THE BASICS

Hello fellow bakers!

I took a few days to think about what recipe should I tell you all about, and then i got the idea. Why not start with the basics? Trust me on this one, if you know the basics, if you know the 'secrets', you can make anything absolutely perfectly. It's not at all difficult.

So let's get started -

Mix dry and wet ingredients separately 

This is important because most of the dry ingredients that we use, like flour, baking powder and baking soda contain gluten and we don't want to over-mix things that have gluten as it will toughen and make our cakes or cookies or even pancakes, dense and not light and fluffy. The cooking process will also slightly begin when baking powder will come in contact with moisture. We don't want that!
So mixing them up separately prevents over mixing.
Once you have the wet batter ready, KEEP ASIDE YOUR ELECTRIC MIXER/WHISK. Why? Over-mixing!!
Take a spatula or a large spoon and just fold the flour mixture into the batter. You can look up a Gif or a video to know how to do it. Just know that you have to stop when you lift the batter in the spoon and it falls down in ribbons, neatly. With practice you'll know when to stop.

Now that you have mastered the most important step, let's look at some more tricks -

1. Use the right amount of sugar and butter

In vanilla cakes always add equal amount of butter and sugar and double the amount of flour and two eggs. Some recipes call for equal amount of flour, butter and sugar, like Pound Cakes. However I personally don't like really sweet cakes, it should be just right. You can experiment and find out what suits you the best!

2. Whisk the sugar and butter

This is first step of all major cake recipes!

Put the powdered sugar and butter and whisk it until its fluffy and light. It'll also become more in volume and lighter in color. 

3. Salt 

yeah, you heard that right! Salt is a very important element in cake and cookie dough alike. Just a pinch of salt will bring out all the flavour of the cake and make it yummier!

4. Sinking Choco-Chips and Raisins

This trick is a gem! Those out there who have experienced this and haven't come up with a solution, know the pain!

Well all you have to do is - wait for it- coat the choco chip or raisins in flour and then mix it with the batter. Yes. That's all. Go nail that choco chip muffin!

5. Adding eggs

Similar to adding choco-chips and raisins, each time you add an egg to the fluffy sugar-butter mixture, add just one teaspoon of the flour from your dry ingredient mix with each egg that you add.

6. Dusting the cake mould 

See, dusting the cake mould is really important. What is it you ask? If you are using a tin mould, or even a borosil pan, you should always first apply butter on it, not too much, just enough to cover the tin, and then take coat the buttered mould with flour, again, not too much.

So yeah, these are all I could think of right now and I hope it helps if you're new or maybe you learnt something new! 

Bake it right!