baking? ›

Flour. There are no more Essential Ingredients for baking than Flour. Without it - and the gluten it creates - your baked goods won't get the right structure: it is the ingredient that binds everything together.

1. Read the recipe. Of all the important advice out there about cooking, this by far has to be the number 1 rule of cooking: read your recipe completely before getting started.

Mind your ingredient temperatures.

Butter and eggs beat up lighter and fluffier, and contain more air bubbles, when they're at room temperature. That's ideal for baking chocolate chip cookies or a moist, tender cake; cold fat can congeal and form lumps in the batter.

Successful baking requires careful attention to several key factors: 1. Properly measuring ingredients and controlling temperatures during mixing and proofing. 2. Using proper techniques for mixing, molding, proofing, and baking to develop structure and flavor.