Throughout the book there are lots of tips and notes alongside the recipes. Most are also here, for general ease of reference. It’s not a comprehensive ‘baker’s bible’: it’s the things we think are useful and interesting to know, or which need more explanation than a recipe has the space to give.

Bain-marie

We use a bain-marie – a water bath – when baking our Hot Chocolate Pudding (see here), Ginger Crème Caramel (see here), and also for the custard in the Chai Brûlée Tarts (see here). Although a lot of people bake their cheesecakes inside a water bath placed in the oven – the rationale being that because the temperature of the water cannot rise above 100°C, the cheesecake will cook evenly – we are not fans. For the recipes in which we do use the technique, take care when filling your tray with hot water. Place the tray in the oven before pouring the water in, rather than trying to lift and move a tray full of water across the kitchen, which can be both messy and dangerous.

Butter

BURNING › Burnt butter – or beurre noisette – is the process by which butter is heated on the stove for so long that it starts to foam, turn a light brown colour and smell nutty. Small brown specks of sediment will form on the side of the pan, which are then removed when the butter is strained through a fine sieve. The strained butter – the ‘burnt’ butter – brings a nutty caramel note (as well as a golden brown colour) to your baking. We use it in our Brown Butter Tuiles (see here), Blackberry Friands (see here) and Coffee Financiers (see here).

TEMPERATURE OF › The temperature of butter when you start baking is always important. Sometimes it needs to be fridge-cold (if you are rubbing it into flour to form a crumb-like consistency for a dough, for example). Sometimes it needs to be at room temperature (if you want it to be malleable enough to be mixed with other ingredients until smooth, or if you want a batter to drop nicely and evenly into a cupcake mould). Sometimes you want it to be what we call ‘soft but not oily’. This is where it is softer than room temperature but not so soft as to be sitting in an oily puddle (as it would be if you’d melted it for a few seconds in the microwave, for example), which would result in a dense cake. We get our butter to this point by sitting it in a bowl close to the stove top while we are getting on with other bits and bobs in the kitchen. Cutting the butter into roughly 3cm cubes and spreading them out over the wrapper or a plate will speed up the process further. Either way, keep an eye on it: if it’s no longer solid then you’ve taken it too far.

When melting butter, we also cut it into cubes, so that it melts faster and more evenly: you don’t want it to boil away and reduce.

Sometimes we say that butter should be melted and then returned to room temperature before, say, being added to a mix with lots of eggs in it. This is to prevent the eggs being ‘cooked’ by the heat of the butter.

All the butter we start with is unsalted. This then allows us to control the amount of salt used in a recipe.

Chocolate

CALLETS/CHIPS VS BLOCK › In the shops and bakery we use chocolate callets (or chips) in our baking. They come in a range of cocoa percentages and have the great advantage of melting evenly, which makes the chocolate less temperamental to work with. Callets or chips are available online, in specialist chocolate shops and more generally in supermarkets, but for the ease of the home cook, we have started with blocks of chocolate which are then chopped by hand. How precise you need to be when breaking up or chopping the chocolate is indicated in each recipe. Precision will matter more in some cases than others. There are some instances where callets or chips are needed: in our Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies (see here), for example: if you started with a whole block of chocolate and cut it into uneven chunks, this would lead to an uneven bake.

MELTING › When melting chocolate, avoid the temptation to stir it too often or too vigorously, as this will cause it to seize up. It will always stiffen up a bit if another hot liquid is added to it – hot water or coffee, for example, in the Flourless Chocolate Layer Cake (see here) – but it will smooth out again with just a little bit of gentle stirring. If folding melted chocolate into another mixture – whisked egg yolks and sugar, for example – your melted chocolate should be slightly cooled (rather than completely cooled, which will make it too firm).

Sometimes we melt chocolate by pouring scalding milk or cream over chopped chunks of chocolate and only stirring it through once it’s been left to sit. To scald milk or cream you heat it just up to the point before it starts boiling. Once there are one or two bubbles on the surface, remove it from the heat; if it actually comes to a proper boil, you’ve taken it too far and the chocolate will scorch or split.

