Hi all,

I have been on a coffee cake, aka crumb bun kick and the recipe i use the cake part is perfect to my liking but the topping comes out fairly hard, but tasty.

The topping recipe is:

18 tablespoons (2 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, melted

3/4 cup (5 1/4 ounces/149 grams) granulated sugar

3/4 cup packed (5 1/4 ounces/149 grams) brown sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 cups (16 ounces/454 grams) cake flour

How can I change it to make it softer after baking? Should I bake just the cake part partially then add the topping? I added more butter last time and it seemed to make it harder.

Thanks

I have quite a banger of a normal brownies recipe, with help from The Elements of Baking-cookbook I’m trying to make them vegan.

I’m using the same amount of vegan butter versus normal.
To replace my eggs I’m using soy milk, and adding some cornstarch, flour and baking powder as she suggests.

But I get these “puddles” of vegan butter on the bottom of the brownies and would like to fix that.
I’ve reduced butter amounts already, but the texture is off then. So I don’t know how to go about this?

I made this cheddar jalapeño cornbread for a potluck. I tested some muffins and they came out perfectly golden and so delicious. Then this 9x13 came out much darker than expected. Yes, I know muffins are smaller so cook differently. That’s not what I’m asking about. I don’t want to cut into it and let out steam, or only to discover it’s perfectly fine. I read that using buttermilk can cause a darker crust due to the Maillard reaction, and I did use buttermilk in this. Not sure if that applies to the top crust or just the bottom. I also used melted butter as my fat, if that makes a difference.

TLDR; based on color alone, should I assume this is horribly dry and not take it to the potluck, or do we think it’s probably fine? Would you think it looks dry, or think it has a nice crust? I have a reputation to uphold here…lol.

Thank you :)

Wondering what to put on my wedding registry. I have a kitchenaid tilt head that I don’t love, especially for any dough.

I thought about 7qt kitchenaid lift bowl. But I’m wondering about other brands now - Zacme, Bosch, Ooni, etc? So many options now.

Mostly I do cookies, dough, maybe shred some chicken. I wanted to make ice cream w kitchenaid but that’s not essential.

Kitchenaid has 1 million attachments which is nice. But are its drawbacks w the new mixers enough to get a different one?

Prob not BIFL but I’d like it to last a long time…. 10 yrs+

Edit: thank you all so much!!! I see a lot of long time love for kitchenaid. I’m more concerned with new kitchenaid - manufacturing has changed and I hear they aren’t as good. I’m still considering this and other options mentioned! I’m leaning Ank

I'm baking a 3 tier cake with 3 layers in each tier (10/8/6). My pans are 3in deep. How much margin should I should for when I put in the batter? 1.5" or 1"? I plan to cut each cake pan in half and keep a spare layer on hand in case I screw up.

Sorry for the bad pictures but anyway. The recipe is Sally's Baking addiction's chewy chocolate chip cookies and these are 100 grams each. I baked them for 14 minutes at 350f.

My 6th attempt at making croissants! I used Preppy Kitchen’s recipe, but I still can’t get that honeycomb interior right.

I’ve been reading other related posts, and it seems like I might need to proof them longer to get that airy honeycomb structure. However, I noticed that when I proof them longer (like I did this time, proofed for 4 hours, house temp was 74F), the butter starts seeping out and pooling at the bottom, and the croissants themselves don’t have that puffed "jiggle" either.

I’ve also read that this could happen if the butter gets too warm during the rollouts, so that’s another possibility. But what are the signs that the butter has gotten too warm? For this attempt, the dough was always chilled before each rollout, and the butter never broke through the dough.

Any ideas what I might be doing wrong??

Here are my previous attempts

Every single time I bake cookies they always end up wrong. Hence why I’ve not baked any in a few years. But I decided to try and make some today, following a recipe I saw on online (maybe that was my first mistake, I should’ve found a proper one, but in the video they showed the results and it looked good), and they ended up odd. Granted, I did add more flour than the recipe said, because the dough looked way too wet. So I probably added a good 50g extra to the mix. The cookies aren’t awful, they are edible but they have a very cake-like texture, so they certainly aren’t how they should be. How can I make regular cookies, that are like those typical soft ones you buy in the bakery aisle of a supermarket?

