Baking basics

kelloggs36

Vanilla extract NOT essence - there is a difference in quality and price! Extract is much more expensive but so superior in quality - don't entertain the idea of cutting costs with vanilla essence!

Mags_cat

My favourite cake of the moment is definately a gingerbready thing that I found on this site. It's versatile - you can make it into muffins, or a traybake type cake.

One thing I would recommend, though is getting some of the new silicon bakeware. It's amazing stuff and very very very non stick. The gingerbread cake has lots of black treacle in it, and I dread to think what it'd be like in an ordinary tin.

Welded on, probably...

mumoftwo

I took my DD to Mr T and she spotted those crepes with chocolate in beside the bread, expensive for what they are. Told her I would make them at home.

Just made pancake mix, made biggish pancakes, let them cool a bit, spread nutella on it and rolled up, cut in half.

they went down very well and still have some for later!! And at a fraction of the cost of shop bought.

mrcow

You will need:

Flour (self raising and plain)
Cornflour
Caster Sugar
Raisins/Cherries
Golden Syrup
Butter
Eggs
Milk
Baking Powder
Baking Soda
Cocoa
Icing sugar & colouring
Vanilla Essence

And then you can pretty make anything. From biscuits to muffins, from sponge cakes to treacle tart. From pies to meringues.

Enjoy!

mrcow

kelloggs36 wrote: »

Vanilla extract NOT essence - there is a difference in quality and price! Extract is much more expensive but so superior in quality - don't entertain the idea of cutting costs with vanilla essence!

I disagree.......I've never had problems with people scoffing down all my cakes and biscuits. And use vanilla essense all the time.

Mums bake cakes & biscuits for kids......we're not out to impress Egon Ronay.

mum26

I'd add a loaf tin if you can, I particuarly like one i've got from ikea, it is quite long which means most loaf tin recipes (banana bread etc) come out longer but slightly thinner, better for me with 8 in the house

TK MAXX is excellent for good quality bakeware at reasonable prices x

nikflo

i also buy vanilla essence, the extract for me is too expensive and makes my cheap cakes not so cheap!

sheeps68

I love the Be-Ro books but hadnt see web- site thanks

squeaky wrote: »

For lots of simple bullet proof recipes plus lots of info on basic cooking techniques you can't do better than the bero web site. Honest

http://www.be-ro.co.uk/f_insp.htm


Note to self:- Must type faster

Quillion

Annabel Karmel is good too.

www.annabelkarmel.co.uk

Happy Baking x

zippychick

My baking cupboard is forever growing!

Wholemeal flour, strong white bread, granary, seeded, Self raising, plain
Cornflour, bicarb of soda and baking powder. Skimmed milk powder , caster sugar, brown sugar (always makes me think of the song).Gelatine and glycerine (?), dessicated coconut and honey and maple syrup. Mixed nuts, walnuts , apricots and newly cranberries and figs?! Also cashew nuts .
Mixed spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla essence & flavouring, 2 food colouring, icing sugar, bun and muffin cases, pudding rice, tinned pineapple (?) , vitamin c tabs , yeast and sprinkles i got from iceland for a £1. Oh, and cocoa powder and cooking chocolate. I'm sure I've stashed some "speial" chocolate in there from myself too. And butter. It builds every time I go shopping

I have only ever used one carrot cake recipe and it is delicious and foolproof. Substitute the spices cinnamon/nutmeg etc you can't go wrong. Also very moist and keeps for up to a week. Rachel allens carrot cake . Very easy to make. Dont necessarily worry about thios topping as cream cheese can be dear. Butter icing would be lovely, but when i made it for Mothers day i did the listed topping and crushed a bag of chocolate buttons on top (where's that )

You may need to scroll down. The topping makes quite a lot and is addictive.

I only started baking very very recently, and this fairy cake thread helped me a lot - to understand how you measure out the eggs and flour etc. Fairy cakes