What are your top baking tips? Share your top cheats, shortcuts and tips with Flora and you could win a £200 John Lewis voucher NOW CLOSED

[AngelieMumsnet]

Flora have asked us to find out about Mumsnetters top baking tips and tricks.

Here's what Flora have to say, "At Flora were real fans of baking, but we're always on the lookout for tips and cheats to speed up the creation of cakes. We'd love to hear how you fit time to bake into your busy lives and how you make your cakes extra special with brilliant decorating designs that wow. (We'd also love to see photos of your creations, and we're running a great competition over on our Facebook page with some fantastic prizes, so pop over and upload your pics for a chance to win!)"

What are your top baking tips? Do you take any shortcuts when baking? Maybe you buy ready-made icing? Perhaps you use pastry from a packet? Or do you prefer making everything from scratch? Have you ever bought a cake and pretended that you baked it yourself?

Whatever your top baking tricks are, Flora would love to hear them.

Everyone who posts on this thread will be entered into a prize draw where one winner will receive a £200 John Lewis voucher (in time for Christmas).

Please note your comments may be included on Flora's social media channels, and possibly elsewhere, so please only post if you're comfortable with this.

Thanks and good luck,
MNHQ

[Littlemissexpecting]

MuffCakes do you mean properly melt the butter (so its a liquid) or just very soft? I also struggle with the creaming butter and sugar stage.

[mawbroon]

I often make banana cakes two at a time because it's hardly any extra work and they freeze well.

My top tip is to weigh the tins so that they are the same so that you don't end up with one burned and one raw!

[MuffCakes]

Littlemiss you can do both, some recipes I have your supposed to melt the butter then add sugar and it works well for banana cakes, a vic sponge melt it until its soft but not completely runny (it might be in the middle) then add sugar and blitz till white ish but I wouldn't be worried if the butter melted cakes still turn out lovely.

[ILoveAFullFridge]

I always roll out dough/pastry/icing/marzipan between two sheets of clingfilm. That way I don't need to faff about making extra mess with flour/icing sugar, the stuff in rolling doesn't get dry/oily/warm, and it is easier to transfer to whatever I am lining or covering. It is especially good when lining a fluted quiche dish, as I keep the top layer of clingfilm on while I am tucking the pastry into the fluting, and the clingfilm prevents the pastry tearing. Of course I peel the film off once the pastry is properly positioned.

[MakeTeaNotWar]

Cake release spray to errr release the cake from the tin!

[Purplehonesty]

To save the kitchen ending up like a war zone try to put each ingredient away as you use it and have a bowl of hot soapy water in the sink to drop each spoon/bowl/knife into.
For pastry use half fat to flour and the same tablespoons of water as fat (4oz=4tbsp)
Sponge is double quantities of everything to eggs (4 eggs = 8oz fat, sugar, flour)
Always line your tins and tip cakes out as soon as they come out of the oven or they continue to cook.

[MissRee]

I've just baked my Chrustmas cake so am surrounded by a lovely smell of Chrismas-bakey goodness

I have taken to only ever using American recipes now. I have my cup measures and I'm not afraid to use them! So much easier than fannying around with weights.

[MrsCakesPremonition]

I have cut up a sheet of silicon lining into shapes to fit all my cake tins. I also use cake release spray.

I have given up on the old 2+4+4+4 recipe for sponge and now just weigh my eggs and match the quantities it's easy peasy.

I also cook my cakes at a much lower temp than I was taught to. They take longer to cook but are much easier to control.

I'm finding that I am getting more confident and I have recently started experimenting. I'm not frightened to add some fruit, slop in some milk to loosen my batter or try novel fillings (my marzipan victoria sponge went down a treat with DD who asked me to invent it for her birthday).Now I bake most weeks, it is less of a disaster if the odd experiment doesn't quite work.

[GetKnitted]

top bakery cheats for baking with tots is to buy a packet of biscuits and just let them to the decorating

[MrsCakesPremonition]

Getknitted - when I'm letting the kids loose with the decorations, I buy the icing too can't asked to lovingly make icing only for it to be buried under shed loads of sparkly, sweet crap.

[IHadADreamThatWasNotAllADream]

I got a dozen cheap silicone mini muffin cases on a whim a while ago. They're not much use for their intended function, because any decent recipe makes at least twenty four, and remembering to remove, save and clean them after each use is tricky. However, they come into their own for freezing individual portions of cookie dough. I make up a big batch in the Magimix, cook about a third of it on the day, and then portion it into ice cream scoop sized portions which I freeze in the aforementioned muffin cases or muffin tins for a day before transferring them into a bag. They can then be cooked straight from frozen in fifteen minutes.

