Baking 101: Getting to Know Your Oven

If you are about to embark on your baking journey, there is one basic thing that you need to nail down before attempting to create a delish masterpiece to devour:

"Know Thy Oven"

The success of every baking session is at the mercy of this temperemental piece of machinery. You should know its quirks as to how to control its temperature and balancing out heat across baked goods. Once you have mastered this one, it can be your partner and a friend helping you elevate to the next level.

So how to tame the beast? Here are some pointers:

1. Get an oven thermometer. Not one but two.
   Yes you heard me. Two! One that mounts on the wall and one that can be attached or placed in the middle of the oven. Why? For horribly small ovens, those hanging thermometers will not work. So I recommend CDN Oven thermometer that comes with a magnet that you can attach to the side of the wall.
   Then the other one you can place in the middle of the oven where you want to put your bakes. This is to gauge if your oven has reached preheat temp range. The temp on the mounted thermometer maybe different than the middle section thus you need to have at least two. Then remove the second one and use the mounted thermometer to guesstimate how your oven thermostat is fluctuating during baking.
2. Do a test run at least once
   Turn on the oven and set to the maximum possible thermostat available in your dial then observe. Once it hits max temp, you dial down lower and see how fast the temp changes to the setting indicated. This helps you to manage your oven's behaviour for those recipes that requires change of temp in between bakes. This is also a good indicator on how far your oven can go for max temp.
3. Bake cookies
   Baking cookies will give you a good indication on the heat spots in your oven. Heat spots are areas in your oven that is hotter than your thermostat setting, thus gives an uneven browning. You can also try switching around your baking tray to see if it evens out the browning and make a mental note to do that in every bake. Some bakers would avoid heat spots to prevent over browning.
4. Make a sponge/chiffon cake
   Nothing is more fragile than making a sponge/chiffon cake. Sudden fluctuations in the oven thermostat and it can send your cake to failville. Making this will give you a good indication on how stable is your oven thermostat. I once had an oven where I made chiffon cakes and 2 out of 3 cakes will sink like the titanic. Later on, I realised that my oven's thermostat is unstable that cause my cakes to sink. So I took the executive decision to change my oven and I have been successful eversince.

I hope these tips help you understand your oven more and become successful in your baking endeavors.

Tips and Tricks for Stable Caramel frosting

Update (April 9 2015): After many times making this recipe, I noticed that letting the water boil until all sugar is melted allows more water to evaporate which in turn reduces the amount of liquid in your frosting. Also, make sure that the evaporated milk is just about to start to boil before you pour into your eggyolk mixture. Otherwise, you will cook your eggyolks fast like scrambled eggs. Lastly, I noticed that reducing the amount of butter helps its stability.

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For those who follow the Caramel cake recipe from Corinne in her blog, the Heart of Mary, I'm sure some of you are having challenges in creating a polished look without melting similar to those caramel cakes being sold in the northern part of Manila.

After making my fair share of caramel cakes in the humid weather like Singapore, here are my tips to achieve a stable caramel frosting that can survive the trip outdoors from point A to point B. I have been successful transporting this cake without a cooler bag travelling within an hour in an airconditioned MRT. I have also witnessed this cake standing up on its own for 1-2 hours indoors at room temp. However, do not tempt fate and display this under the sun if you do not want to have a frumpy looking caramel cake.

1. Increase cornstarch amounts from 1.5 tbsp to 2 tbsp
2. Pour 3/4 or 4/5 of the mixture on a cold cake while it is still warm. The cake should be chilled at least 4 hours (as in super cold but not frozen). This helps set the caramel immediately. Tip the cake to let the cake flow on the sides but do not need to be perfect. I guarantee some of the frosting will overflow to your cakeboard and drip at the sides. Do not fret as you can still fix this later which I will explain later.
3. After the first frosting, chill in the fridge for at least 15-20 minutes. I take this time to do some clean-up or prep for my next bake.
4. Take out the cake and get yourself an offset spatula or bowl scraper then scrape the overflow on your cake board back to the sides of the cake. Then, contour the sides to even out bumps and gaps. Use the remaining frosting in the saucepan to add more frosting on the sides. At this point, do not touch the top of the cake if you want to keep a smooth finish. Bring it back to the fridge to cool for another 15-20 mins.
5. Take it out once again and do a final smoothing with the spatula. Then clean out leftover caramel on the cakeboard with moistened warm paper towel.
6. Return to the fridge and leave the cake and caramel frosting to set (and undisturbed) overnight.

Hope this helps. Let me know what you think or if you have other suggestions to tame this delectable caramel frosting.

Italian Meringue Recipe (Less sweet version)

Italian Meringue is the most stable of all Meringue frostings and probably the most cumbersome. Making this recipe requires you to be a multi-tasking ninja. Once the hot syrup hits soft ball stage, it needs to be poured into the eggwhite mixture already in soft peaks stage. Creating the eggwhites ahead of the syrup will lose its shape over time and needs to be beaten again whereas making the syrup ahead will allow the syrup cool down and not achieve the perfect emulsion that create a nice pillowy meringue.

So here is my recipe for Italian Meringue:

Ingredients:
5 eggwhites (from large eggs)
1/4 tsp Cream of Tartar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 cup water

Put sugar and water in a heavy bottomed saucepan with candy thermometer attached and heat over medium low. Brush sides with water to prevent crystalization of the syrup. Wait until syrup hits soft ball stage (bet 230-240F).

Meanwhile, beat your eggwhites and cream of tartar until soft peak stage. Once the syrup is ready, turn mixer on low and pour the hot syrup on the side of the bowl. Then bring back mixer to medium then high speed until stiff peak stage.

This recipe divides well into halves. I divided this recipe proportion to 2 eggwhites and able to frost 24 cupcakes.

This frosting is also best grilled in the oven using only top heating element or use a torch burner for a toasted marshmallow effect.