Baker Answers Baking Questions from Twitter

One, two, three. [sprinkles clattering]

[Amirah giggling]

Hi, I'm Amirah Kassem

and today, I'll be answering your questions on Twitter.

This is Baking Support.

[upbeat music]

First up, we have @clickholebot.

How to bakers decide what temperature to bake at?

So I kind of see a trend in most baking as 350,

but there's so many different unique things

that you can be baking.

A meringue can go low and slow.

Something else will want fast heat

so you can crunchify the outside.

I think you have to go specifically to what you're making,

just because if you bake something too hot,

you'll burn the outside

and you'll have raw dough on the inside.

If you bake something too slow,

your cookies could just sort of melt away

instead of keeping their form

and actually being cooked inside.

So it depends on what you're making.

@K8_neal, at this point,

I'm not sure if I'll ever understand the difference

between baking soda, baking powder, or cornstarch.

Baking soda needs acid and liquid in order to activate.

But we're using that usually on denser things like cookies.

Then we have baking powder,

which only needs liquid to really activate.

And that is a more controlled temperature.

Those are cakes, airier, lighter, fluffier things.

Cornstarch, though, the way I do use it a lot

in baking, now that I think about it, is in baking spray.

I use a lot of baking spray in my pans

to let them release them really fast.

And the difference between a cooking spray

and a baking spray is basically

that a baking spray has cornstarch in it.

So it will very, very easily release the goods.

@jimmyshaw, I'm not good at baking.

Do you use salt when baking cupcakes?

All right, Jimmy, let's talk about salt for a second

because I love salt.

It is actually a flavor enhancer,

so you can definitely add a little bit of salt here

and there in different recipes,

but make sure that you are checking what the recipe is

and what it calls for.

I personally love sprinkling a little bit of sea salt

over my cookies just

before I bake them no matter what kind I'm doing,

because salt enhances flavor

and who doesn't wanna enhance their cookies?

Up next, we have donttellskotty.

Okay, but when making cupcakes,

what is the deal with frosting?

How can it be so difficult to make?

I refuse to stop baking cupcakes

until I've mastered a perfect cream cheese frosting.

If you prefer buttercream, get out of my life.

Same, girl.

I am a cream cheese to the core on every flavor of cake.

My bakery, we only use cream cheese frosting,

so I'm with you.

One thing that I love

about cream cheese frosting is you can sort of do 1, 1, 1.

And I know that just sounds crazy, so I'll break it down.

One stick of butter,

one bar of cream cheese,

and one 16 ounce bag of powdered sugar.

Well, you could add a little bit of vanilla at the end,

but the ratio should just be where you still have it creamy

and rich and thick, but it's not too sweet,

but that is my favorite, favorite cream cheese recipe.

And it's so easy to remember when you're out shopping.

1, 1, 1.

@hormorte, hello guys, I need a cake.

I think it's called an explosion cake.

I want it for myself.

Well, I can't send you one,

but I can definitely show you how to make one.

Here we have six layers of cake

and they are six inch rounds that I baked them in.

Here I have my cream cheese frosting.

So I'm gonna start by doing one ring.

Doesn't need to be perfect.

And I'm gonna start with my bottom layer.

You're going to see that I pressed it down

and it allows the cake to not move around.

Whoa, magic.

And then we're going to do another ring.

There we go.

I don't wanna get any frosting on the inside

because that's where we're gonna fill it with sprinkles.

Fresh frosting is the best.

Room temperature butter

and very cold cream cheese is the way I do it.

Color is very important too.

I mean, I think you can see how vibrant my colors are,

but I use gel food coloring.

My sprinkle explosion mix.

We're gonna fill it all the way to the top

and don't be scared.

Don't be shy.

You actually wanna make sure

that the sprinkles are coming a little bit higher

than the cake, because don't forget,

we still have more frosting to do.

A lot of people like to trim the top of the cake

so that it becomes very flat,

looks professional and clean.

My easy trick of getting something flat

and perfect is flip it over.

[Amirah laughing]

And that, my friends, is how you make

a rainbow explosion cake.

@changthang, wow, what a perfect timing.

She's asking how do you frost a cake?

Ta-da.

The first step in frosting a cake for me is crumb coating.

We're going to do a very, very, very thin layer

of frosting all around the cake.

All we're trying to do is seal in the crumbs.

My favorite tool, I literally keep it in my back pocket

because it's ready to go,

[Amirah laughing]

is a cake scraper.

If you don't have a cake scraper

with a spatula, a butter knife,

anything will do.

Okay, so I've added a little bit more frosting

and now we're ready to actually frost it.

This layer doesn't need to be too thick.

And you're just gonna keep rotating it

and rotating it until the cake scraper does its thing.