TEMPERING › When chocolate is melted and used as a coating or spread, it sometimes develops white streaks. These occur as a result of the chocolate melting then cooling, and the cocoa butter – the fat naturally present in cocoa beans, which gives chocolate its irresistible mouth-feel – solidifying into fat crystals which all have different shapes and melting points. These white streaks – known as ‘fat bloom’ – can give the chocolate a slightly dull appearance or gritty texture. The chocolate is perfectly edible, but it doesn’t look great. If you want to prevent the formation of white streaks, you need to temper the chocolate. This is the process of carefully melting and cooling chocolate to ensure that the cocoa butter crystallizes properly.

There are several ways to temper chocolate, from elaborate mixing techniques with finely controlled temperatures, to tempering machines which do all the work for you. The simplest way is to chop or shave the chocolate into small, even-sized pieces, then remove about a quarter of the chocolate and set these pieces aside. Melt the remaining three-quarters of the chocolate in a bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water, making sure the base of the bowl is not touching the surface of the water. Remove the bowl from the simmering water and, when it’s off the heat, add the reserved pieces of chocolate. Stir through until melted and cooled.

You don’t need to temper chocolate every time you work with it. We only temper it when the chocolate is going to be used and seen as a coating: in the Coconut Brittle (see here) and Grapefruit Peel (see here). You could do it for the chocolate-coated meringue in the Frozen Espresso Parfait (see here), if you like, but this again is optional, as the whole thing is covered in praline before being frozen.

This might all seem like a lot of information for a process you only use one or twice, but we hope it’s interesting and useful, nevertheless!

CHOCOLATE (WHITE) › White chocolate can be more temperamental than other chocolate when it’s being melted. If it’s heated too quickly, it will seize up. To prevent this, either start with callets (or chips), or shave your block of chocolate into flakes, or simply make sure you chop your block of chocolate into even-sized pieces. If uneven, the pieces will melt at different times and will seize up when stirred. When melting, do so over a low heat, either in a heatproof bowl over a pan of gently simmering water or on a low temperature in a microwave.

Citrus fruit (peeling)

When shaving peel off citrus fruit – lemons, limes, oranges – always avoid the white pith. This is bitter and can carry its bitterness through your baking (unless you are blanching the whole peel, as for the Grapefruit Peel, here).

Eggs

NUMBER OF › The more eggs you have in a cake batter, the closer eye you need to keep on it towards the end of baking: a relatively large number of eggs means that a cake can go from being a little bit liquid in the middle to being cooked in just a few minutes. As ever, a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake will give you a good indication as to what’s going on inside.

SIZE AND TEMPERATURE OF › Unless otherwise stated, we assume that eggs are large and at room temperature when you start baking. This is what our baking times are based on. For some recipes, though, the temperature of the eggs is not just important, it’s crucial. In the Hot Chocolate Pudding (see here) or the Coffee Pound Cake (see here), which contain a lot of eggs, if you start with fridge-cold eggs then the mix won’t just split: it will lead to a cold, heavy batter that has to work harder to rise in the oven. If your eggs are in the fridge and you want to start baking straight away, bring them to room temperature by placing them in a small bowl and covering with hot tap water (not boiling water) for 5 minutes before using.

Egg whites also whisk more effectively when they are not fridge-cold, so bring these out of the fridge an hour or so before you are going to make a meringue.

FREEZING EGG WHITES › Egg whites freeze well, so always save those not used if a recipe calls for egg yolk only.

Genoise sponge (making)

For all the ambitious and involved things one can do while baking, there’s almost nothing more satisfying than making the perfect genoise: one that’s rich and buttery, but light at the same time. There’s just something a little bit magic about it! Behind the magic, there is quite a lot of method – none of it complicated, but all of it important.