The recipe I followed was this —
Chocolate Chip Cook Recipe.
125g salted butter (softened)
115g brown sugar
110g white caster sugar
1 egg
220g self raising flour (used plain but added 2 teaspoons of baking soda)
50g plain flour (this was the extra i added and it was straight from the bag)
100g chocolate chips
Cream butter and sugar together
Stir in the egg.
Stir in the flour
Stir in the chocolate chips
Make into walnut sized balls
Bake on a lined baking tray at 180 degrees for 8-10 mins.

So lately I've been researching what baking trays/pans/tins I should invest in for my home, and I've been having a debate about which material would be best for each style of dish. Generally, I tend to prefer stainless steel because I hate dealing with rust and like to put everything in the dishwasher. But I understand some dishes require a tin with great conductivity, like with cookies that need it for browning. So my question is, which dishes albsolutely require/greatly benefit from using aluminum over stainless, and what dishes turn out great even when baked in stainless steel? I know brownies are just fine, but what about flan, croissants, baguettes, brioche...?

My first batch came out great, my second batch spread badly. Same recipe, same ingredients, same steps, same oven etc. The top 4 are from the first batch, the bottom 4 are from the second batch. And of course the 2nd batch is what I wanted to take to work.

Edit: I posted the wrong picture and I can't figure out how to add the correct one lol

made some great pumpkin traybakes last year with tinned pumpkin puree but i want to turn my scraps into baking, any particular way i should roast the scraps or treat them before pureeing?

I made this banofee pie (digestives crust, canned caramel, banana custard, stabilized whip cream) and rested overnight in the fridge.

Upon cutting and serving the next day, the caramel ran down and it was a mess (but still delicious). I'm guessing because the caramel pulled the moisture from the custard. The custard layer also kept sliding off.

What can I do to prevent that?

If you're curious about why banana custard... I need to bake the banana before hand to neutralize whatever's inside them that gives me a stomach ache. They become too soft to cut into nice rounds, so I thought making a custard layer out of them would suffice.

Hi

I’m looking to update a lemon blueberry cake recipe from all-purpose flour to ragi(Finger millet) or whole wheat flour. How should I update it. We are okay with eggs.

Currently the recipe calls for the following,

Milk 1/2cup
1/4th cup yogurt
3 eggs
Lemon juice
Lemon jest
Vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
333g cups sugar
1.5 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup butter

Trying to figure out how to stick fondant letters to the cake board

It has

150g of biscoff spread

500g of soft cheese

300ml of double cream

4 tbsp of icing sugar

Hello! For halloween I plan on making my first ever cake pops for a party using a cake box mix and I know it can be quite a lot. There are a lot of different recipes and tips that its hard to choose what will work for me. My idea is to use a cake box mix and replacing the ingredients water/oil for milk/butter. However, I don't know if substituting the oil for butter is the right way to go since the countless videos I have watched hardly do it that way. Moreover, I decided on using candy melts as they seem more easier to use, considering how I have seen that almond bark with food coloring needs something related to oil? (I may be wrong or confused, I have seen too many videos with lots of different information that I can't keep up lol) I would really love feedback, advice on what ingredients to choose, and recipes yall use!! It would really help me, thank you!

I've noticed that my cookies keep getting burnt when i put them in the oven at the recipe stated temperatures and times. I've even reduced the temperature (both preheat and baking) and time, but they also burned before the time was even up. so I ordered an oven thermometer online to check if our oven ran hot. I set the oven to roughly 170C and set the timer to 30 minutes (as per instructions i searched up). In 10 minutes, it reached 170C, and in 5 minutes it increased to 200C without messing with the oven knob. I had to turn it off before the full 30 minutes was up because it was already reaching 250C and I didnt want to waste our gas.

Is this normal? My understanding is that the temperature inside the oven should stay at a constant temperature. If so, do you know what would be the cause of this? I want to keep baking though, so if the problem is too technical for home repair (and needs a specialist), should I adjust the temperature to lower than the required temperatures?