And I wanna just let you guys know I'm not applying a ton

of pressure to it.

I'm just lightly making sure

that we are scraping off anything

that's too much frosting and then filling in anything

that's a hole.

And you just wanna make sure you're cleaning it off

because you don't want the sprinkles sticking to the board.

You want the sprinkles sticking to the cake.

There's so many different ways

that you can cover a cake with sprinkles.

My favorite tool is my right hand.

[Amirah laughing] What I do is I scoop

as many sprinkles as I can into my hand.

And I'm just going to slowly glide,

not applying too much pressure,

but just enough so the sprinkles are sticking.

You're gonna go straight over

and try and get as much as you can.

You just tilt the slightest bit.

Ta-da.

Sprinkle explosion cake.

Okay, now the moment we've all been waiting for.

We are going to cut into this explosion cake.

Here we go.

And you wanna make sure you're cutting a very big slice

all the way down to the center.

One, two, three.

[sprinkles clattering] [Amirah giggling]

And there you have it, sprinkle explosion cake.

@lilygabos1, serious question.

Why do cupcakes and cookies

literally have the same exact ingredients,

but have completely different textures

and taste nothing alike?

They don't have the same exact ingredients

because here we're talking about ratios.

Ratios are so, so important.

I am from Mexico.

When you think about chilaquiles or enchiladas

or just different Mexican dishes,

they also carry very, very similar ingredients,

but taste different because they have different textures

and different ratios.

Once you start messing around with that,

you can create so many different dishes.

Up next, we have Phi.

I'm a failure.

Why is my cake so flat?

First of all, Phi, you are not a failure.

You just made an amazing dessert.

So let me describe this to you.

She has here an upside down pineapple cake with cherries,

like going for it, and it's very, very thin,

but actually it doesn't look

like there's anything wrong with it.

The texture and the color look amazing.

I think what you did wrong here is

that your pan was too big.

So if you want a fluffier cake, use a smaller pan

and that way,

it'll be fluffier. [Amirah giggling]

Ms. Camillee,

ooh, I see sprinkles in here.

What are sprinkles even?

Are they just colorful sugar,

but why don't they taste like sugar?

Actually, we have sprinkles right here.

So there's so many different kinds.

When you're talking about a nonpareil,

they're the teeny tiny little circle balls

that I cover my cakes in

and those are actually really crunchy

and those are made out of sugar.

More traditional American sprinkle,

it's actually gel-based,

which gives it that texture that when you squeeze it,

instead of popping or cracking,

it sort of has this gel texture.

@envyslove, literally, why do all my cookies end up so flat?

I'm doing everything right.

Let's talk about flat.

So when your cookie is too flat,

there's a few things that could go wrong there.

The first one being

if your dough is too warm or your butter is too warm

before you put into the oven,

then it's already instantly going to start flattening out

as it hits that heat.

It can also be too flat if you're putting it in the oven

at too low of a temperature,

because low and slow is not a friend to cookies.

Basically, it just starts flattening out the dough

and never really taking a shape, but still tastes good.

You also don't want the temperature in your oven

to be too hot,

because then what happens is your cookie almost starts

to shrink quite the opposite of the flattening.

And it gets very, very hard

and the outside is hard and overly brown,

but the inside could actually still be a little bit raw,

which is not something that we want.

Under-baking your cookies,

I know a lot of people love a doughy, gooey cookie,

but under-baking your cookie can just be really terrible

because as you can see it just bulges in the center,

and that means that it didn't even completely cook through

to even get the right cookie shape.

Lastly, we have a perfect cookie.

350 degrees,

cold, cold, cold dough,

perfectly put in, scooped out of a ball,

baked perfectly just for me.

[Amirah chuckling]

@lexilane, question, when making cupcakes,

do you fill the entire baking cup or just a little bit?

If you're using a liner,

I usually do about two thirds of the liner

because you want it almost to rise that third portion here,

plus the little top over.

So you just have enough room to decorate

and it's nice and domed

because your cupcake will rise more

than whatever you put in.

So rule of thumb, two thirds.

The BlackhartKing,

okay, how do I get good at baking?

I keep trying, but I can't do it right.

One good rule is to take it as if it was science.

I personally use a scale, but if not,

just try and make sure

that you're using your dry measuring cups for your dry cups,

your wet measuring cups for your wet ingredients,

and definitely never mix those.

Another good rule is actually to be patient.

Don't try and get in there early.

I see so many cakes that ended up being like tipsy

because you're frosting it when it's too warm.

Just be patient.

Give it that time it needs to cool or proof

or whatever it is the baked good wants to do.

At the very least, you get to eat a lot of sugar, right?

[Amirah chuckling] @skuddd,

this is not a joke.

