Revealed – baking tips from the stars of the Great British Bake Off. How do you make sure that your chocolate icing doesn’t crack, how can you prevent cakes with berries bleeding? The bakers of GBBO reveal this and more …
BAKING TOP TIPS: Nadiya Hussain, Series 6 winner
Invest in an oven thermometer – ovens have a tendency to dip in temperature and on oven thermometer is an inexpensive piece of kit that will help ensure that you are baking at the correct heat.
BAKING TOP TIPS: Rahul Mandal, Series 9 winner
Always use accurate weighing scale to measure your ingredients. Remember that flour, sugar, butter and eggs makes cakes, biscuits and pancakes. The difference is the quantities of each ingredient so it is important to get it right.
BAKING TOP TIPS: Sophie Faldo, Series 8 winner
When making the dough for cinnamon buns, boil and then cool the milk before using. This process is called scalding – it deactivates the whey in the milk, which helps the dough to rise.
Bundt cakes are stylish, but can be a pain to remove from the tin. Try John’s foolproof butter, butter, flour method for perfect cake release. Melt the butter, and with a pastry brush wipe the whole inside of the tin. Put the tin in the freezer to harden the butter. Then put another layer of melted butter on top. Then dust with flour.
To achieve a great crunch and appearance to chocolate chip cookies, once the cooking time is complete, remove the tray from the oven and bang it once, firmly, on the work surface.
Bread that hasn’t been kneaded for long enough can cause your final loaf to be dense and heavy. To check what you’ve kneaded for long enough pull out a piece of dough between your hands. It should be able to stretch to 20cm without breaking.
To help assemble the roulade without cracking it is important you do not cover the cake with a tea-towel when cooling or pre-roll the cake before adding the filling (as you might do with a normal Swiss roll).
