The why behind the what
Baking guides
Short reads on the parts of baking that go wrong. No history of the Victoria sponge, no twelve-hundred words before the method.
- Troubleshooting · 7 min readWhy is my cake raw in the middle?Brown on the outside, wet in the centre. It is nearly always heat in the wrong place, and there are four ways to fix it, including one that rescues the cake you are holding.
- Technique · 11 min readHow to make a cake more moistMoisture in a cake is mostly fat and sugar doing their job, not water. Six changes that work, two that do not, and the one that matters more than all of them.
- Troubleshooting · 9 min readWhy did my cake sink in the middle?Seven causes, one of which is almost certainly yours. Read the crater, find the fault, and know how to stop it happening again.
- Technique · 9 min readCake tin sizes, and how to convert any recipeThe arithmetic is area, not diameter, and the reason a 23 cm tin gives you a disappointingly flat cake.
- Technique · 9 min readHow to make salted caramel that never seizesDry caramel in four stages, what to do when it turns to a lump, and why pale caramel tastes of nothing at all.
The Sunday slice