Bread
Dough temperature is the dial most home bakers never touch
Two loaves from one recipe can behave nothing alike because one finished mixing at 22C and the other at 27C.
Bakemens — Flour, heat, patience
Bread
What hydration actually changes in a dough, from 60 to 85 per cent
Hydration is not a difficulty rating. It is a set of trade-offs between handling, crumb structure and how much oven spring you…
Bread
Bulk fermentation ends when the dough says so, not when the timer does
Almost every dense loaf and every collapsed one traces back to the same decision, made by a clock that knew nothing about your…
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Bread
The windowpane test measures one thing, and it can still mislead you
A dough can pass the windowpane and still bake dense, because gluten development and gas retention are related but not the same…
Bread
Shaping a loaf is about surface tension and very little else
Every shaping method, however it is described, is doing one job: building a taut outer skin that holds the gas in and directs the…
Bread
Sixteen hours at 4C: what a cold retard does to a loaf
The fridge is not just a pause button. It changes which organisms are working, what they produce and how the dough handles the next…
Bread
Steam in the first ten minutes decides how high the loaf can go
A dry oven sets the crust within four or five minutes and locks the loaf at whatever size it happened to be. Steam delays that by…
Bread
Scoring a loaf is a controlled failure, and the angle does the work
The blade is not decoration. It chooses where the loaf will burst so the expansion goes where you want it rather than where the…
Bread
A sourdough starter is a stable ecosystem, not a temperamental pet
Once established, a starter is a competitive environment that keeps itself safe. Most of the anxiety around it comes from treating…
Bread
All bread →Bread
Dough temperature is the dial most home bakers never touch
Two loaves from one recipe can behave nothing alike because one finished mixing at 22C and the other at 27C.
Bread
What hydration actually changes in a dough, from 60 to 85 per cent
Hydration is not a difficulty rating. It is a set of trade-offs between handling, crumb structure and how much oven spring you can…
Bread
Bulk fermentation ends when the dough says so, not when the timer does
Almost every dense loaf and every collapsed one traces back to the same decision, made by a clock that knew nothing about your…
Cakes & Sponges
All cakes & sponges →
Cakes & Sponges
Creaming butter and sugar is aeration, and the sugar crystals do the cutting
The pale, fluffy stage is not cosmetic. Sharp sugar crystals are tearing air pockets into soft butter, and those pockets become the…
Cakes & Sponges
Reverse creaming gives a tighter crumb, and here is why it works
Coating the flour in fat before any liquid arrives limits gluten development from the first second, which is the opposite of what…
Cakes & Sponges
A genoise has no baking powder, so what is lifting it
Whole eggs whipped warm hold an astonishing amount of air, and steam expands that air in the oven. There is no chemistry involved…
Pastry
All pastry →
Pastry
Lamination lives in a temperature window about three degrees wide
Butter has to be firm enough to stay in a sheet and soft enough to stretch with the dough. Outside roughly 15 to 18C, one of those…
Pastry
Rough puff, full puff and blitz pastry: what you trade for the time
All three make layers. They differ in how the butter is distributed at the start, and that decides how even the lift is and how…
Pastry
Shortcrust is rubbed in, not creamed, and that is the whole point
Coating flour particles in fat before the water arrives is what keeps pastry short. Cream the butter instead and you get a biscuit…
Baking Science
All baking science →
Baking Science
Gluten is two proteins and water is what introduces them
There is no gluten in a bag of flour. It forms the moment water arrives, and everything you do afterwards decides how strong a…
Baking Science
Starch gelatinisation is what turns wet batter into crumb
Somewhere between about 60 and 80C, starch granules absorb water and swell into a gel. That transition is the moment a batter…
Baking Science
The Maillard reaction needs heat, protein and a surface that has dried
Browning is not just cooking for longer. It requires a specific combination of conditions, and a wet surface will never produce it…
Tins & Tools
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Tins & Tools
A set of one gram scales is the cheapest upgrade in the kitchen
Volume measures for flour vary by twenty per cent or more depending on how the cup was filled, which is enough to change a recipe…
Tins & Tools
Your oven dial is a suggestion and a cheap thermometer proves it
Domestic ovens routinely run twenty degrees away from their setting and swing thirty degrees either side of it as the thermostat…
Tins & Tools
Fan or conventional: the twenty degree rule and when it misleads
A fan moves hot air across the food, which transfers heat far faster than still air. Dropping the temperature compensates for the…
When It Goes Wrong
All when it goes wrong →
When It Goes Wrong
A sunken middle is usually underbaking, whatever the internet tells you
Overmixing gets blamed for the crater in the centre of a cake, but the far more common cause is a structure that never finished…
When It Goes Wrong
Dense bread crumb has five causes and the crumb tells you which
A heavy loaf is the most common home baking failure and the least specific complaint. The pattern of the holes narrows it down to…
When It Goes Wrong
Butter pooling under your croissants means the layers broke, and you can find where
A little fat on the tray is normal and produces the fried base. A pool with pale, greasy pastry sitting in it means the lamination…