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Hints, Tips and Tools (7 Viewers)

Baking tips, helpful hints, how to guides, decorating, tools & their uses...
Cornflour or cornstarch, as it's known in the USA, can be used as an alternative to icing sugar for rolling out your icing, fondant or sugarpaste; however, for best results, only use it on light or pastel colours. Cornflour/cornstarch should not be used for rolling out dark coloured icing fondant or sugarpaste such as red, black, blue etc.; this is because the cornflour/cornstarch does not absorb into the icing and will leave a dusty residue that will not come off and ultimately may ruin your final design. Warning: Do not use cornflour to dust your work surface when you are rolling out the marzipan; this is because it reacts with the cornflour and will make a horrible mess; as a rule of thumb for Marzipan, always dust your work...
A bundt cake is a cake that is baked in a bundt tin which has a distinctive ridged ring. They are generally used across North America and 'Bundt' is the name of the tin. 1. For best results ensure that your Bundt tin is greased properly either using cake release or butter. 2. Lightly coat your greased tin with flour before adding your cake batter, this will help with a smooth release once your cake has baked. 3. Only fill your Bundt tin two thirds full. 4. Use all your ingredients at room temperature. 5. Lightly pre-whisk your eggs before adding to the bundt mixture as this speeds up the science process when baking. 6. If the bundt cake browns too much then cover the top with butter papers or baking parchment. Also see Lemon...
If you are inserting wired flowers, feathers or anything else into a cake then you must ensure that you insert them into a posy pick before you insert into the cake. By inserting your items into a posy pick and then inserting them into the cake you are creating a protective barrier between the item and fresh cake. These picks come in a range of sizes.
These are names used for icing or fondant that can be rolled out with a rolling pin then used to cover cakes, you can also make edible decorations with it too. This is what they look like:- Brand Names: Asda call it White Icing Dr Oetker call it Regal Ice Ready to Roll Renshaws call it Regal Ice or Decor-Ice this is good quality Professional Icing bought from Cake suppliers. Cake stores sometimes have their own brand and call it sugarpaste. These are all the same product but just using different names and colours. Hints, Tips and Tools Basic Baking and Cake Decorating Recipes and Guides Tutorials
Before you start to bake get all the ingredients out that you require and then place the items on your worktop counter in the order that you are going to use them. Not only does this make it easier when you are mixing your batter, but it also ensures that you add all the required ingredients to your baking and nothing gets missed out. Hints, Tips and Tools Basic Baking and Cake Decorating Recipes and Guides Tutorials
If you do not have any measuring spoons but you have children then try this neat measuring tip. You will see from the picture that a child’s medicine spoon is 5ml at the large end and 2.5ml at the small end. Therefore for a rough conversion use the following:- 1 Teaspoon = 5ml = 1 large medicine spoonful. 1 Tablespoon = 15ml = 3 large + 1 level medicine spoonfuls. These medicine spoons fit great into baking powder and bicarbonate pots too.
For great baking results and a lighter fluffier bake then always use eggs at room temperature. If you beat the egg slightly before adding to your mixture it will distribute evenly throughout the batter and trap air whilst baking giving you lovely light airy cakes and cupcakes.
To prolong the life of your tin and prevent rusting do the following:- Once you have washed and rinsed your tin and lightly dried it with a piece of kitchen towel place your tin in the oven with the door closed. The remaining heat from your oven after baking will dry out your tins fully and prevent them from rusting. Allow the tins to cool fully before removing from the oven and being placed away.
To prevent your cupcake from moving whilst piping, then place the cupcake in a slim glass which will hold it still. This frees up both your hands allowing you to concentrate on holding the piping bag correctly and perfecting your swirl. Also, see the piping video on the tutorial for... https://www.helpmebake.com/threads/how-to-make-ice-cream-cupcake-cones-tutorial.517/
If you have cracked your egg and tiny pieces of shell have landed in the bowl, you can use the following tips to get it out! 1 Use the large piece of the shell to extract the smaller pieces from the bowl. It attracts back to the larger piece like a magnet and is easily removed. (You'll spend ages with a spoon!) 2 An alternative is to wet your finger with water and then press it onto the eggshell; it will stick to your finger and will remove easily! :D

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