Sorry for the wait. We have a winner in our Best Baking Tip competition.
I've been sweating away trying to decide, as there were loads of inventive ideas and all a bit different in their approach. Not too many weird ones, and only a few that, well - you know who you are.
So the prize goes to Suelle, for this important but still commonly overlooked advice:
Choose a recipe from a reputable source and stick to it to guarantee both successful baking and to try the cake as the originator of the recipe intended it to taste
Suelle's advice gets my vote as it addresses one of the regular dilemmas in our mailbox, a heartfelt tale along the lines of "I followed your recipe exactly, to the letter, with precision", followed by a curious list of changes and substitutions made either out of necessity or because they simply 'felt right at the time'; and therein lies the problem.
Baking relies on chemistry and physics and the ingredients used aren't just for flavour alone. They interact when mixed and again when heated, and the final result will vary according to how they're mixed, the speed at which this is done, the order in which the ingredients are mixed together, and the shape and thickness of the tin the finished article is baked in or on.
Suelle's tip went on to explain where you can stray and where to stick by the recipe, and for me this is the best advice.
A big thank-you to everyone who entered. We're got some great competitions and prizes lined up for the New Year, and lots more baking here on Life and Style.