I also keep chocolate chips in the freezer in an attempt to make them work better in cookies, but I'm not 100% sure it makes a difference.

[maxmissie]

We use the reuseable baking sheets for biscuits, bread rolls etc. Spatulas are great for getting every last bit out of the bowl or pan.

I use butter in things that I think matter (icing, sponge cake, scones) but use stork for most other things. Not sure how I decide what really needs butter and what doesn't though, there isn't any science to it (other than icing)!

I line tins with remnants of butter/stork which are left on their wrappers and if I don't have them then use groundnut oil wiped onto the tin with kitchen roll (as it's supposed to be healthier!)

[IAlwaysThought]

My top baking tip takes a bit of time to work but when it does it results in years of endless supplies of lovely baked goodies.

My secret is to get your kids to love baking, it's messy and you need a lot of patience but by the time they are about 11 or 12 (or whenever) they start baking on their own. Within a few years they are totally self sufficient bakers and even clean up the kitchen after themselves. You get to sit on the sofa and chat to them while they do all the work. Perfect!

I think my shortbread is better than theirs but, quite honestly, their cakes are every bit as good as mine and they put a lot more effort and glitter into the presentation of their baked goods.

Recently they have baked rainbow layer cakes and some great Halloween gravestone cupcakes.

[Theimpossiblegirl]

My tip is to make dough in bulk and freeze it in small pizza base sized portions, to defrost as required. Then defrost them when children come for tea and you can feel like supermum and let them make their own pizzas with no hassle.

[Pistillate]

Plain Flour and baking powder tastes nicer than self raising.

[NicNak71]

For fantastic fast decoration on fairy cakes put a giant chocolate button on top of each one the moment you take them from the oven. The button melts enough to stick to the cake and they all end up looking exactly the same, no odd shapes or uneven toppings again! It also only takes a few seconds to do.

[Star1986]

I always melt my butter and chocolate im the microwave, just a quick few seconds and its ready!

[nobalance]

I tend to buy ready made and coloured ready to roll icing for decorating cakes. Make my own cakes and butter cream though. Fid most cakes are five with all in one method in food pro to speed things up

[tracypenisbeaker]

I put a small amount of water into a ceramic mug into the oven while the cakes bake- it prevents the cakes from drying out and makes them lovely and moist.

Another tip is not to overmix the ingredients. Your cakes will come out tough if you do.

And finally, when making fairy/ cupcakes, use a recipe where the mix is more of a batter-like (i.e able to put the mix into balls using an ice-cream scoop) consistency as opposed to runny. This means that your cakes will be uniform in size and less messy when distributing into cases. They are also less likely to stick to the case and crispen around the edges.

[ScienceRocks]

I bake quite a bit, and usually have something in a tin that is being eaten by all who visit my house!

Reusable baking parchment, cut to fit my baking trays, makes it really quick and easy (though I often have to fish it out of the bin because DH forgets it is reusable), as does making mixes in my stand mixer rather than by hand. All the mixer parts go in the dishwasher so I can go from ingredients to cake in the oven plus everything cleared up in a matter of minutes.

I also save butter papers for greasing tins. They are perfect for this.

My other top tip is to use the heat of the oven wisely. I try and time baking to coincide with other things going in the oven, eg. casserole or pie for dinner, and also put just washed baking trays in the still warm but turned off oven to dry.

[VisualiseAHorse]

Read your recipe through several times before you begin, make sure you really know and understand the process.

[MikeLitoris]

My tip would be to perfect a basic sponge recipe. Once you have one that works you can add just about anything to it.

Tips for decoration would be to buy black and red icing, it just isn't worth the hassle of trying to make it.

Practice, practice and practice some more. I started decorating cakes just over a year ago and I'm pretty good at it now.

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

Another one for me is to make cheese straw pastry, roll out and cut it on a silicon lined baking tray, then freeze the strips, you can cook them from frozen in 10 minutes for a tasty after school (or whenever) snack.

[wannabedomesticgoddess]

My advice is to use an empty oven while baking a cake, ie no other things cooking in there at the same time. Like a chicken, as I found out last week.

Flat cake anyone?

Also, if using golden syrup and you need a weight measure instead of a tbsp measure, buy the squeezy bottle, and set it in a little warm water for a few mins. Then squeeze out your required amount. No faffing or sticky hands. :)

[Tee2072]

My top tip is to always use unsalted, room temperature butter, not margarine of any sort, in baking.

I also use ready made pastry, but I don't have an electric mixer so have no easy way to make it.