I thought I would have an easy day and add the last of my ingredient articles to my ingredient page before I forget. I do have a couple of other articles written that I just need to finish and then I can add those too, but for now, soft spread will do.
Soft spread
When I make cakes I always use soft spread as it is so versatile and produces good quality cakes with a smaller amount of effort. It can be used straight from the fridge if you forget to remove it before you bake. It is a very stable fat and is ideal substitute in baking. There is less cream contained in the soft spread and the main ingredients come from vegetable sources. Although it contains a lot of water it makes good cakes which sold well at the market. I feel that the soft spread made no difference to the flavour and actually prefer cakes without butter in them. When using the soft spread for butter cream I think the resultant butter cream tastes less fatty and probably more watery than normal but this is how I prefer it. At the end of the day it is a personal choice whether you use butter or soft spread but cost wise I made a bigger profit using soft spread when I made cakes for the market stall.
The soft spread helps to emulsify the sugar crystals and hold the egg in suspension when the cake batter is put in the oven. On baking the soft spread prevents the other ingredients from burning due to the high water content of the soft spread which evaporates before the rest of the cake has time to burn. However this also means the product would have more chance of being dry as the water evaporates from the mixture.
I only use butter when making cookies, scones or pastry (and always at room temperature).
For cookies I always use butter as this gives a more solid mixture and helps to stop the mixture from spreading to far in the oven. The butter gives a more crumbly, crunchy texture to the cookies and really does help the flavour. The butter also helps with the colour of the cookies.
When I make flaky pastry for sausage rolls I never use the full amount of butter as is expressed in most recipe books. I have changed my flaky pastry to a quick method based on [amazon_textlink asin=’0563384301′ text=’Delia Smiths ‘ template=’ProductLink’ store=’wwwlovetobake-21′ marketplace=’UK’ link_id=’bc494df3-8efd-11e7-afc1-8de8c681c1e7′]recipe but I use less butter in the recipe. I made this change as I find that the butter makes the pastry very greasy especially when there is a lot of fat coming out of the sausage meat so to stop this problem.
I never use butter or soft spread when making carrot cake as I feel a better texture is formed when oil is used in the mixture. If I run out of oil I will melt the soft spread down and add it in liquid form to achieve the same effect.
The webshop is coming along nicely and I have decided to add Cookies to the products on offer in the shop. These will be small packets to begin with and may with time become the large iced ones which will be available for birthdays and other celebrations with time. There will be different flavours to choose from so lots of ideas to work with. The recipe I am basing these cookies on is one which is available in my [amazon_textlink asin=’1520969627′ text=’Easter Treats recipe book ‘ template=’ProductLink’ store=’wwwlovetobake-21′ marketplace=’UK’ link_id=’684baf5d-8efd-11e7-91f2-755b1a855756′]which I normally combine with the brownie mix to make cookie dough topped brownies. It feels weird to be using my own recipe book to follow a recipe from but it is a very nice recipe and one which I don’t have stored in my head yet. If you want to try the recipe for yourself then you just need to buy the recipe book or borrow it for free from the Kindle Library.
Back to the other jobs on my list now as I have so much to do today. I need to catch up on some more back links on my blog, add the cookies to my webshop, order the packaging, ensure that it is stated on my webshop that I need an order 36 hours before it is required in order for everything to be completed in time. As my orders will be baked fresh when the order comes through I need to give myself time to prepare ingredients, packaging, posting etc to deliver the product to the highest quality. Tomorrow, I will add the Carrot Soup recipe as that is the one which I have received the most feedback for when I asked yesterday which recipe you would like me to add to my blog. The other recipes will be added at a later date.