Using your food processor when making shortcrust pastry is dead easy and super quick. It's a particularly good technique to use when the weather is warm, or you have warm hands, as the butter is less likely to soften and melt while making the pastry.
To make shortcrust pastry in the food processor, follow these three simple steps:

1. Put the flour, salt, chilled butter and sugar (if the pastry is sweet) in the bowl of your food processor. Use the pulse button to process until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.
2. Sprinkle over the water/whisked egg yolk (you’ll generally find that you need a little less than if making the pastry by hand) and then use the pulse button to process briefly until the mixture just starts to cling together. Don’t let it get to the stage that it forms a ball as you may overwork the pastry and make it ‘tough’ when baked.
3. Turn the pastry out onto a lightly floured, cool bench top and bring it together with your hands. Lightly knead the pastry with your fingertips for about 10 seconds or until comes together but isn’t completely smooth. Shape the pastry into a disc, wrap well in plastic wrap and place in the fridge to rest for 30 minutes or as directed in the recipe.

Did you know that when sandwiching two separate cookies together with jam, the trick is to make sure the jam is warm? Warm jam will not only mean it will be easy to spread evenly over the base cookie, but when it cools, it will set firmly helping to hold the two cookies together without them sliding apart.

PS: You'll find the recipe for these Spitzbuben (German Jam Cookies) here.

When making cheesecakes or frostings using cream cheese it’s a good idea bring the cream cheese to room temperature before you start. If you use it straight from the fridge it will be far more difficult, and take a lot more beating or processing, for it to become lump-free, smooth and creamy. Also make sure you scrape the sides and base of the bowl often and add any liquid ingredients gradually to ensure it remains really smooth.

Small batch baking recipes often require less than one egg to be used. Here are some useful tips to help portion your eggs.

Eggs used in BakeClub recipes are 59-60g/2oz eggs (with shell) and are sold in a 700g/1lb 8oz carton.

• With the shell removed weight of the whole egg = 52g
• Approximately ⅔ of the weight of each egg is the white = 35g
• Approximately ⅓ of the weight of each egg is the yolk = 17g

When using recipes that specify less than 1 egg always whisk the whole egg together before measuring out the quantity required.

If a recipe calls for just egg yolk/s or egg white/s the remainder of the egg can be portioned and frozen in ice cube trays for use later on as required (whisk egg yolks with a good pinch of salt before freezing). Once frozen, transfer to a snap lock bag, label and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw in the fridge. Use egg whites for meringue and Swiss meringue buttercream, and egg yolks in custard, curds or to add extra richness to your cookies and cakes.

If you don't have buttermilk on hand when a recipe asks for it (or only need a small amount which doesn’t warrants buying a whole carton), you can simply make your own version!

Add 3 teaspoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice to 1 cup (250ml/9fl oz) of full-cream milk and stir well. Let it sit for a couple of minutes before using - you’ll notice the milk will curdle and thicken. It’s perfect to use in in place of milk in any bakes like scones, banana bread and muffins to add a little flavour tang!

The only thing to be aware of is that this mixture will be thinner in consistency than commercially made buttermilk so when using more than 125ml (½ cup/4fl oz) use 1 tablespoon less of your homemade buttermilk for every 125ml (½ cup/4fl oz) in the recipe so that the consistency of the batter isn't affected.

If you want to save time when baking, it’s a great idea to use your digital scale’s ability to 'zero' the reading.

By pressing the 'tare' button after each ingredient you can measure as many as you need, one after another, into the same bowl.

It is a brilliant method to use for one-bowl mixes… And then there’s all that washing up it will save you!

When a recipe asks you to ‘fold’ (such as when incorporating whisked egg whites into a base mixture) the best utensil to use is either a large metal spoon or silicone spatula. Their clean ‘slicing’ edge are the most suitable to use to cut through and gently combine mixtures so that as little of the incorporated air is lost and the mixture doesn't become ‘heavy’ due to over-mixing.

One of my favourite types of spatulas to use when folding is a ‘spoonula’ (basically a spatula with a shallow bowl like a spoon) which makes light work of folding mixtures, transferring them to cake pans and then scraping the bowl. It is well worth getting hold of one (or three!) of these if you don’t already have a spoonula!

There is no need to fuss when lining the base of a springform tin with baking paper. Simply grease the tin then tear off a square of non-stick baking paper about 8cm (3¼in) larger than the tin. Release the outside of the tin and turn the base upside-down (this will create a base without a lip, which makes removing the cake or cheesecake from the tin so much easier.) Place the paper over the base of the tin and then clamp the side of the tin around the base, to hold the paper in place.

The paper will stick out the sides but this won’t matter and the extra paper hanging out the sides will not only give you something to help lift the cake off the base once it is baked but will also make removing of the paper from the base of the cake so much easier.

