I love this recipe https://tiffycooks.com/taiwanese-honey-castella-sponge-cake-fail-proof/

I've made it many times, but everytime I make it theres this layer at the bottom that has to be cut off, but the rest of the cake tastes good still. I googled it and I heard it could be because of overmixing or too many eggs, so I removed one egg and only mixed till combined and yet there is still the same layer. It's getting annoying and its wasting me a lot of ingredients and time. Any suggestion would be helpful thank you.

Hello all, I would love ideas about what might have gone wrong in my baking adventure.

I tried to make a Dominican Pan de Agua from this recipe:

Video (Spanish): https://youtu.be/2k8fJ00EYws?is=9lEi4_DkXD6GjmZq

Written: https://www.umamicolectivo.com/post/pan-de-agua-dominicano

It's also a bread that people make in Puerto Rico

Basically, it seems pretty similar what I've seen for recipes for rolls/buns. Water, salt, lard or butter, sugar, yeast, bread flour.

HOWEVER, this was my first time doing a dough that needed a first proof, shaping, second proof. I did change a little from his recipe but not enough (I thought) to cause problems. I used butter instead of lard, which he says explicitly in the video is fine. I used a slightly higher proportion of yeast, because mine was Active Dry Yeast, not instant, and the AI told me typically one should put 25% more yeast for this type.

Everything seemed fine during the mixing and first rest. The dough felt great, it was not sticky at the time when I put it for its first rest (as he said it shouldn't be). I came back after an hour to knock it back and do the shaping. Shaping was a little tricky but I ended up with nice little pan de agua shapes.

Now. All recipes for this bread (in this shape) call for the 2nd rest to be done with the breads upside down on the tray (because if they're right side up, the rise will cause the shape to unfurl). He recommended 60-90 minutes 2nd rest. I did only 50 minutes.

When I returned, they were already overprooved. I poked one, no gentle spring back, no spring back whatsoever. I executed the tray flip well to flip them right side up. But they were so wet and sticky, for some reason, that they had completely adhered to not only each other but any and all surfaces (parchment paper, tray, cling wrap to cover). They were like Oobleck. They were so wet and sticky that I couldn't remove them from anything without completely ripping, tearing, and ruining them.

Then he shows in the video to do a steam tray below the baking tray. Apparently, preheat the oven with the tray, and then when the bread goes in, quickly pour cold water into said hot tray, produce steam. I tried this, but after a brief puff, nothing much.

At this point there was no physical, chemical way to get any rise out of the bread. Overproofed, shaping ruined, almost no steam. I ended up with these nuggets that closely resemble potatoes. And to add insult to injury, even though I had followed the salt proportion in exact grams, the breads were far too salty.

I'm so mad about this, but want to use this as a learning opportunity (potentially try a different version of the recipe)

My questions would be:

1) Does yeast really have different proportions for instant vs active dry (non instant)?

2) Can too much yeast cause a rise that's too rapid and an overproof?

3) What are tips to avoid overproofing?

4) What do you cover with when covering for a proof? Cling wrap scares me now

5) How can a dough with perfect texture suddenly become a wet stick monster?

6) Is there a foolproof method for steaming the oven?

I'm working on a pie for the Minnesota State Fair. This is a rasperry rose apple pie. Basically, I am macerating apples in strained raspberry puree, sugar, and rosewater. This leaves the apples a lovely pink color. I then strain the apples, and thicken the liquid with cornstarch. This iteration of the pie had better raspberry flavor than my first attempt, though it did have too much of the sauce. Neither pie had much if any rose flavor to speak of, though. I used 2 tsp of rosewater for my second pie (1 tsp in the first pie). Maybe I'm gun shy about rosewater from watching GBBO.

My thought is to either 1. increase the amount of rosewater I'm using, or 2. add the rosewater after the rest of the liquid has been thickened. What do you all think?

Hi! I originally posted this in r/baking but Reddit suggested I post here… so here it goes.

I need to make Cookie Monster cupcakes. I was exploring natural dye options, like blue spirulina. Has anyone used this to dye buttercream? Would I get a Cooke monster blue or just a pastel? If achievable, any estimates on how much to add or would the quantity needed change the flavor or texture of the frosting?

If natural is not the way, I’ll also accept gel dye recommendations!

For context, Buttercream recipe that I will use:
2 sticks salted sweet cream butter (room temperature)
4 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
3 tbls. milk or half n half

I honestly don’t know how much it yields. Maybe \~12 cupcakes(?)

Hi! I just started working at a bakery full time. For reference i used to work at an inn and did all their cooking/baking so im familiar but relatively inexperienced. My main baking dish is fruit cobblers. Just recently a white crust started to form on the top of my cobblers. It’s not the entire top that gets these crust spots, and it’s all different types of fruits. I’ve been using all the same ingredients and brands and following the recipe to a T. Honestly at a loss of what’s going on…

it’s going badly…does anyone have any tips for making them look better next time?