› Get organized before you start. Have everything weighed out and ready for when it’s needed. The sponge mixture is delicate and you don’t want to lose the precious air bubbles you’ve worked so hard to achieve by making them wait around while you weigh things out.

› Start with eggs at room temperature (see here). Speed is important and they will whip quicker (with lighter results) than fridge-cold.

› Don’t be tempted to skimp on the number of times the flour needs to be sifted. For the cake to be as light and fluffy as can be, three really is the magic number.

› Do not grease your cake rings. In order to get an even rise, you want the mixture to stick to the sides as it rises.

› Make sure the butter is fully melted but not hot. It needs to be poured into the cake mix by gently dribbling it down the sides of the bowl and folded in swiftly but gently. If the butter is too hot, or poured in too quickly, it will sink to the bottom and create a dense, oily texture.

› Make sure your oven is at the correct temperature when the cakes are ready to go in. We would say this is the case for all recipes, but some cake batters are more robust than others and can afford to wait around for an oven to come to temperature if needs be. The sponge is too delicate and light to sit around: it needs to go into the oven as soon as it is ready, otherwise it will deflate. Close the oven door gently and do not be tempted to open it for the first 10 minutes.

› You’ll know when the cake is cooked as it will be lightly browned, the edges will have shrunk slightly away from the sides of the rings, and the centre should spring back when pressed lightly.

› Once baked, the sponge is fragile, so take care when slicing it (particularly if you’ve made one large cake rather than several mini-ones, which will be easier to slice). When slicing in half horizontally, we insert toothpicks around the cake to mark where to cut it, to ensure a straight line. When cutting, insert your knife, then move the cake around (rather than jigging your knife around the cake). When lifting the top off, ready to ice, use a cake lifter or jumbo cookie spatula – or even the base of a springform tin – to help. It might crumble if you lift it with your hands.

Ice bath

An ice bath is simply a bowl filled with ice and water. It is used to quickly bring down the temperature of whatever is plunged into it (in a separate and smaller bowl). We often use ice baths when making custards for ice cream or sugar syrups for sorbets. Starting off with very cool custard or sugar syrup helps things along greatly when it is then transferred to a machine to be churned.

Meringues

There are three types of meringue: Swiss, French and Italian. They’re all made in a different way and produce slightly different results.

SWISS MERINGUE › The egg whites and sugar are heat-treated together before they are whipped. This happens when the meringue is not going to get any further cooking (when it’s piped on to a cheesecake, for example). Heat-treating it in the first instance gives it the ‘cooking’ it needs to be safe to eat (it must be heated to 71°C) and makes it stable enough to hold its shape when piped on to a cake. Swiss meringue is denser than either French or Italian meringue, with a texture that’s smooth, silky and marshmallow-like.

FRENCH MERINGUE › The sugar is drizzled on to the egg whites as they are being beaten, creating a light and crisp meringue. French meringue always needs to be baked, to prevent the egg whites in the mix breaking down. This is the meringue we use for our Rolled Pavlova (see here) and Woodland Meringues (see here). The reason the meringue goes into a hot oven and the temperature is turned down straight away is to give it a nice crisp exterior and a soft and marshmallow-like interior.

ITALIAN MERINGUE › Probably the most stable of all the methods. This is the result of a very hot sugar syrup being poured over the egg whites as they are beaten. This method requires a bit more attention and patience than the other two, as the temperature of the sugar syrup needs to reach 118°C on a sugar thermometer before it is poured into the egg whites. In turn, the egg whites must be whisked to a good volume without becoming grainy (over-whisked) before the sugar syrup is dribbled in. Timing is everything, as we so often say when cooking with sugar. But with all your ingredients at-the-ready, and with one eye on the thermometer and the other on the whipping egg whites, you will have shiny, fluffy fabulous meringues. ‘I felt like I grew a metre taller,’ Helen says, remembering the day she mastered Italian meringue.