I usually make my american buttercream with half shortening and half butter it pipes so well and is so sturdy

but the problem comes with icing on cakes it can be gritty sometimes too and doesnt have a smooth finish on my cakes even if i add enough liquid to loosen it up

i thought of this idea where make my icing sugar mixure liquidy by adding enough milk then add it to the whipped butter and shortening mixture

Any experience or advice? Possibly without changing the 50:50 butter to shortening ratio

I believe thermorworks are the go to but Im in UK they are US :-(

Just to say, I have a gas oven in the motorhome, the knob is innacurate as heck as it's either warm or burn your face off with very very VERY little adjustment in between.

I just want a digital thermometer to measure the oven temp so I can use it better? Any suggestions?

I’d like to give my cousin something extra special for her birthday to use when she bakes. I am not a baker so I don’t know what the best options are. I have local markets that have high quality ingredients but does anyone have any recommendations? Or is this a silly idea.

Hi everyone! I’m making around 200–250 cupcakes for Thursday morning and trying to figure out the best way to prep everything ahead of time. I work my other job Tuesday and have the Wednesday off, so ideally I’d like to get as much done as possible on Tuesday night.

I’m doing vanilla and chocolate cupcakes with Swiss meringue buttercream (both vanilla and chocolate) and a few different Halloween designs with the coloring.

My biggest concern is the buttercream. I’ve frozen SMBC before, and when I thawed and re-whipped it, it became really watery and the texture just wasn’t the same. I even stuck it back in the fridge but it didn’t help, it was almost like ice on it and melted in the buttercream if that makes sense.

I know people successfully make SMBC ahead of time, so I’m mainly looking for tips on how to bring it back to the right consistency without running into the same issue considering Ill be making a huge batch.

I’m also a little concerned about making the chocolate SMBC ahead of time since I’ll be adding melted chocolate, which will harden in the fridge along with the buttercream possibly? I’m wondering if that makes it more difficult to get the texture back when re-whipping.

I’m planning to make the buttercream Tuesday and bake and decorate on Wednesday, but I’m open to any suggestions on how to spread out the work while keeping everything fresh for Thursday morning.

Would love any tips from anyone who’s done large batches like this before since its my first time doing a batch this big.

Hi everyone! I recently made a Castella cake, but I’m not completely satisfied with how it turned out. I’d love to get your opinions and troubleshooting advice, especially on the crumb structure.

The crumb looks a bit porous and open with visible air pockets/tunnels, rather than the tight, uniform, fine-grained structure typical of a traditional Castella. It kinda looks somewhat dry, slightly coarse, and prone to flaking or crumbling when handled too.

The recipe I followed called for 170°C for 15 mins, then 160°C for 35 mins. But what I actually did was 170°C for 15 mins and about 25 mins at 160°C, cause I saw the top crust was already getting kinda dark.

Thank you in advance!

Hi everyone, long time lurker, first time posting.

I made this cake from Mary Berry's Lemon Drizzle Traybake recipe, followed the instructions to the letter. The texture is fluffy but dry, almost crumbly.

Any tips on how to give it more moisture? Can I use oil instead of butter? Also are the 4 eggs necessary, it seems like a lot of eggs.

Full disclosure - I am not a great baker, just trying out straightforward recipes to learn more.

• 225g (8 oz) butter , softened
• 225g (8 oz) caster sugar
• 275g (10 oz) self-raising flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 4 eggs
• 4 tablespoons milk
• finely grated rind of 2 lemons

Baked at 160C for about 35 mins

Edit to add drizzle: 175g granulated sugar, juice of 2 lemons (I used large ones)

I know they basically gutted their entire lineup a couple years ago, and quality is a question on some newer mixers, so is repairability. Some mixer models were in production for so long that you can find them used pretty easily for fairly cheap, so my question is in a few segments.

1) I'm going to be buying used no matter what, as my budget is between $250-$300. With that in mind, am I better off buying a discontinued older model, or a newer one? Would company refurbished models be worth looking into? Which model should I get specifically?

2) What bowl size should I go for, in the event the recommended model has multiple options?

3) If I buy an older model, will the brand new power hub attachments for sale today still work, and the same question for attachments like dough hooks, paddles, etc.

Now I know a lot of this depends on what I'll be doing with the mixer. For the most part, I'll be making homemade butter and whipped cream, cookie dough, pizza dough, and bread dough (sandwich bread, burger and/or hot dog buns, flatbread, etc). I usually only cook for myself, but I like to make enough food at a given time for there to be leftovers. With all of that in mind, what would you all recommend?