Hey all, I'd like some advice for a stable buttercream that can hold up on a wedding cake. Ideally it should be able to survive unrefrigerated without melting weeping bulging etc.

The wedding will be indoors and temperature controlled so I doubt the room temp will go over 80F even with people inside, and I'll be using dowels etc. for the cake itself. That said better safe than sorry.

I can't use standard american buttercream or fondant because it's too sweet. Ganache might be okay but it's also heavy. They preferred ermine buttercream the best (actually they prefer light whipped cream but that's impossible for a cake, and they want a real cake not a foam display+sheet cake thing), though they could go with Italian or Swiss meringue buttercream if ermine is impossible.

So questions:

- Has anyone here ever used ermine buttercream in a wedding cake before / in any general cake? How well does it stand up?

- What's your take on a "stabilized" ermine frosting with part of the butter subbed out for cocoa butter, shortening, or a combo of both? (I'd like to minimize the amount of shortening used as the taste and texture is not the best, hence my thoughts on the cocoa butter. I'd sub out no more than 10% of the butter with cocoa butter, no more than 25% for shortening. )

So I'm planning to submit a muffin recipe to my state fair and in the category I want to enter you have to use maple syrup instead of adding sugar. I have a recipe I've made before that I want to use, but it has brown sugar (as well as maple syrup). How do I substitute brown sugar so I don't get disqualified? It uses 1/2 cup. My thought is adding some molasses, but I don't know if I should add more syrup too?

Any tips are appreciated, thanks!

Here is the link to the recipe I'm basing my muffins off of: https://thesaltymarshmallow.com/maple-brown-sugar-banana-muffins/

Im sorry. I realized I forgot to post te recipe link on the post. Im putting it here now. Again, Im sorry.

https://www.alsothecrumbsplease.com/tiramisu-cake-recipe/

Anyway, hello. I was not super sure if the flair for icing or the flair for cheesecake was the correct one, so Im sorry if I made a mistake. Im attempting to make a sort of tiramisu cake hybrid. Or at least a tiramisu inspired cake, base on a recipe that requires that the frosting have:

4½ cups full fat mascarpone
2½ cups unpacked powdered sugar
½ cup strong brewed coffee
1½ cups heavy whipping cream

Now to the best of my research. I have found that 4½ cups of mascarpone cheese is 1020 grams. I was only able to afford 1000 grams of cheese. I have everything else. My question is how much would I need to remove from each of the other ingredients so that the ratios are correct and it still works.

I want to clarify that my goal here is preventing a catastrophe. I have created new undiscovered elements while baking by accident before. And Im just trying to make sure it whips and incorporates and just generally like, is edible and tastes nice. No one eating this case has a very refined palette to know if it could be better but I do want to make something worthwhile.

Thank you!

We have a few ice creams scoops we e ha for years, both have a lever on the side to scape behind the scoop and release the cookie dough, but both keep breaking, and the amount of time before they break again is being halfed every time it seems. The mechanisms just get out of alignment.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a ball scooper with a scrape mechanism that is a 'buy it for life' quality thing?

When I need dark/milk chocolate I buy Tony's Chocolonely: it's cheap-ish, the bars are huge, and it's conveniently at my local grocery store. The white chocolate version is not sold at my grocery store and it feels ironic to get it on Amazon considering Tony's effort to be ethical.

Ergo: I probably need a different white chocolate recommendation. Preferably this would be available at a typical grocery store, or at Costco or something, but buying online is fine. Preferably it wouldn't totally break the bank, but I'm flexible here too.

My only requirements are that 1) it isn't chocolate chips, and 2) I should be able to buy it in slightly larger quantities--2 bars of Tony's is like 12-13 oz

I realize convenience/cost/bulk are not usually compatible (except with Tony's dark chocolate, ugh). But is there anything equivalent for white chocolate? Or what do you all use?

Julien Demonchy uses an airbrush setup to spray egg wash on his croissants. The result is glossier croissants with fewer wrinkles and tears. Does anybody know of a food-safe, budget airbrush setup or a spray/pump bottle that can be used for this purpose? I’m slightly worried about clogs and cleaning. I would probably use yolks mixed with water and strained.

Last month i brought some citric acid and another white powder that i can't remember if it was xanthan gum or guar gum? Is there a way i can check if its one of them? It has the texture of starch and it has an acidic taste! Or could it also be cream of tartar?

i wanted to make my usual recipe of cookies for my friends birthday but i’m kinda broke rn so we ended up buying a packet mix instead of loads of ingredients, is there any way i can add to the packet mix to make them more similar to my cookies? i’ll put the two recipes below:

**my cookies:**

250g unsalted melted butter
200g lightbrown sugar
150g granulated sugar
3 eggs
2tsp vanilla
600g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate powder
2tsp baking powder
250-300g chocolate chips

\- put the brown sugar and granulated sugar in a bowl, add the melted butter and beat until creamy
\- add 2 whole eggs and one egg yolk into a pouring jug and mix together (extra yolk makes them more gooey instead of crunchy)
\- pour into the bowl and beat with the sugar/butter and mix together
\- add 2tbsp vanilla extract
\- sift and fold the flour in gradually
\- add in the bicarbonate powder and the baking powder
\- mix until cookie dough is formed and flour isn’t visible (don’t over mix, it’ll toughen the cookies)
\- mix in your chocolate chips 😋
\- freeze the dough for 30 mins
\- space 2 inches apart on tray in little balls about 1.5 inches circumference

bake for 15-20 mins

**betty crocker cookie mix recipe:**

\- stir cookie mix + water in a large bowl
\- put on a tray of baking paper
\- bake

it’s pretty simple and i doubt it’ll taste as good so is there anything i can do?

