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How To Make Pastillage

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Pastillage is a hard sugar dough when dry. Pastillage is perfect for sculpting hard sugar crafts like 3D heel and building characters. It is made using icing sugar, gum tragacanth or its chemical derivatives and egg whites.     When working on Pastillage, time is the main factor to be considered as Pastillage sets and dries out really quickly. Pastillage can be further smoothened after it has dried using sand paper.     The Pastillage recipe below is easy to make and can be made in a short period of time. Ingredients • 500g icing sugar • 2 egg whites • 3 teaspoon gum tragacanth/ CMC • Corn Flour(for kneading) Procedure • Put egg whites in a clean mixing bowl • Sift in icing sugar and gum tragacanth • Mix till it's well incorporated • Transfer it to a clean working surface and knead with corn flour • Wrap Pastillage with a cling film and store for 24hours before use or till when it is needed. This makes it more pliable and easy to work it.  

How To Make A Fluffy Sponge Cake

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This Sponge cake recipe is a butter based sponge cake with a fluffy and firm texture... This Sponge cake is sooo yummy!    There are few twists used in this recipe and can be used for any other cake recipe to help retain its moisture. • Bake the cake over a hot water bath. • Line your baking pan with a parchment paper Ingredients • 300g All purpose flour • 3 tablespoon corn flour • ½ teaspoon salt • 1 cup Sugar • 8 tablespoon unsalted butter • 6 Eggs • 1 teaspoon baking powder • 10 tablespoon Milk • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract • ¾ teaspoon cream of tartar/ Vinegar/ Lemon juice Method • Mix your dry ingredients (Flour, corn flour, baking powder and salt) together • Grease and flour your baking pan • Preheat your oven • Separate egg whites and yolks • On a low heat, heat butter and milk for 2 minutes • Remove  butter and milk mix from heat, add ½ cup of sugar and egg yolk ( one at a time) and mix using a whisk • Fold in dry ingredients until it is well incorpo

The Most Amazing Royal Icing Recipes

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Royal icing is a type of non-rolled icing made using confectioner sugar, meringue powder, egg whites, lemon extract and other ingredients.    Royal Icing has different types based on ingredients used, the traditional egg white Royal icing and the meringue poeder type. The meringue powder type has no egg whites in its recipe.    Royal icing is used in decorating cookies, gingerbread houses, cupcakes, for small cake decorations and to make drips on covered cakes. Royal icing is easy to make, requires few ingredients, sets quickly and dries hard. Its hard structure makes it resistant to easy cracking.    The recipes below is a guide to making the most amazing Royal icing... • Traditional Egg whites Royal Icing Recipe Ingredients 4 Egg whites 4 cups confectioner sugar 1 teaspoon lemon extract 1 teaspoon oil free flavouring Food colouring of choice(optional) Method Always make sure your mixing bowl is Grease free as this will affect the consistency of royal icing. ✓In

Simple Baking Ingredients Substitute

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When baking, there are these ingredients we have in small and insufficient quantity or we just can't get them nearby, instead of halting our baking, we've put together few ingredient substitutes you could easily put your hands on when you can't get the real ingredient around or probably you just want the preservatives and chemical free ones since the substitute will work just fine.    The substitutes are those that could be used in most recipes that calls for the real ingredients except in few cases. These ingredient substitutes can be made using must haves ingredients in our kitchen, they are easy to make and can also be made in a lesser time.    This can help to prevent storing unfinished ingredients since the needed quantity can be easily made and used at once. • Buttermilk The real buttermilk is the luquid left behind after churning buter out of cultured cream. Buttermilk are used in dessert cakes (e.g chocolate cake, red velvet cake,etc) due to its acidity wh

How Your Baking Ingredients Works

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Cake baking gives joy to the baker when a baked cake has a perfect finish, enough volume, super delicious and Irresistible taste.    This is achieved by using the best available ingredients, procedure and recipe. Choosing the best baking ingredients will be easier for a pro that have tried different recipes and has adjusted to the best of this recipes. Ranging from the best mixing time, ingredients and their temperature.   When making cake, it is best to make sure baking ingredients are at room temperature, cold or warm ingredients will give  different results compared to ingredients at room temperature. Below are details of how your ingredients works as this might help in choosing the best one for you depending on what you want  your resulting cake to be like. • FLOUR There are different types of flour and all these types have their base from wheat flour. Wheat flour contains proteins that react with each other when mixed with water to form GLUTEN. The difference between ea

How To Make Fondant Shiny

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Fondant is a common type of icing with matte appearance, it is mostly used for covering wedding cakes along  other cakes.    Fondant can look kinda dull especially when worked upon with excess cornflour, there are few techniques that could be used to give a  fondant covered cake and its details (flowers, bows, characters) a glossy appearance.    The best technique to be used depend on the amount of fondant to be worked on. ✓ Corn syrup and Alcohol (preferably vodka) Mixing an equal volume of corn syrup and vodka or any clear drinking alcohol and applying it on fondant surface using a paint brush gives fondant a permanent and high gloss appearance. When using this technique, fats(e.g shortening) should not be used on fondant to be painted because fats separate the glaze leaving it with a bubbled and uneven appearance. It is best to knead fondant with corn flour when using this technique. ✓ Alcohol Using a spray bottle or airbrush placed 10 cm away from fondant surface, s

How To Make A Cake Rise Better

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Cakes are best enjoyed when light and fluffy and this can be achieved when the right ingredients are used for making the cake.    A cake made with good ingredients may not be as light as preferred due to some little baking mistakes.   When your cake raise higher more air bubbles are in the cake and the resulting cake is hence light and fluffy as desired    Below are few things to try to make your cake raise higher and makes the resulting cake light and fluffy. This is applicable to cake mix and batter made from scratch... • Proper Creaming When Creaming your butter and sugar, make sure enough air are incorporated into your mix as this will determine the rate of your cake's fluffiness but do not over do this as it excess can also affect the cake adversely. The time for Creaming your butter and sugar may vary depending on the quantity of cake to be made, mixer speed, shape and size of mixing bowl (when mixing with bowl and wooden spoon), a deep bowl is advisable when mixin