baking tip

ocemeer

if you use vegetable oil instead of melted butter they taste really nice and light. just made cherry and walnut ones mmm

mink35

Enough already ::)

Queenie

when baking a cake, use the papers from the top of margarine tubs to help line the tins - they're already greased!

works best for loaf-type cakes where the paper will fit almost the whole bottom of the tin

I was taught to use those marg papers to rub around the cake tin to get rid of the last scrapings - that way you are not restricted to just a loaf shaped tin

In tandem with that ... if you only bake periodically, save up your marg wrappers and freeze them until you need them to grease your tins.

Okay - another tip - when you have finished rolling out pastry, use the leftover pastry to wipe up the flour on the worksurface - makes cleaning it a whole lot easier.

Like catznine, never have left over pastry - instead of the sugar idea, we would use some cheese and make cheese straws/ ball/patty/thingymajigs.

For the worksurface, I brush off as much of the flour into my hand as I can, then simply wipe down the surface with some warm soapy water and a cloth.

crana999

ah, but you get the extra benefit of the paper in lining the tin

frozen fruit is great in smoothies - it being frozen makes the smoothies much thicker and creamier, and obviously nice and cold

just blend up some frozen fruit, milk/juice, etc.. one of my favourites is this

(this is good to use up bananas that are getting a bit black and soft, cut them up and freeze the slices)

1 banana, cut into slices and frozen

about 3/4 teaspoon cocoa (you could use hot chocolate if you dont have cocoa but use abit more)

sugar/honey to taste ( i put about a teaspoon in but you can miss it out entirely if you want)

milk or soya milk

blend until all the banana chunks have gone, serve with a straw, mmmmmm! very filling and if you use semi/ skim milk and no sugar its pretty good for you too

Frozen berries also work great in smoothies. I dont think I have tried anything except berries and bananas. I imagine peaches/nectarines/grapes would be nice too.

Queenie

ah, but you get the extra benefit of the paper in lining the tin

Heheheh - fair point!