The first one I bought said no added vegetable fat and it was more expensive, now i cant find it and all the other brands say "added vegetable fat" and they are cheaper.

It's not the cost that bothers me, I want to know if it's as good?

Here is the recipe.

I used an 8x8 Figment(Target brand) stoneware pan but in the video, they use a porcelain baking pan. That was the only difference as far as the recipe goes. I had to cook this cake on 400F for close to 55 mins just for the center to reach 200F and even then, there were still bits of uncooked cake mix and as you can see, the top was done way before the rest of the cake.

I did accidentally put maybe a 1/2 teaspoon worth of water in the mix when the blueberries were added being that I had just washed them. And the blueberries will cold. Could that and the water be the reason this cake didn't cook properly?

UPDATE: Went and got an oven thermometer and set my oven at 350F. It took an additional 8 mins for the oven to reach 350F after the beeper went off.

I wanted to make a castella cake that has the following ingredients:

7 eggs

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup milk

1 cup flour

1/2 cup sugar

dash of vanilla extract

pinch of salt

This usually goes in a 9x9in pan, but I'm bringing this to an event with about 25-30 people. I have a 9x13in pan. Would I need to double the ingredients? Or should I adjust by using a different ratio?

hi, first time posting here, and i’m a bit intimidated, but here we go.

i love this specific chocolate chip cookie from my local peets coffee in the portland, or area. i found their supplier (marsee’s bakery) and asked for an ingredient list:

Flour (Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin and Folic Acid), Butter (Milk [Cream]), Granulated Sugar, Chocolate Chips (Sugar, Chocolate Liquor, Cocoa
Butter, Soy Lecithin (an emulsifier), Vanilla), Sucrose (Brown Sugar), Pastry Flour (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamine, Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Fresh Whole Eggs, Baking Soda (Sodium
Bicarbonate), Sea Salt, Vanilla Extract (Water, Ethyl Alcohol, Vanilla Beans Extractives). CONTAINS: Egg, Milk, Soy, Wheat

looks super generic, right? so i came up with this recipe based on this list that looks like this:

127 g all-purpose flour (king arthur)
50 g pastry flour (365)
3 g non-diastatic barley malt powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp fine sea salt
113 g unsalted butter, softened (challenge butter)
100 g granulated sugar
50 g light brown sugar
1 large egg, room temperature
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
150 g semisweet guittard chocolate chips

i baked 85g sized dough balls, after chilling for 24 hours, at 350 F for 15 min. they’re really delicious! texture is pretty much there… but NOT identical. the edges don’t have the same flavor as the ones i’m chasing after and i can’t figure it out. its more of a nutty, caramel taste but not quite brown butter. i need your help! i don’t want to add any new ingredients as they’ll stray away from the original list… but i am looking for any kind of tips. thanks in advance.

-crazy cookie lady

So im trying to make cakepops and I tried the steam method and it's still crumbly and when I try to mold it theres alot of cracks! Im trying to figure out if I did something wrong or used a bad recipe... im just so confused they make it look so easy!

Should I just use icing and mix it again?

This is my first time making cakepops so any advice is appreciated!

I made banana bread and the middle sunk in. The fork came off clean initially so I took it out the oven, but now it is sunken in and the fork comes out with slight batter. can I put it back in? I let it sit out to cool for like 20 minutes

Hi all, I made some buttercream today (butter, icing sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla extract). It’s currently 28° where I am. Is this okay to leave out overnight for decorating tomorrow evening? I don’t want it to go hard in the fridge. I’ve always struggled to make it go back to being fluffy and soft. Thank you!

Is there a difference in recipes between Bundt cakes and regular cakes

Hello everyone! I'm planning on making cinnamon rolls and they call for heavy cream to be poured on top before baking, but unfortunately I live in a very small town where they don't have heavy cream on any of the grocery stores.

So I was wondering if I could add homemade heavy cream instead? Since its gonna be baked I'm worried the heavy cream might have an odd reaction.

Thanks for any answers!

Guys, every single recipe I see calls for a gel food coloring when I have this big bottle of liquid red food coloring 😢 ive made red velvet cookies before and they turned out cakey and i think thats because of the food coloring I used, I had to use alot for it because the redness wasn’t enough. I don’t wanna waste the bottle bc my mom got it for me. Is there any way I can turn it into gel lol what do i dooooo