Moisture in a cake (oil vs butter)

Using oil rather than butter in cakes tends to keep them moist for longer. This is because oil remains liquid at cooler temperatures, whereas butter solidifies to make cakes firm over time. The lack of butter can sometimes translate to diminished flavour, however, so this needs to be compensated for by turning up the volume on the other ingredients. In our Pineapple Chiffon Cake (see here), for example, the fresh pineapple, star anise and orange zest are there to make sure the cake delivers in all areas.

Nuts

ROASTING › Even if you start with pre-roasted nuts, always give your batch a quick re-roast in a warm oven for 5 minutes. The success of a biscuit or cake often relies on the nuts being fragrant: just 5 minutes in an oven set to 200°C/180°C Fan/Gas Mark 6 will help release their oils. For our recipes, we have assumed that all nuts will be in need of roasting. Timings and temperatures are given in each recipe.

When a recipe calls for toasted flaked almonds, we prefer to start with untoasted flaked almonds and toast them ourselves, as we have more control over how long they are cooked for, and a fresh toasting is always good to draw out the oils. You can start with ready-toasted flaked almonds, if you prefer, however.

BLITZING › Always wait for nuts to come to room temperature before you blitz them: they’ll turn to an oily paste if blitzed when warm.

REMOVING THE SKIN › If roasting nuts so as to remove their skins (as with hazelnuts, for example), transfer the nuts to a clean tea towel after roasting, fold in the sides of the cloth and give a vigorous rub to release them from the skin.

TASTING › For notes on the importance of tasting your nuts before adding to your bake (to make sure they are not rancid), see here.

Oven temperature and tray positioning

Oven temperature is key to success in baking. At the same time as following our guidelines, you have to be mindful of the fact that all ovens are slightly different, so you need to use your initiative if you think something needs a few minutes more or less in the oven. As well as a cooking time, visual guides are also given so that you know what to look for. The best way to get it right is to get to know your oven – you’ll soon know if you consistently need to be giving things, say, 3 minutes longer than suggested – and to get to know a particular recipe really well; it’s in being able to gauge for yourself whether something is ready that you’ll become a really confident cook.

Unless otherwise stated, always position your cake or tray in the middle of your oven to get an even bake (or create an even distance between your trays, if you’re baking with more than one). Rotating your tray halfway through baking will also ensure an even bake.

If a bake starts with an initially high oven temperature which is then reduced as soon as it goes in the oven, this is often done to bring about a contrast between a brown crisp crust and a gooey, soft inside. This is a technique we employ in our Blackberry Friands (see here).

Pastry

Tips and notes on the various pastries used in the book can be found at the beginning of the Tarts and pies chapter (see here).

Pineapple purée (cooking of)

We always heat through our pineapple purée before adding it to a cake mix. This works to intensify the flavour of the pineapple (rather than just adding more pineapple, which would make the batter too runny and prevent the cake from rising) and to destroy the enzyme bromelain, which can break down the gluten in the flour, resulting in a dense cake.

Proving dough

The rate at which your dough will prove depends hugely on the temperature of your kitchen. You’ll need to use the visual guides given in a recipe to gauge whether your dough needs more or less time to rise. The reason we keep the dough for Roma’s Doughnuts (see here) in the fridge overnight after the first prove is to much decrease the amount of time spent waiting for the dough to prove for a second time on the day you want to fry and eat them. In the case of the doughnuts, the benefits of proving the dough on individual squares of baking parchment is a baker’s tip we were very happy to learn and which we’re very happy to share (see here).

Resting (the importance of)

Don’t be tempted to miss out on the resting stage before a cake is baked, if it’s recommended. If there are lots of ground almonds in a mix, for example (as with the Flourless Chocolate ‘Teacakes’, here), it’s really important to allow them to fully absorb the liquids: this will make the cake as moist as can be.

Roulade ‘training’

In order to prepare our roulade before it’s rolled, we like to ‘train’ it. This is done by rolling it in a clean, dry tea towel after it’s been baked so that it rolls seamlessly (and without breaking) once the cream filling is in place. It’s a neat trick. Once you’ve cracked it (or not, in the case of your sponge!) you’ll feel like a roulade-making pro. This also applies to the sponge in the Blackcurrant Stripe Cake (see here).

