Baking quick questions

krlyr

I use porridge oats mixed in with the flour/butter topping of a crumble for an extra crunch, seems to go down well with everyone. Otherwise I tend to use it to make dog treats for my two mutts, but that's plain stuff with no added salt/sugar. If you go to allrecipes.co.uk you can search for recipes by the ingredients you have, you could give that a try.

mandragora_2

Flapjack??

Justamum

Nicolafine wrote: »

Can anybody help? I bought a huge box of instant porridge oats (the sachet type) and nobody in the house likes them. I don't want to throw them away. Can anyone suggest a biscuit or cake recipe that will use them up??

Do you make bread? If so you could put a sachet in every loaf you make. I often whizz up oats and add them to my bread dough.

rosie383

Something is annoying me and I know all you lovely people can help!

How do I avoid getting any flour lumps in my cake? I can bake fairly well but occasionally have this problem. Just wee lumps, especially noticeable in a dark chocolate cake. I sieve the flour. The latest recipe that I am using says to mix half the flour in well, with the milk in the recipe, then add the rest.
I have tried to fold it in, whisk it in, but the last couple of times I have ended up with wee tiny white lumps of flour after it is cooked.

Has anyone got any idea what I am doing wrong? Do I need to sieve the cocoa and flour together?

rosie383

Anyone? Before it drops off the first page please? I know that loads of you will know the answer!

zippychick

Not sure why if you're sieving it all Rosie. I would try sieveing all the dry ingredients together?

Zip

marmiterulesok

rosie383 wrote: »

Something is annoying me and I know all you lovely people can help!

How do I avoid getting any flour lumps in my cake? I can bake fairly well but occasionally have this problem. Just wee lumps, especially noticeable in a dark chocolate cake. I sieve the flour. The latest recipe that I am using says to mix half the flour in well, with the milk in the recipe, then add the rest.
I have tried to fold it in, whisk it in, but the last couple of times I have ended up with wee tiny white lumps of flour after it is cooked.

Has anyone got any idea what I am doing wrong? Do I need to sieve the cocoa and flour together?

When I make a cake,I always sieve the flour at least three times.This is mainly because I don't live in the UK and SR flour is not available,so it's to make sure that the flour and baking powder are well mixed in.I'm sure sieving the flour a few more times won't do any harm.

Then I suppose it's a case of it all being well mixed.It sounds like you do this well...

I must admit that I never have your problem.Maybe try sieving a few more times.

It must be very annoying!HTH.

nuatha

rosie383 wrote: »

How do I avoid getting any flour lumps in my cake? I can bake fairly well but occasionally have this problem. Just wee lumps, especially noticeable in a dark chocolate cake. I sieve the flour. The latest recipe that I am using says to mix half the flour in well, with the milk in the recipe, then add the rest.

How are you mixing it?
I wonder if some flour is stuck at the bottom or on the sides of the bowl hiding under the mixed batter. If you're using a stand mixer, perhaps its set slightly too high, in any case it may be worth scraping down the sides and across the bottom of a bowl and giving it a final mix.

HTH

squeaky

I'd go with nuatha on this one.

Belting away with my mixing spoon, but when I start scraping the stuff out of the mixing bowl... there it is... stuff (even completely unmixed flour, never mind lumps) that the spoon didn't reach.

I'm much more careful about checking the bottom and sides of the bowl these days. What I usually do is to start the mix of wet and dry ingredients - then get out my trusty scraper (which I'm going to use anyway to get the stuff out of the bowl) and scrape and fold (which gives me lumps - true) and then carry on mixing/beating until it's all nice and smooth.

Justamum

squeaky wrote: »

Belting away with my mixing spoon, but when I start scraping the stuff out of the mixing bowl... there it is... stuff (even completely unmixed flour, never mind lumps) that the spoon didn't reach.

I find this too, and it only seems to happen when I use a small mixing bowl - when I use a really big one I seem to be able to mix everything in properly.