Tips For Making Light Fluffy Cakes

Cakes are not the easiest thing in the world to cook but if you want to become proficient at making the best Mexican dessert recipes, learning how to make a fluffy sponge cake, which you can flavor with Mexican chocolate or top with homemade cajeta, is a good idea.

Cakes started off in ancient Egypt as flat, unleavened breads but today's cakes are light, fluffy, and delicate in texture, or at least they are supposed to be!

\"Dessert Recipes\"

How to Cream Butter and Sugar

Tips For Making Light Fluffy Cakes

Many cake recipes will tell you to cream the butter and sugar, but what does this mean exactly? The best way to "cream" butter with sugar is to start off with softened butter. This means it needs to be at room temperature. Add the sugar and use an electric beater to mix it. The mixture is ready when it is smooth and pale.

Add the eggs gradually, so the batter does not curdle. One at a time is usually fine. Beat the eggs into the butter and sugar mixture until just combined. Never over-beat the mixture once you have added the eggs because this stops it from being light and fluffy. Next, add the flour. Use a spatula or wide metal spoon to fold it in.

How to Fold Flour

Folding means gently stirring rather than beating. You do not want to add too much air to the mixture, which is the reason for stirring gently with a wide, flat spoon. Folding in the flour usually takes place once the sugar, butter, eggs, and other ingredients have been well combined. The flour might be mixed with other powdered ingredients, like sugar, salt, or baking powder, before you add it.

Use a rubber spatula or metal spoon. Begin at the back of the mixing bowl, cut vertically through the mixture, across the bowl base, and back up the other side. Rotate the bowl a bit and fold again. This gentle movement combines the flour with the other ingredients. Repeat until the flour is well mixed in.

An Easy Recipe for Vanilla Cake

This recipe makes a nine by nine inch cake or twelve individual cakes. This is a very simple recipe, and you can use the tips above to ensure it comes out perfectly. You can use any frosting to decorate it.

What you will need:

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 tablespoon melted butter, for greasing
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

How to make it:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Use the melted butter to grease a nine by nine inch cake pan, then sprinkle flour over it. Alternatively, line a muffin pan with paper liners. Cream the butter with the sugar, then gradually beat in the eggs and vanilla extract. Fold the flour and baking powder into the mixture. Stir in the milk until the batter is smooth, and then transfer it to the cake pan or muffin pan.

Bake the cake for half an hour or forty minutes if it is in a cake pan, or about twenty five minutes if you are using a muffin pan. When the cake is springy to the touch, it is ready. Cool on a wire rack and serve.

Tips For Making Light Fluffy Cakes

There are Mexican recipes for every meal and also for dessert. When learning to make Mexican dessert recipes, it is useful to know how to blend your ingredients properly for light, fluffy cakes. Mexican cakes are truly mouthwatering and worth making properly.

MexicanDessertRecipes.net The Sweet Side of Mexican Food

The History and Making of Liquorice

The confection called Liquorice is very popular and is enjoyed by many people around the western world. Unknown to most consumers though, liquorice has been around in one form or another for a very, very long time. Liquorice has endured a rich and long history. There is evidence to prove that liquorice was consumed by the people of ancient civilizations, especially the Egyptians, although not in the form that we know of today. In ancient Egypt, liquorice was not eaten as strips or ropes of candy we know today but as a sweet liquid. The extract of the plant called the Glycyrrhiza, which means 'sweet root' in Greek, was indulged upon by many prophets and pharaohs. Also documented was the use of this extract that came in handy in the battlefields and the dessert where soldiers and travelers drank to relieve their thirst on long marches.

It would not be until the Middle Ages when the liquorice plant and its extracts were brought to England by the Crusaders who came home from the East. A certain monastery in Pontefract, England began using the extract and turned it into liquorice candy and it became well-known throughout the country. In time, liquorice recipes were brought to America by the early settlers. The US has been producing and importing liquorice products ever since.

Confection

The process of manufacturing liquorice candy has two methods. The use of which method depends on the scale the company is to produce. This means that candy companies that operate on a small production scale use the Corn Starch Molding Process, which is the same process used to make candy corns. The company with a larger production scale manufactures using the Liquorice Rope Extrusion Process and is quite different.

For smaller-scale production companies that use the Corn Starch Molding Process, the process starts with trays that contain long rows of molds for the product which are filled with corn starch. The corn starch is vital because it prevents the liquorice from sticking to the mold and makes it easier to remove. Ingredients like sugar, corn syrup and liquorice extract are cooked together until they become hot syrup. It is important that the cooking of the syrup is given a lot of attention because this step determines the texture of the product. The candy could by soft, chewy, or tough because of this step. The syrup is then poured onto the trays and the molds are filled. The trays are then set aside to cool. When the liquorice is cool, they are dumped into a surface. Because of the corn starch, the liquorice just falls off the tray easily. On the surface, the liquorice is given a glaze that creates its glossy appearance. They are then packed, labeled and prepared to be shipped.

The other way to make liquorice candy is used in large-scale productions and is called the Liquorice Rope Extrusion Process. Production starts in the boiling room where a mixture of licorice root extract is boiled to an exact temperature. When it gets hot enough, the desired colors and flavors are added to the mix and cooked slowly until it achieves a dough-like consistency. The dough mix is then passed through an extruder where the dough is forced out of tiny holes. These holes form the dough into ropes of liquorice. When the liquorice ropes are formed, they are either allowed to cool and set directly or twisted to form a more 'rope' texture and are then cut into pieces. When set, these are glazed to give the sheen they are known for and then packaged and shipped to candy stores around the country.

The History and Making of Liquorice

Michael Russell

Your Independent guide to Candy [http://candy-guide.com].