Can you make your own sprinkles at home somehow

and make them pink?

You can totally make 'em at home.

You just need to have a very, very thin tip

on the piping bag.

Look up a great recipe.

There's so many easy ones.

Make sure you're mixing in your color beforehand,

put it into that piping bag,

and you're just gonna make really long,

thin lines over and over and over again.

And once you bake them, I like to crack them.

Or you could just crack them like spaghetti.

And if you wanna go even crazier,

luster dust them and make 'em sparkle.

[Amirah chuckling] Let's see who's next.

We have @echosnvoid,

how do bakers make meringue?

Is that even possible?

So possible, so delicious.

It takes a little bit of time with a lot of egg yolks,

but the key is meringue powder.

Put a little bit into your egg whites and sugar,

and you basically have to let them whisk forever and ever

and ever until you get this peak white,

which is just beautiful

and it looks like a mistletoe version of frosting.

I don't even know what I'm describing, but it's amazing.

And you can make meringue cookies.

Up next, we have @SianChristinaK,

watched all these buttercream tutorials

and, hmm, I don't have a cake scraper or a ruler.

This is going to be very interesting.

It is interesting, but interesting can be fun.

You could also use the back of an offset spatula.

You could probably use a butter knife.

I'd dip my knife in a very hot cup of water, wipe it off,

and since then the butter knife is hot,

it'll easily smoothen off the little corners.

And then if not, just do a fun design.

It doesn't need to be perfect.

Cover it in sprinkles.

@hdiln, why are my cupcakes so empty?

I think if you're getting air pockets

inside of your cupcakes,

one thing I recommend is once you've poured your batter

into the tin, I give it a little tap, tap, tap

on the counter and that evens out my batter,

but it's also going to release some of those air bubbles

so that you don't have huge pockets inside,

but you can just call this an eclair

and say you succeeded.

Up next, we have @kaytaylorrea,

baking Twitter, can you please explain the chemical process

that turns my perfectly tasty sugar dough

into utterly mediocre cookies?

They're not mediocre cookies once you bake 'em,

but you are baking everything together.

When you're tasting it,

you're probably loving those little grains of sugar

that are just raw, right?

And once they get melted into the cookie,

they're blending with that butter.

So maybe up your sugar a little bit or dust them on top,

roll 'em around in some sugar when you bake 'em,

because it sounds like you have a sweet tooth.

Olivia, @thenorthernist,

okay, I've got a big birthday cake question.

I love birthdays.

Do you like that thick, white fondant icing

on birthday cakes or no?

No.

I am not a fan of fondant whatsoever.

The texture of fondant,

whether you're using a marshmallow or a sugar base,

it's basically like a Play-Doh, right,

and you can play with it, you can color it,

you can roll it out.

It's very sweet and it's edible,

but I wouldn't say it's delicious for the most part.

I mean, let's be real.

We're not making bananas here.

You shouldn't have to peel your cake to eat it.

I wanna lick my frosting off.

[Amirah chuckling]

@amalivz, what's the hardest thing to bake

and why is it cookies?

I don't think it's cookies.

To be honest with you, I think that maybe the expectations

that people carry on

what they want their cookie to look like

versus the cookies they're actually making

could be a little bit different.

But the hardest thing for me to bake,

I would have to say are souffles.

You know when you order dessert at a restaurant

and they always tell you, if you want the souffle,

please let us know in advance.

It feels like a trick

where they're feeding you order the souffle.

Number one, they are feeding you order the souffle.

Definitely always order the souffle.

And number three, it does take forever.

It's something that is rising slowly, right?

It's not something that's just being baked like a cake.

It has this mousse texture.

It's fluffy, it's light, it's airy.

So it's temperature sensitive

and it needs to be in there long enough for it to rise.

It rises so perfectly like a puffy cloud

and, mm, it's delicious,

but that's way harder than a cookie.

Up next, we have @rrhodesss,

can I replace butter

with I Can't Believe It's Not Butter when baking cupcakes?

Technically you can,

but they're not going to come out the same

because it's not butter, right?

If you wanna use a replacement without lactose,

Green Valley actually makes a butter

that is identical to butter

and will melt and act the exact same way.

I've had so much success with it.

@amyv303, am I the only one that uses milk instead

of water when making cupcakes?

I hope not.

I think you're referring to box mixed cake

and they do always say to use water and oil or eggs,

but 100% you should replace the water with milk.

So water obviously evaporates, doesn't add flavor.

Milk has a fat content just like you would with butter

and it just makes for a way better baked good.

All right, that's all the questions we have for today.

I hope you guys all learned something.

I certainly had so much fun.

All I know is that I'm gonna go off,

eat a whole lot of cookies, whether they were flat or not.

[Amirah chuckling]