Mary Berry's 2 Rules For Foolproof Bakes

Dame Mary Berry at Cheltenham Racecourse, England (AP Photo/Dave Shopland)You might already know that Mary Berry’s favourite cake is a Victoria sponge (made using the all-in-one method, please – she doesn’t see the point of creaming the ingredients separately). But her culinary wisdom doesn’t end there. Far from it. She whacks some butter in with her stewed apples, a process I’ve since nicked, and puts Thai curry paste in her tomato soup (I stole that, too). And recently, speaking at a Q&A in The Castle Hotel, Windsor, while promoting her new book Mary 90: My Very Best Recipes, the former Great British Bake-Off judge explained her two rules for perfect bakes. These are: 1) Weigh your ingredients carefully“The main thing about baking is to... weigh the ingredients,” the baking legend said. You should ideally do this “with digital scales”, she noted, as those are more accurate. It sounds obvious, but baking is, after all, a series of chemical reactions. In order for your bakes to rise, become fluffy, form a crispy edge, or whatever else you want to achieve, you’ll need to be as precise as possible with their measurements. That’s why even some American bakers recommend metric digital scales, despite living in a country that’s historically used cups to measure ingredients.2) Use the right-sized tin Hands up: I’m guilty of baking a 20-inch cake in a 15-inch tin, and then complaining that the results weren’t up to par.According to Mary, that was a foregone conclusion. She stressed we should “put it in the right size tin” no matter what we’re baking.“The number of times that people [have] said, ‘Oh, I can’t make such and such,’ and it’s in the tin that, in fact, is too big...and they’ll swear that it’s the right size,” she said. This mistake can cause bakes to overflow (if the tin’s too small) or overcook (if it’s too big and spreads the batter too thin).The baking pro urged us to “get the tape measure” out next time we want to get cooking. Noted, Mary...Related...Mary Berry's 'Easy' Secret To The Best Victoria SpongeI Tried Mary Berry's Secret To The Best Stewed Apples, And I'm SoldMary Berry's 'Posh' Secret To The Best Roasted Vegetables

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