Baking tips from past GBBO stars
Revealed – baking tips from the stars of the Great British Bake Off. How do you make sure that your chocolate icing doesn’t crack, how can you prevent cakes with berries bleeding? The bakers of GBBO reveal this and more …
BAKING TOP TIPS:
Nadiya Hussain, Series 6 winner
Invest in an oven thermometer – ovens have a tendency to dip in temperature and on oven thermometer is an inexpensive piece of kit that will help ensure that you are baking at the correct heat.
BAKING TOP TIPS:
Rahul Mandal, Series 9 winner
Always use accurate weighing scale to measure your ingredients. Remember that flour, sugar, butter and eggs makes cakes, biscuits and pancakes. The difference is the quantities of each ingredient so it is important to get it right.
BAKING TOP TIPS:
Sophie Faldo, Series 8 winner
When making the dough for cinnamon buns, boil and then cool the milk before using. This process is called scalding – it deactivates the whey in the milk, which helps the dough to rise.
BAKING TOP TIPS:
Candice Brown, Series 7 winner
Don’t be tempted to overbake brownies or blondies as they might or lose that gooey centre
BAKING TOP TIPS:
Nancy Birtwhiste, Series 5 winner
If you’re baking with berries, frozen ones will prevent the them bleeding and discolouring the surrounding cake.
BAKING TOP TIPS:
Frances Quinn, Series 4 winner
Add syrup to melted chocolate to give a glazed sheen to the icing. It also prevents the chocolate from cracking when you cut it.
BAKING TOP TIPS:
John Whaite, series 3 winner
Bundt cakes are stylish, but can be a pain to remove from the tin. Try John’s foolproof butter, butter, flour method for perfect cake release. Melt the butter, and with a pastry brush wipe the whole inside of the tin. Put the tin in the freezer to harden the butter. Then put another layer of melted butter on top. Then dust with flour.
BAKING TOP TIPS:
Jo Wheatley, series 2 winner
To achieve the perfect crunchy drizzle on a lemon drizzle cake, make sure that the sugar and the lemon is properly mixed before you add it.
BAKING TOP TIPS:
Edd Kember, series 1 winner
To achieve a great crunch and appearance to chocolate chip cookies, once the cooking time is complete, remove the tray from the oven and bang it once, firmly, on the work surface.
BAKING TOP TIPS:
Paul Hollywod
Bread that hasn’t been kneaded for long enough can cause your final loaf to be dense and heavy. To check what you’ve kneaded for long enough pull out a piece of dough between your hands. It should be able to stretch to 20cm without breaking.
BAKING TOP TIPS:
Mary Berry
To avoid cake rack marks on the top of your sponge cakes, place a tea towel on the cake rack before you turn out the cake.
BAKING TOP TIPS:
Prue Leith
To help assemble the roulade without cracking it is important you do not cover the cake with a tea-towel when cooling or pre-roll the cake before adding the filling (as you might do with a normal Swiss roll).