okay I have made so many baking mistakes in my time and understanding all the different elements
that contribute to a light and fluffy cake has truly been a lifelong journey and it all comes
down to knowledge that I wish I had before I started baking so I have done this video here
which goes over common baking mistakes and I'll link that video down below but today I'm going
to be going over more Uncommon tips which I feel aren't talked about enough so let's get into it
number one the difference between a conventional and convection ovens and how that can impact your
cake so if you've used one of my recipes before you'll notice that I state to preheat the oven
with the fan on and I use a much lower temperature of 160 degrees Celsius as opposed to you know the
more common temperature of 180 degrees Celsius and understanding how ovens work will explain
why so conventional ovens use heating elements which are often located on the bottom of the
oven and sometimes on the top as well and that's what heats up the air inside the oven which then
Cooks our food now the only downside to using this method is it can cause hot spots in your
oven which can result in a bit of uneven baking but you know as a home Baker it's not too much
of a problem and if you stick to baking your cakes in the middle of your oven on the middle rack then
you should be fine convection ovens on the other hand use a fan to help circulate the hot air and
distribute it more evenly through the oven and what this does is it allows for more even and
consistent baking and lowers the risk of you know kind of hot spots or uneven Browning but because
convection ovens are fan assisted they're going to bake your cakes a lot faster than a conventional
oven and baking a cake too quickly has its own risks which you know we won't go over in this
video but in order to prevent this from happening what you want to do is lower the temperature of
your oven by about 15 to 20 degrees Celsius now most ovens actually have both options so which
one should you use now personally based on my own experience I prefer to use the fan assisted mode
because I find that my cakes just bake a little bit more evenly that way I hope this also helps
explain why some of you are noticing that your cakes are taking a little bit longer to bake than
mine and it could just be because you're using a conventional oven which doesn't have you know
a fan assisted mode so if that is the case then just remember to bump up your temperature number
two the effects that a fridge has on an exposed cake that is not covered in frosting and how this
can significantly reduce the quality of your cake if it's not properly stored so long story short
fridges can dry Out Cakes and this is because fridges are designed to remove moisture from
the air in order to keep food fresh now because of this when cakes are stored in the fridge the
cool dry air can cause the moisture in the cake to evaporate more quickly which leads to a dry stale
texture which is you know you don't want that in a cake in addition to this fridges can also
cause your cake layers to absorb you know kind of funky flavors from other foods that you've got in
your fridge which can significantly impact the taste and quality as well but in some cases you
do need to store a cake in the fridge and if that is the case then it's recommended that you wrap
your cake layers in some plastic wrap or foil and then pop it into an airtight container and
this is just going to help retain that moisture and flavor now an important note here is if you
frosted a cake then that's actually okay to pop into the fridge because frosting actually creates
a barrier which prevents air from getting into the cake layers and let's say you know you've cut
some slices out of the cake and there's a bit of exposed cake then it's going to go back into the
fridge then what you can do is just get a little bit of extra frosting if you have some and just
cover up those exposed layers or you can even cover it up with some plastic wrap number three
the difference between brown sugar and white sugar and how that can affect your baking so when I was
younger we rarely had white sugar in our house so I used to literally use brown sugar in like
everything that I baked but this can actually have unintentional consequences on your baking
so firstly let's talk about texture so brown sugar is very moist and it has molasses in it which can
add moisture but also a slightly denser texture to cakes white sugar on the other hand is drier
so it can help with a more kind of fluffier and lighter texture to your cake secondly is Flavor
so brown sugar has a more kind of caramel-like taste to it which can add a richer more complex
flavor to you know your baked goods white sugar on the other hand has more like a neutral flavor
to it and so it can really allow other flavors in your cake to shine thirdly is the color so brown
sugar has a darker color to it because it's got molasses in it so this can give you know
a deeper darker color to your cake white sugar on the other hand is much lighter so you know you're
going to get a much lighter color in your cake so let's say you're making a white cake then you
know you want to go for white sugar as opposed to brown sugar lastly and this actually applies
to both sugars is that sugar is considered a wet ingredient when it comes to baking and when I look
back on it now I'm like this is such a basic piece of information that you know maybe I should have
known but it's not something that I didn't know it would have saved me so so many cake fails so the
reason why sugar is considered a wet ingredient is because it attracts and retains moisture and
when it's mixed with you know other ingredients in your batter like water milk or eggs it dissolves
and creates more like a syrup-like consistency which you know adds a lot of moistness and can
also help bind all the ingredients together and like I said earlier this is really important to
know when it comes to kind of tweaking or even developing your own recipes because creating
a beautifully moist cake is a really delicate balance between your wet and your dry ingredients
so it's really important to know you know what is actually considered a wet ingredient so that is it
guys I hope these little bits of information really help you guys alongside your baking
journey and let me know if you guys want more videos like this I'll see you in the next video