EQUIPMENT & BAKING NOTES

We recognise that no one has everything – whether that’s specific tools, access to certain ingredients, financial resources, or even time; we’re all short of something! With this in mind, we’ve included bakes that cover a range of different options. There are recipes for when you’re short of time (which take about 30 minutes to make); economical recipes (cheap to make or which make use of food that would normally be thrown away); and recipes for those with special dietary requirements (vegan, gluten-free and lactose-free). The Special Indexes section here will help you find them.

Measurements: As bakers, we’re passionate about precise measurements and weighing out ingredients accurately. A recipe is a specific set of instructions and, if followed faithfully, should produce consistent bakes the way the author intended. Unlike a soup, where a few extra vegetables, stock or seasoning could go undetected, where baking is concerned even a little deviation from the recipe can have a big effect!

We find using grams to measure ingredients (rather than volume measurements) produces more consistent products. For this reason, in our bakery we always use electronic scales to measure ingredients. We weigh everything from salt to flour, bananas to oil.

Electronic scales are more accurate than mechanical ones because they are more sensitive, allowing us to measure small incremental amounts of ingredients as well as liquids straight into our mixing bowls.

You only need to become familiar with the ‘tare’ function on electronic scales, which will bring the read-out back to zero after you have placed your bowl on the scales. This saves on washing up (always a bonus), but is also far easier and quicker than trying to judge the level of water in a jug or to guestimate 11g of salt, for instance. Fruit, vegetables and herbs also vary in size depending on the variety and supplier, so for these too we give a weight in grams to ensure a consistent bake.

We have given liquid quantities in ml, but if you have electronic scales it’s much more accurate to measure liquids by weight, rather than doing it by eye. Wonderfully, 1ml of water weighs 1g, so it’s an easy conversion.

Similarly, for baking, don’t use any old household teaspoons and tablespoons to measure out your ingredients, as they can vary in size. Instead, use a set of measuring spoons. All teaspoon and tablespoon measurements are level unless stated otherwise.

1 tsp = 5ml

1 tbsp = 15ml

Ovens: Just like people, every oven has a different temperament, running at different temperatures to what they’re supposed to be programmed to. This can sadly result in over- or under-cooked bakes and be so disappointing if you’ve just invested time and money into creating a recipe. If you bake regularly, you hopefully have a good grasp on whether (and if so, where) your oven has hotspots and whether it bakes hotter or cooler than other ovens. We advise you to adjust the temperatures in the recipes slightly to account for this and also rotate products within the oven to help give them an even bake. If you’re new to your oven, we recommend using an oven thermometer, which will reveal the true temperature of your oven. You can then adjust the oven dial to achieve the temperature required in each recipe.

Scales: As we’ve just mentioned, if you bake regularly and have the means to invest in a set of electronic (digital) scales, we can’t recommend them enough – they will transform your baking! But if not, don’t fear – we’ve made sure all the recipes in this book can be made with whatever equipment you have, and very small precise measurements (such as 11g of salt) are also given in teaspoons for ease.

Electric stand or hand mixers: Many of our recipes require an electric stand or hand mixer – but if you don’t own one, don’t worry! We ran our first three training courses teaching our trainees to make everything by hand. For creaming or beating mixtures together, use a wooden spoon or a firm spatula. And for anything that needs to be whisked, a wire balloon whisk works just as well. It will just take a little longer and require a bit more elbow grease!

Bench scrapers: Lots of bakers use a simple piece of equipment called a ‘bench scraper’ for making bread or decorating cakes. It’s a rectangle of plastic or metal, usually with one curved and one straight edge, used to divide doughs, scrape them off surfaces and help knead. When kneading bread, it can be tempting to dust the work surface you’re using with flour to stop the dough sticking, but this can result in a dryer, harder bread, because you end up mixing all that extra flour into the dough. Instead, fearlessly let the dough stick to the surface and use a bench scraper to scrape off any that’s stuck, bringing it back into the ball of dough. A bench scraper can also be used as a cake scraper, to evenly smooth icing over the surface of a layer cake. If you’re making lots of bread, particularly very wet doughs such as focaccia, you might find investing a few quid in one makes a world of difference.

Cake decorating tools: At Luminary, we use a few bits of equipment only keen cake makers usually own, such as a turntable, palette knife and cake scraper. They make getting a perfectly smooth finish on a cake a lot easier and are well worth the investment if you decorate cakes regularly. If you don’t have these to hand, you can place the cake on a large, flat plate and rotate it on your work surface instead of using a turntable. And a butter knife and spatula are sufficient in place of a palette knife or cake scraper.

Silicone spatula: We always have a silicone spatula on hand, for getting every last bit of mixture out of the bowl or saucepan.

Pastry brush: You’ll find a pastry brush very useful for glazing and greasing, too.

Baking paper and silicone baking mats/tin liners: There is sometimes confusion over whether to use baking paper (sometimes called baking parchment) or greaseproof paper. Greaseproof paper is better for sandwich wrapping as a lot of baked goods will stick like glue to it. If you’re standing perplexed in the supermarket, opt to buy ‘baking paper’, which is the better option. For baking cookies, silicone baking mats can be a useful and sustainable purchase to replace baking paper, as they can be washed up and re-used many times. You can now also buy re-usable silicone cake tin liners.