Our Tips

Tips for One Bowl Method 

Use electric mixer to make the cakes in this section. A mixer attached to a stand or a hand-held electric mixer are both suitable, but do not use a blender, food processor or hand-held processor. It is possible to beat the mixtures using a wooden spoon, but this is laborious and time-consuming, and the results will rarely be as good.

We have indicated when to use small, medium or large bowls; these decisions were based on accommodating the finished mixture.

It doesn’t matter in which order the ingredients are added to the bowl, but make sure the butter is soft, but not melted, before adding other ingredients. If the butter is beginning to lose its shape or is melted, the cake will be heavy.

In some cases, all the ingredients are combined in the bowl, then mixed. In other cases, solid ingredients such as fruit and nuts are inappropriate to mix with the electric mixer as they could damage the beaters. They are stirred in at the end of the mixing.

Once you have the ingredients in the bowl, go ahead with making the cake; do not leave them standing in the bowl.

When mixing these mixtures, use a low speed and scrape the mixture with a rubber or plastic spatula into the path of the beaters. Once all the ingredients are mixed, gradually increased the speed to about medium and continue to beat and scrape the mixtures towards the beaters until the mixture appears to be smooth and/or well mixed and slightly changed in colour. We have stated when not to over-beat. As a rule, the whole mixing time is around 3 minutes.

As a rule, castor sugar is used for these cakes as it gives a slightly finer texture than ordinary crystal sugar; do not attempt to dissolve the sugar during the beating process. Do not substitute honey or raw  sugar for white or brown sugar; the results will be quite different.

Eggs and milk are best used at room temperature, but this is not essential.

Tips For Icing, Frostings and Fillings

Ice, frost or fill cakes which have been cooled to room temperature for best results.

Where we say “stir over hot water”, we mean you to place the heatproof bowl over a saucepan of

hot water or in a sink of hot water.

Stir mixtures with a wooden spoon.

Butter and cream cheese should be soft (not melted) in these recipes.

Cream for whipping should be very cold, straight from the refrigerator.

You can tint icings and frostings with food colourings, if desired.

Use a palette knife or spatula to spread icings, fillings and frostings.