BakeTips
Clever and useful tips for your kitchen.

Easy-prepare Quinces
If you have ever prepared quinces for baking or poaching before you’ll understand how horribly difficult they are to peel, core and cut neatly due to their rock-hard nature. I spent years struggling with them...
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Pie Apples
Wondering which apples are the best to use for your Autumn and Winter pies? My favourites are Pink Lady, Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, Jonagold and Braeburn. What all these apples have in common is that...
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Sinking Fruit
Have you ever had fresh or dried fruit sink to the bottom of a cake or loaf? Don’t worry, it’s a common problem and generally happens when the cake batter isn’t heavy or thick enough...
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What is Flaky Pastry?
There are three main types of pastry: crumbly, flaky and laminated (or puff). The texture of each (which is indicated by their names) is mainly determined by two things – the consistency of the fat...
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Colouring Meringues
When colouring meringues always use gel colours. Because gel colours have a lower moisture content than conventional liquid food colours, you can achieve the same colour intensity by using much less. This is particularly important...
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Measuring 'Thick' Liquids
Generally liquids are best measured in a measuring jug. One exception to this is 'thick' liquids such as honey and golden syrup which are more accurately measured by weighing – it is also easier to...
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Festive Pastry Decoration
There are endless ways to decorate pastry tops for pies and this one, for fruit mince pies, is dead-easy, effective and festive! Simply press the end of a #11 (11mm) star piping tube into the...
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Tapping Your Bundt Tin
Bundt cakes benefit greatly from tapping the tin on the bench top a few times before baking. This will settle the cake batter into the tin (especially when they have intricate designs), removing any large...
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Shape Your Pastry
When making pastry for a pie or tart think about the shape of your dish or tin before you shaping it ready to be rested in the fridge ready for rolling. For example, if you’re...
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Jam Swirls
Jam swirls can make a very easy, effective, and of course yummy decoration that gives an almost 'painted' look for your cakes, cupcakes and pavlovas. First warm 1-2 tablespoons jam of your choice (here I...
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Drying Your Sourdough Starter
There are a number of good reasons why you would preserve your sourdough starter by drying it, including if you can’t (or don’t) want to use and/or feed it for a long period of time; you’d...
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Liquid on a Sourdough Starter
Have you ever noticed a grey-like liquid forming on the top of your sourdough starter but didn't know what it was or if your starter is still OK to use? This liquid (which also often...
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Peaking Cupcakes
Temperature has a big effect on how your cupcakes and cakes will rise during baking. When your oven temperature is too high for the type of batter you are using, your cupcakes or cake will...
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Evenly Sized Biscuits
When rolling biscuit dough into individual portions it is sometimes hard to get them all a similar size, especially if you have to team them up with a ‘partner’ when sandwiching them. There are two...
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Dry Tins in the Oven
The best way to make sure your cake, muffin and tart tins are completely dry before putting them away is to put them back in the oven after washing in hot, soapy water and rinsing...
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Evenly-sized Hot Cross Buns
When making hot cross buns, to help divide the dough evenly, use your scales to first measure the total weight of the dough and then calculate how much dough you need for each bun, weighing...
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Instant Dried Yeast vs Fresh Yeast
There are two main types of commercially available yeast used for making yeasted breads – instant dried yeast and fresh or compressed yeast. Dried yeast is reliable and convenient while I believe that fresh yeast...
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Cool the Liquid Ingredients
Melt-and-mix cakes (those that are simply made by combining heated, melted ingredients with the dry ingredients) are one of the easiest types of cakes to bake, but there is one main thing that you need...
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