Baking a cake? A few simple ‘cake’ tips to make it tastier and perfect

1. If you don’t like egg smell of cake, add a spoon honey while preparing its batter.

2. While preparing pan cake if you use soda instead of water your pancake becomes softer.

3. Liquid glucose – used for icing cakes and similar purposes can be taken easily if used a moist spoon.

4. While caramelizing sugar for cakes and pudding, add 3 or 4 drops of lemon juice. Sugar never changes its colour to black.

5. While baking a cake, never open the oven before the right time. Cake won’t rise up. It may not bake properly.

6. Butter, eggs and other ingredients needed for the cake preparation should be taken out of the refrigerator long before you start the preparation process. Allow them to reach room temperature. Otherwise the batter may not turn softer. 

7. If you want to use more than one egg for the preparation, never mix them together. Beat the first one, mix it well and then only add the second one.

8. Gently skew the baked cake with a toothpick at its centre. If the cake is well cooked, cake tester comes out clean. Otherwise flour may be stick on to it.

9. Once the cake is fully baked, never leave it inside the oven. Take it outside and allow to cool. Otherwise the cake may be overcooked.

10. While beating sugar with eggs, add little by little. Otherwise the solution won’t turn thick. It’s applicable while preparing other sweet dishes too, not just cake.

11. If the baked cake is too hard, prepare a little sugar solution by melting sugar in boiling water, and pour it hot on the cake. You may add only little quantity of sugar in this process. 

12. If you don’t have electronic beater at home to beat sugar, butter and eggs, use your mixer at slow speed. Do not run mixer continuously. Stop at regular intervals. Beat powdered sugar and butter first till it turns cream, and then add eggs. Beat it for 1 more minute with 2 or 3 intervals. It would be sufficient. 

13. While using skin of lemon and orange for preparing cake or other dishes, peel their outer skin only. The inner thin membrane should not be used at any cost. The white membrane makes your dish bitter.

14. It’s possible to check the quality and intensity of baking powder before preparing cake. Take 1/3rd cup of water, and add a small spoon of baking powder. If it forms a lot of bubbles, your baking soda is still active, and can be used for dishes.

15. Never throw away the paper after using butter. Keep it in refrigerator. While preparing cakes and cookies, you can use it to grease the cake tin. Add a little vanaspati too, while rubbing this paper in tin.

16. To cut cake as layers, use a plastic thread. You can easily cut cheese cake using this method.

17. It’s normal procedure to grease baking tray with butter first and then with flour. Instead take maida and butter in equal quantities, mix it and make a paste, and grease the tray. Cake comes out easily.

18. While adding dates to cake, there is a tip to make cake softer. Add a little baking powder to water, boil it along with dates and then add to batter.

Now let me introduce to you a few equipment which make your cake making and serving process easy

Revolving cake stand – This revolving cake stand make your icing process easier. Once you baked the cake, you can use this stand for icing and decoration process. It costs around 800 Indian rupees.

Icing set – Now icing set with four or more different sized nozzles are readily available. You can fill the icing mixture inside the tube and press it gently to get desired shapes. Its price starts from around 300 rupees.

Squeeze bottle – You can fill sauces for your cake in this bottle and press it on the top of your cake to do designs. Its price starts from around 100 rupees.

Cake stand – Once the cake is prepared, you can place it in a beautiful cake stand with closed lid. It’s available in different price ranges, and a standard one costs around 1800 rupees.

Cake nozzle Set – Nozzles of different shapes are readily available in market as a complete set. You can put them inside the piping bag for doing icing. A set may cost around 650 Indian rupees.

Image source: Pixabay

Want to know how to enhance and improve the taste of some of the common dishes? Here is the page link. Click on the images in the gallery to read