Recipes
Miscellaneous - Basics
These are few things which are really obvious once you've done a bit of baking, but aren't necessarily to start with.
Washing your hands before you start
It's a good idea anyway, but especially nice to do this when you're going to be sharing the fruits of your labours...
Assembling your ingredients
It's helpful to get all the ingredients out before you start, to avoid having to delve around the most inaccessible parts of your kitchen with floury hands, and to save you from having to dash out to Sainsbury's half way through your preparation.
Greasing the tin
It's usually worth doing! You can use any butter, marg or vegetable oil (and butter-wrappers, pastry brushes or clean fingers).
Creaming butter and sugar
You need to beat butter and sugar together for longer than you think! The mixture should go a very pale yellow colour, and become very very light and airy. If in doubt, beat for a bit longer!
Sifting flour
This can be a pain, but far less of a pain than trying to squash lumps of flour out of your cake mix.
How to tell when it's done
There are three ways to check:
1. Push a skewer into the middle of the cake. It should come out clean when the cake is ready.
2. Press lightly on the top of the cake. It should spring back (or at least not leave a huge finger-shaped dent in the middle of the cake!).
3. The cake may shrink away from the side of the tin when it's done.
How to separate an egg
You'll need separate clean containers for the yolks and the whites.
Crack the egg firmly on the side of the container so that the shell breaks into two halves. Try to avoid splintering the shell so that bits fall out and into the containers – they are hard to remove from the raw egg and unpalatable in the finished product – and try to avoid puncturing the yolk, otherwise it will not separate from the white.
Carefully transfer the yolk from one half of the shell to the other, while the white falls through the gap and into the container below. When all the egg white has fallen into the bowl, or if the yolk breaks, tip the yolk into the other bowl.
Further thoughts on the separation of eggs
It is usually far more important to avoid getting yolk in with the white than it is getting white in with the yolk (particularly for meringues).
If you are slack (like me) you can separate the whites straight into the bowl with your existing mixture. You are supposed to use separate containers in case you have a bad egg. I have never encountered a bad egg (so to speak), and consider the far greater risk to be breaking the yolk. But I'm such a thrill-seeker that I embrace the risk!
When to use eggs
Eggs do seem to be alright to use way after their 'use by' date – even a month later.
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