Hot cookies

The failure or incomplete success of a recipe often depends upon some little detail that has been misunderstood or overlooked in the preparation.

'A Book for a Cook' The Pillsbury Co. (1905)

Do you have problems with your dough spreading before going in the oven or your cookies/biscuits coming out thin, flat and too hard?

Don't worry, so did I when I first got back to baking them over here. Back in the U.K of course I didn't have to worry too often about humidity and although my kitchen did indeed get quite hot when the oven was on (it was a small kitchen), the rest of the house was cooler so it wouldn't ever run as hot as it does here.

Another HUGE  difference here is the oven I'm using. It's quite an old (and well used) one, with a door that doesn't shut totally, wonky shelving and not very specific temperature gauge. However, it was free so I'm not moaning - just stating a fact that it's another learning curve.

I've compiled a list of some tricks I've worked out, always done but had to adjust, or been told to try here for you all to give a go. I hope they help you and your baked goods as much as they've been helping me.

• First of all, something I shouldn't need to say and you probably all do anyway - make sure you always measure your ingredients properly. If you don't add enough flour your little bakes will be flat and hard.


• Chill your biscuit dough if it's a dough to roll out. The exception to this rule is oatmeal cookies - all types should be refrigerated for at least 2 hours before baking but preferably overnight.


• After rolling out and cutting (or if not a rolled dough type of biscuit/cookies - after you've spooned out enough mix) your biscuits/cookies, put any unused mix into the refrigerator.


• Try chilling your oven tray before you even put anything on it.


• With biscuits/cookies like Sugar cookies you should also refrigerate the cut out cookies for about 10 minutes on the baking tray before putting them in your oven - this means they will keep their shape


• Don't spoon out or add cut biscuits/cookies to a warm oven tray, this will make them spread


• Make sure your butter/margarine isn't too soft before adding it to your sugar. If your recipe calls for blending/creaming the fat and sugar together, your fat should be soft enough to bend but not dripping or soggy.


• DO NOT oil or grease in any way your baking sheets/grease proof paper - they're fine the way they are!
  


• If you're not using baking sheets or grease proof paper, only use a tiny bit of oil/butter/margarine to grease your oven tray - too much fat will add to the mix and make your biscuits/cookies dense and flat.


• Try transferring the cooked biscuits/cookies from the warm baking sheet/grease proof paper to a clean, fresh piece.


• DO NOT mix your batter/dough too much. If you incorporate too much air into your mixture your biscuits/cookies will rise well in the oven and flatten dramatically once removed. Also this causes the butter/margarine to change consistency - making it melt which we don't want.


• Make sure that if you're using baking powder or baking soda that it's not out of date.


• Also, relating to the baking soda - using too much will cause flat, dark biscuits/cookies


• If you're using a standing mixer or hand mixer and are adding such things like chocolate chips or nuts etc - always mix these in by hand.

I hope this helps any of you out there with the same problem :)

Happy baking!

Icing in the heat

If the theory turns out to be right, that will be tremendously thick and tasty icing on the cake.

Brian Greene

Working with icing of any type can prove problematic, even back in the U.K I would sometimes have problems (a still warm oven and hot hands are not good for working with fondant!), but here it proves even worse to deal with!

A few weeks ago I made a gluten-free chocolate cake for my fiancé's sisters birthday.
I decorated the cake with fondant roses in blue (her favourite flower in her favourite colour - I wasn't being depressing I promise!), and a horse (yep, you guessed it, her favourite animal...this wasn't in blue obviously).

Everything was going well at first but then my creations started to melt and sweat! (I later found out that the humidity that day was 98%!) and no matter what I did I couldn't seem to make them any better.

This prompted me to search for solutions.

A quick solution if you're doing any buttercream icing, add some cornflour to your mix, but be careful of the amount and only use in buttercream frosting, otherwise it'll make other frostings taste gritty.

As for our enemy fondant (or sugar paste/sugar dough depending on what you prefer) - try some CMC (if you can find it, sometimes it's called supergum or CMC gum) powder, working it well into your fondant.

Adding more icing sugar works for some (although I tried this on aforementioned cake and, as you can see, it didn't work).

Now every cake decorator knows not to put fondant in the fridge and in the U.K. I agree, although here its pretty much a must.

What I've done is refrigerate my cakes for about 10 minutes at a time so not to dry out the cake itself.

Yes, you'll see condensation spots form on your icing but if you're careful and don't touch them at all (it's hard to resist I know) they will disappear in an hour or less.

Have you any more tips or tricks for getting round this problem? If so please comment below or send me a message and I'll update this page, giving whoever provides the tips with full credit.

Happy baking!