How I bake
Cut the cups – use digital scales
If you are a converted weigher, I am just so glad
you are on the scale bandwagon. Please mingle
over there and help yourself to snacks, a spritz?
If you aren’t, hear me out: the ‘weigh’ I see it,
working WITHOUT scales is akin to landing a plane
without lights on the runway. Disaster! Scales help
you consistently nail a sound (baking) landing by
getting amounts as close to the prescribed gram
(ounce too, but grams are neater) as possible.
And this means your batter textures will be
perfect, your cake layers even and your dough
structure impeccable. Also, less washing up, less
squinting to check liquid measurements and easy
maths when multiplying or halving a recipe (half
of 170 g is 85 g. Half of ⅔ cup is <insert brain
explode emoji>).

Baking is part science – you are literally creating
new structures from flour and sugar and eggs – so
accuracy is vital. And a gram is always a gram , no
matter where in the world you are baking. Spend
decent dough on scales (around $40 and up)
and check they are accurate now and again by
weighing an unwrapped supermarket fresh 250 g
(9 oz) block of butter. Some cup-measure faithfuls
will counter that scales remove the fun of baking.

I say baking fun is obliterated when you have to
throw out failed bakes and the $$$ you spent.

Be temperature attentive
Temperatures are the wings to propel you into the
arms of baking success! Make four temperature
assessments for baking your best:

1. Liar liar, your oven temperature should be

higher (or lower)
The greatest lie ever told to a baker is that the
temperature inside your oven is exactly what the
dial on the outside is set to. Buy an inexpensive
oven thermometer to get the truth your baking
deserves. My new home oven isn’t fancy, but my
trusty oven thermometer has ascertained it runs
around 10°C (50°F) lower than the temperature
I set on the control panel. So if I need to bake
something at 140°C (285°F), I’ll set the oven dial
to 150°C (300°F) to get the right temperature.

If you don’t have an oven thermometer, use the
baking time in the recipes as your indicator.

If a cake takes waayyyy longer to cook than
the suggested time, that’s a sure sign your
temperature needs to go up. And the converse
is also true. A 30-minute cake cooking in
15 minutes isn’t ideal, so lower your temperature
on the dial. Once you have oven understanding,
pop a sticky note on your recipe page so every
time you bake, you know what YOUR oven
should be set at. Ovens also have untrustworthy
evenness, with hot spots inside the chamber.

Learn where the hot spots are by baking a tray of
cookies and rotate trays when needed.

2. It’s getting room temperature in here so tell

me what that is
Room temperature is a vague term, like ‘cocktail
attire’. We kind of get it, but it would be nice
to have a more prescriptive explanation. It is
conventionally taken at 20°C (70°F). In my home
kitchen, my room temperature in summer is
30°C (85°F) and in winter it’s about 10°C (50°F).

So assess your room warmth or coolness when
baking, as the air around you will affect your
result. Warm air drawn into your mixer when
beating can make a slumpy start to a creamed
butter base, so you may need to chill your
mixer bowl prior. In cold climes, warm up flour
before using it in a cake batter lest it drop the
temperature and give your cake a sluggish baking
start. In a hot kitchen, chill flour before making
pastry doughs so you are not in smeary tears.

3. You down with OIT? Optimal ingredient

temperature !
Take note of ingredient temperatures,
especially butter to sidestep lumpy creamed
butter mixtures or smeary doughs. I’ll list ideal
temperatures or consistencies of ingredients to
bring baking success, and omit temperatures