Sifting

DRY INGREDIENTS › The key to pillow-y lightness is often in sifting together the dry ingredients. Not once, not twice, but sometimes (in the case of the Powder Puff recipes here) three times! It might sound a bit much, we know, but it makes all the difference, ridding the mix of any impurities at the same time as getting all that aeration into the mix.

Where we have more than one dry ingredient – flour, salt, spices, icing sugar, etc – we like to sift these all together into the mixing bowl (rather than separately or in advance): this ensures that everything is evenly distributed throughout the batter or dough.

CASTER SUGAR › When the sugar is part of the dry ingredients (as opposed to being creamed with the butter, for example), we also tend to sift that with the flour. However, in cakes where there is a high level of liquid – in the Take-home Chocolate Cake (see here) or the Chocolate Guinness Cakes (see here) – the sugar is added early on, while the liquid is still warm, so that it melts into the cake batter and produces a more even texture. Since it’s added at the same time as the cocoa powder, we’ve sifted them at the same time as it makes it easier to incorporate into the liquid. This also prevents the cocoa powder from clumping, which it can do when dumped into the liquid by itself.

ICING SUGAR › With icing sugar, whether or not we sift it depends on what it’s used for. If it is going into a meringue, for example, it is always sifted. If mixing icing sugar with water or another liquid, there is no need to sift it. If creaming with butter, whether or not we sift depends on how old the icing sugar is: the older it is the lumpier it can become, from moisture in the air. Icing sugar in the UK usually contains cornflour to reduce the lumpiness, but in places where ‘pure’ icing sugar is sold, it’s often lumpy and must be sifted before using.

This might seem like a lot of information on the nature of sifting, but it does make a smoother batter: a sift in good time saves nine, and all that.

Storage

The way in which things are stored will really affect how long they last. Notes are always given as to whether things should be kept in an airtight container or wrapped loosely in foil. Again, whether they are kept at room temperature, in the fridge or in the freezer will also make a difference to whether something dries out, goes soggy or starts to ‘weep’. Do try to follow the guidelines given: it will make such a difference.

Sugar

CARAMELIZING › There are two ways to caramelize sugar: a ‘dry’ method and a ‘wet’ method. In the ‘dry’ method the sugar is cooked, without water, in a large shallow frying pan or skillet. In the ‘wet’ method, water is added to the sugar to begin the caramelizing process and the caramel is cooked in a saucepan. ‘Wet’ caramel starts off as a thick sugar syrup, which begins to caramelize as the water evaporates. If there is no water, the sugar begins to caramelize faster.

The ‘dry’ method produces a darker, more complex-flavoured caramel in a shorter time. It’s the method we use when we want a small amount of caramel, as with the caramelized pineapple on our Passionfruit Cheesecake (see here), for example. You need to be vigilant when making it and keep a very close eye on the pan: don’t be tempted to move away until the caramel is all done. The ‘wet’ method is useful when you need to make a large batch of caramel for a sauce, perhaps, or for the coffee praline in the Frozen Espresso Parfait (see here).

CARAMEL (THE DIFFERENT STAGES OF COOKED SUGAR) › When making caramel, the cooked sugar will go through stages, from ‘thread stage’ to ‘hard crack’. The stages are reached at different temperatures and each results in a caramel with a very different consistency and purpose.

THREAD STAGE › The first stage of caramel, when the sugar and water have melted together and the consistency is that of sugar syrup. This stage is reached when the temperature is 110–112°C.

SOFT BALL › The texture here is that of a soft, sticky ball, like buttercream, fudge or fondant. This is reached when the temperature is 113–116°C.

FIRM BALL › This is when the caramel is firm but pliable. It is the stage you want to reach when making certain caramels or toffees. The temperature for this stage is 118–120°C.

