Sunday, June 21, 2009

The Many Ways of Baking Cakes

By Azmath Shaukath

Baking a cake is an easy practice that anyone can be able to do. People feel discouraged to bake cakes if their earlier trials ended in a disastrous state. There should not be any worries if the first time was disastrous and baking can be fun and quite simple if a few simple steps are followed. The first task to be undertaken is reading the directions and ingredients list, whether one is starting from a cake mix box or from scratch.

Most cake failures are caused by the neglect of the individual who is baking the cake to make sure that all the ingredients are present and more so in their accurate measurement. All ingredients should be available and kept at room temperature unless the recipe states otherwise. Eggs need to have 30 minutes at room temperature and then they are used. Vegetable oil, milk, water, flour, baking soda and of course the eggs, are the basic ingredients. Start baking by the preparation of the pan smearing the inside with little butter to prevent the sticking of the cake.

To the pan, add one or two tablespoons of the flour, in regards to the size of the pan. Make sure the flour is on every corner of the pan. The flour helps the cake to acquire the pan shape and make the top of the cake to be flat. Preheating the oven is the next step to 1800C hot. And in a separate bowl, pour the mixture in one by one in order of recipe specification.

The resulting mixture must be beat using a wooden spoon or bare hands for a minute or just about the well combination of the mixture. Butter should be beaten as well to make it soft and not too much. It is advisable to put the dry contents in the bowl first and then the other liquids contents added in later. After the mixture is well mixed, this mixture is then poured to the pan that was prepared earlier smoothing the top of this mixture and placing in the middle shelf of the oven, 40 to 45 minutes.

When the cake is golden and well risen, it should then be ready and the top of the cake should spring back when it is touched lightly by a fingertip. Also when a skewer is inserted through the centre of the cake, it ought to come out clean. The cake should then be left in the tin for the next five minutes. After this, a knife is gently run around the edge and the cake is turned out and placed on a wire rack to cool. Then serve dusted in icing sugar.

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