Doughs, batters and the chemistry underneath them.
126 guides in Food & Cooking
Sugar is not one ingredient. Crystal size decides how well it aerates, and molasses content decides moisture, colour and flavour — so swapping one for another changes the bake in predictable ways.
A cake that is high on one side has been heated unevenly, filled unevenly, or baked in an oven that is not level. The tilt itself tells you which — and where the high side sits is the clue.
A leaking tart case has a hole in it, and the hole was almost certainly there before the filling went in. How to find and seal cracks after blind baking, and the lining faults that produce them.
Fudge is controlled crystallisation. Grainy fudge crystallised too early or too coarsely; soft fudge never reached the temperature that removes enough water. Both are thermometer problems.
Fat and sugar both slow yeast down and both interfere with gluten, so an enriched dough is genuinely harder to raise than a lean one. What is normal, what is a fault, and how to tell them apart.
Yes, and the stage you freeze at decides how much work is left when you thaw it. After shaping is the most useful point for most people; after the first rise is the most reliable.
Longer than the indicator light suggests. The light responds to the air temperature; the walls, shelves and any stone or tray inside take far longer, and it is those that supply the heat a bake needs at the start.
Hard biscuits are over-baked, over-worked, or short of the ingredients that hold moisture. Whether they were hard straight out of the oven or went hard in the tin points at different causes.
A mousse holds up on three possible structures — cocoa butter setting, whipped cream, and whipped egg white — and the recipe tells you which one you were relying on. Whichever it was, that is what failed.
Royal icing is not one consistency but three, and each is defined by how long a ribbon takes to disappear back into the surface. The seconds test, and how to move between them without ruining a batch.
A three to four hour bake will darken the outside long before the middle is done. Double lining, an outer paper band, a low shelf and a late foil cap narrow the gap between how fast the outside and the centre cook.
A split baked custard has been overheated — the egg protein contracted and squeezed its water out. A water bath, a lower oven and taking it out while the centre still wobbles prevent all three symptoms.
Biscuits that come out as the shape you put in are short of spread, and spread comes from fat that melts, sugar that dissolves and dough that is loose enough to flow. Four causes, each with a different look.
Butter running out of pastry means the fat melted before the dough set around it. Almost always a temperature failure — warm hands, a warm kitchen, or an oven too cool to set the structure fast enough.
Salt does three jobs in bread — flavour, gluten strength and controlling the rate of the rise. Leave it out and the dough over-proves, slackens and bakes into a pale, coarse, oddly bland loaf.
Flapjack is held together by sugar syrup setting as it cools, not by flour or egg. Crumbling means too little syrup, not enough pressing, or cutting it at the wrong moment.
Pastry cream is thickened by starch, and starch has to reach a full boil to set — and then be boiled a little longer to destroy the enzyme in egg yolk that would otherwise thin it again.
Substantially. Metal conducts fast and browns; glass and ceramic conduct slowly and hold heat; silicone barely conducts at all. Same batter, same oven, three different cakes.
Three meringues, three ways of getting sugar into egg white, and three quite different levels of stability. Which one each job needs and why the harder ones are worth the extra pan.
Dough tears for opposite reasons — too tight and unrested, or too weak and over-fermented. The way it tears tells you which: a clean split means tension, a sticky sag means degradation.
A tacky, sugary film on a cooled cake is nearly always condensation or hygroscopic sugar drawing moisture back to the surface — caused by covering it warm, an over-sweet recipe, or a humid kitchen.
A hollow macaron has a perfect shell and a cavity under it, because the batter rose fast and then collapsed onto the base. Almost always too much air in the meringue, or too much heat too early.
A pointed cupcake has been baked too hot: the edges set first and the still-liquid centre has only one way to go. Lower the oven, fill the cases evenly, and the tops come out domed instead of volcanic.
Sourness comes from two acids made by two organisms at different temperatures and feeding rates. Which one dominates is something you control — with fridge time, starter ratio, hydration and flour.
Dough hydration and fermentation schedules, flour selection, oven types and bake profiles.