HARD BALL › The consistency here is that of a harder ball, one that holds its shape. It’s the stage reached by caramels, toffees and nougats with a slightly firmer texture. The temperature here should be 121–130°C.

SOFT CRACK › This is when the caramel has developed firm yet pliable strands: it is what you want for the making of butterscotch or firm nougat. The temperature should be 132–143°C.

HARD CRACK › This is the firmest stage of the caramel, almost brittle-like, where the stiff threads break easily. It is the stage you want to reach when making hard candy and spun sugar. The temperature should be 149–154°C.

Cooking with sugar requires a sugar thermometer, to take any guesswork out of the equation. It also requires the baker to be in control of timings, as the sugar syrup often needs to be at a certain stage at the exact same time as something else needs to be happening.

Temperature (of ingredients)

We have talked about the importance of eggs and butter being at the correct temperature when baking (see here and here). In addition, the temperature of other dairy ingredients needs to be noted. In the White Chocolate Cheesecake (see here), for example, both the cream cheese and soured cream need to be fridge-cold. This allows the mix to remain cool enough for the chocolate not to melt when added. In the Coffee Pound Cake (see here), the milk and the eggs need to be at room temperature, to minimize the risk of the mix splitting.

Tins

GREASING › We like to grease our baking trays and tins with (barely) melted butter. We prefer this to cooking sprays (vegetable oils), which can affect the taste of the cake. If the moulds of a tray are lined with paper liners – when making cupcakes, for example – then we are happy to use this spray, as the batter will not come into direct contact with it. In the case of muffin tins (or other tins in which the cake mixture is going to rise up and over the top rim of the mould), it’s always useful to spray or grease the surface of the tray, as well as the moulds, to prevent the cooked cake from sticking to the tin and crumbling when you try to remove it.

The more nooks and crannies a tin has, the more care you need to take when greasing it, to prevent the cooked cake getting stuck to the inside of the tin. Bundt tins, for example, require a lot of greasing.

If you are greasing with an oil rather than butter, always use a light sunflower oil rather than olive oil, which will be too heavy and thick.

LINING › To line our trays and tins, we use non-stick baking parchment. In some cases (in the very delicate Cats’ Tongues, here) we recommend using a non-stick silicone baking mat instead of parchment, if you have one.

CHOOSING › For more on the tins we use, along with what can be used as an alternative, see here. Other options and tips are given throughout the book.

MEASURING › To find the accurate width and length of a tin, always measure from inside edge to inside edge, so the measurement does not include the thickness of the tin. Fluted tins are measured from the inside edge of one outer curve to the inside edge of the curve directly across from it. To measure a round cake tin, measure across the top diameter of the tin, from edge to edge. If the sides are sloping, then also measure the base of the tin. To measure the tin’s depth, place a ruler on the kitchen counter and measure straight up from the bottom of the pan. If the pan edge is slanted, do not slant the ruler, measure straight upwards.

This all sounds very prescriptive and strict, we know: we take all these details very seriously. At the same time, though, don’t worry if your tin or tray has dimensions which are slightly different to ours. As well as making recommendations for alternative shapes and sizes for tins, where we can, visual guides are given so you’ll know when your cake is ready. This should give you the confidence to use a slightly different sized or shaped tin, if you need to, and then make adjustments to the baking time accordingly.

Water ganache

Water ganache sounds like a contradiction in terms – the mixing of chocolate and water doesn’t feel as though it should work – but in fact it emulsifies into the smoothest of all ganaches. Using water instead of cream means that nothing distracts from the pure taste of the chocolate. It’s also much more stable and easy to work with than cream-based ganaches, which (though they taste great) tend to lose their shine after an hour or two and turn a bit dull and grainy. Water ganache keeps in the fridge for days and can be reheated either in a bain-marie or in a small saucepan over a low heat; you will need to stir constantly and maybe add a touch more water. For instructions on how to make the perfect water ganache, see the Flourless Chocolate ‘Teacakes’.

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