It can be tricky to create an even crust made from a biscuit crumb mixture for a cheesecake or slice. An easy way to ensure you get the most even crust is to first sprinkle the crumb mixture as evenly as possible over the entire base of the pan and then use the flat base of a glass to press firmly, and evenly, down to compress it. To finish slide the glass across the base in a circular motion to even the surface.

Baking powder is the simple difference between self-raising flour and plain flour. If you only have plain flour in your pantry, you can make self-raising flour by adding 2 teaspoons baking powder to every 150g (1 cup/5½oz) plain flour. Before using, make sure you sift this mixture a few times to distribute the baking powder through the flour evenly.

When using frozen berries in your baking always add them to the mixture straight from the freezer.

Frozen berries won't 'bleed' their colour while if you thaw them before using they will streak your cakes and muffin mixtures and make them an ugly purple colour.

Also, if the berries are added while still frozen, they will remain as nice whole berries once baked rather than collapsing.

Keep in mind too, the coolness of the berries will cause the batter to become quite thick as you combine the ingredients, but don’t worry about this, it will still bake well.

When making small individual tarts it is best to roll your pastry into a log (rather than a disc) before chilling and resting.

When you come to rolling out the pastry, cut the log into slices and then roll out each portion into a round before pressing into the tins. This no-fuss method means there is very little pastry offcuts and no need to re-roll scraps (which often causes the pastry to shrink when baking), ultimately giving you more even tart shell cases. 

When making choux pastry you not only need to be able to scrap and ‘squash’ the thick batter to remove any lumps but also beat it vigorously so the eggs will be absorbed efficiently. Traditionally a wooden spoon is used when making choux pastry but, believe me, a sturdy silicone spatula or spoonula (a spatula with a shallow spoon-like shape), will be the best choice to do all of these tasks well.  I promise it will become your best friend when making this type of pastry.

Instead of using a round scone cutter when cutting out your scones why not just use a knife?! The results are slightly more rustic, but the technique is less tricky and, as a bonus, there won’t be any leftover dough.

To cut into wedges, first use the palm of your hand to gently flatten the dough on a cutting board into a round, about 2cm thick, and then use a lightly floured, large sharp knife to cut into about 8 wedges. Alternatively, to cut into squares, flatten into a square about 2cm thick and then cut into nine even squares.

When baking, place the scones in the same formation as you cut them with about ½-1cm between each one to allow for spreading.

Did you know that dusting choux pastry lightly with icing sugar before baking will help give your éclairs, profiteroles and choux buns a crisper shell as well as helping them rise more evenly so they keep their shape during baking. It’s a great trick to use whenever baking choux pastry!

When bulk proving a yeasted bread dough (the first prove), it’s a good idea to choose a bowl that has the capacity of about twice the volume of your dough. This way, if the recipe asks for the dough to be proved until it has doubled in size/volume (like so many bread recipes do), it is easy to tell when it has as it will have risen to reach the top edge of the bowl.

When making pastry it is important not to ‘rub’ too much. Let me explain….

To start with, the term ‘rubbing in’, which is used to explain the technique to bring the flour and butter together initially, is not entirely accurate – you don’t want to actually rubbing the butter into the flour, but rather break it into small pieces and coat it with the flour. Why this is important is that these flakes of butter through the pastry dough will melt during baking, releasing steam and pushing apart the structure around them, creating the characteristic flakiness you are looking for.

When ‘rubbing in’ the butter, you want to use your fingertips to pick some of the flour and butter up and then quickly and lightly slide your thumb across the tips of your fingers, breaking the butter pieces into smaller ones and coating them with flour as you do. This action will allow the butter to remain as distinct pieces, while coating them with flour.

As you rub in the butter, the mixture will first appear to be uneven, with large chunks of butter and patches of dry flour. As you continue to rub and break up the butter, the mixture will become finer, more even in texture and darker in colour. Rub JUST until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs with some larger pieces of butter still visible. Don’t continue to rub until the mixture starts to clump together as this is an indication that the butter has started to lose its identity as separate butter pieces and will begin to melt causing your final pastry to be tough and greasy when baked, instead of light and flakey as you would prefer.

Have you ever been caught out with the oven preheating but no baking powder in the house (like I did last week!)? When you know how to make your own it's not a problem!

Simply sift together 2 tablespoons cream of tartar, 1 tablespoon bicarbonate of soda and 1 tablespoon cornflour then give it a good stir or shake it well in a jar until evenly combined. Store this homemade version in an airtight jar and use it in your recipes in the same quantities as you would commercially made baking powder.

Incidentally, making your own means you can also avoid the aluminium-based acidifying agents (like sodium aluminium sulphate and sodium aluminium phosphate) sometimes used in commercial baking powder.