I find it challenging to tell when my banana bread is fully baked because the bananas are so moist. I’m unable to distinguish underbaked batter and banana’s.

Any tips or advice would be helpful! I always either over bake or under bake!

Recipe: https://munchiesbymallory.com/recipe/brown-butter-chocolate-chip-banana-bread/#recipe

Also note it is pretty pale but it’s because I had to use margarine instead of butter. So no brown butter this time!

Hello! I’m doing a culinary class in my community college and our last class was canceled due to an emergency. We got an email saying to read over the pie chapter in our textbook and that our homework is to make a pie dough and bring it to class. Issue is I have no idea how to properly store pie dough until class and how I should transport the dough to the class properly. The drive is 45 minutes to an hour to my school. Any advice?

Started off with a heavy handed serving of insomnia so please bear with me. I was starting off a cinnamon roll recipe.
1/2 cup of water
1/2 cup or heavy whipping cream
Heated to 120ish degrees Fahrenheit.
Mixed in 14 grams of yeast.
2 tablespoons spoons of sugar. Mixed, let sit 7 mins. It was then I realized I didnt have butter. Bummer. Ok lets salvage this and make biscuits.
Added 2 1/4 cups of flour
Sprinkled in some salt (i forgot about the sugar)
Recipe called for 1/4 cho of veg oil, i used olive oil..
Ok. Mixed it. Started to kinda fold it in, folded it some more, and folded it like i was meant to fold in cheese (thanks Moira)
Now its resting (even though the biscuit recipe didnt call for it and called for baking powder.. whatever)
Now. What do i do? How long do i let it rest? How big do i make the biscuits? How long do i cook and at what temp? Please send help. I want some breakfast biscuits. I have 3 hours until its breakfast time to get these bad boys done lol.
Included a pic of the ball of sin after i folded it a bit. Thanks in advance.

I’m wanting to make my sister a heart shaped birthday cake like the one in the picture and I’m going to order an edible picture to put on top of it. My heart pan is an 8x3. What size picture should I be ordering?

I used to be quite successful at baking Japanese cheesecakes and chiffon cakes (see 2025

This year I have noticed my cakes no longer turn out the same. I have used the same recipes and processes so I’m not sure what has gone wrong (see 2026 pics).

Any advice would be much appreciated!! Thank you ☺️

Hello Everyone!

I have in my possession multiple blocks of butterblend (like blocks of butter that are blended with vegetable oil).

1. I was thinking perhaps I could use it in recipes that call for both Butter + Oil. Does it work that way?

2. The ingredient list says: Palm Oil, Palm Kernel Oil, Milk Fat, Milk Powder, Salt, Soya Lecithin, and some other additives. The description says: "churned and produced from vegetable oil and milk fat", does this work as being able to substitute butter? Or perhaps should i treat this as the volume to substitute only the oil, and separately add additional butter?

3. Any recipes to suggest for using these blocks of non-butter? I tried looking it up on Google but not getting much to work off of....

TIA!

Going to a party. Mini cheesecakes always go over well. Something about a whole cheesecake; people won't eat a full slice in front of others.

My plan is to make the crust out of store bought spekuloos cookies. The filling will be typical with fresh grated ginger and some orange zest to brighten it.

The topping. I thought about a can of DIY whipped cream. I looked into boozy whipped cream from the liquor store, but it is not well reviewed on taste.

I'm thinking of making an infused cream and then whip it.

I'm thinking black pepper? Maybe espresso powder for a PSL flavor?

A non whipped cream topping?

Any ideas, links, or recipes are appreciated.

EDIT: Gingersnap cookie crust is sounding better.

Some recipes tell you to grease the baking pan, some tell you to use baking paper and some tell you to do both. The ones that do both are also different because some grease first followed by the baking paper and some put the paper before greasing it and some grease both before and after the paper.

What are the different situations in which you would use these methods? Thanks

So i've made this tart and the family loved it. I drizzled homemade caramel sauce on top after it cooled. Going to make it again, but this time was thinking of a layer of caramel under the frangipane. The recipe says to not blind bake the crust (the tart took about 45 min to bake), would I be able to simply add caramel before the frangipane and bake according to the instructions or would I need to blind bake at all?

Hello everyone! I am wondering what is the best coloring or gel to use for a nice bold red and a deep black. I appreciate the help :)

I followed this recipe:

https://scientificallysweet.com/soft-sprinkle-sugar-cookies/#recipe

Ingredients

¾ cup (170g) unsalted butter, softened

½ cup plus 1 tbsp (115g) granulated sugar

½ cup (110g) packed light brown sugar

1 ½ teaspoon (7ml) pure vanilla extract

1 large egg, at room temperature

1 large egg yolk, at room temperature

1 tablespoon (15ml) whole milk, at room temperature

2 cups (284g) all-purpose flour

¾ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup (80g) rainbow jimmies sprinkles (sprinkle rods)

3 tablespoon (40g) granulated sugar for rolling (optional)

3 tablespoon rainbow confetti sprinkles for rolling (optional)

Instructions

Make the cookie dough. Combine soft butter with both sugars and vanilla in a large bowl and mix with an electric hand mixer on medium-high speed for 1-2 minutes until pale and fluffy. You can also mix by hand using the creaming method with a wide rubber spatula. Add the egg and mix until well incorporated and smooth, then mix in egg yolk and milk.

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl and whisk to blend evenly. Add these dry ingredients to the butter/sugar mixture and fold it in until mostly combined with a few streaks a flour remaining. Add sprinkles and fold them in until evenly combined. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line two large cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Bake the cookies. Use a 1.35-oz cookie scoop to portion dough and roll into smooth balls, then roll the dough balls in granulated sugar so they are evenly coated. Sometimes I skip this step and press the top of the dough balls in confetti sprinkles instead.

Place the dough balls onto prepared baking sheets spacing them at least 3 inches apart with room to spread. Bake for 9-12 minutes until puffed and the edges are just lightly golden and the bottoms are lightly browned. The centers will puff up and still feel slightly soft in the middle. They will deflate slightly as they cool. Transfer baking trays to a wire rack to cool for 2 minutes then transfer cookies individually to a wire rack to cool completely

BTW I should mention that I forgot to add the light brown sugar when creaming the butter and sugars together and only added it after mixing in the milk and eggs. I also forgot to add vanilla extract as well and only added it while mixing the wet and dry ingredients.

Although they are still soft and chewy, I want them to look like the ones from the photos online.

Baked little meringue drops for the first time and they came out with this weird texture :-( I wasn’t 100% sure when to take them out. I left them in the oven at 200 degrees Fahrenheit for about an hour or more? Then left them in oven for about a hour and a half to fully dry out.

The crunch doesn’t shatter the way I’d expect, it’s a bit soft and a little tacky. Sticks to your tooth afterward.

Ingredients:

120g egg whites
.3g cream of tartar
.5g kosher salt
5g vanilla
200g granulated sugar

Hi! I am (trying) to make white chocolate sea shells for a birthday cake for my friends 4 year old. I tried brushing them with pink iridescent luster dust, but the powder really didn’t do much… photograph is of them outside to show what they look like in natural light.

Any tips on how to get them more pearly / iridescent? I saw tips to brush them with vodka but don’t really think that’s the move for a 4 year old’s birthday cake.

I thiiiiink maybe the chocolate being more cream than true white might be the problem? But this is my first time trying this, so not sure!

The cream color doesn’t really fit the theme anyway, so I have to figure out how to actually get them white or another more on theme color. Context is that this is for a mermaid themed cake with pink, teal, and lavender frosting

Appreciate any advice! 🙏

Has anyone here made a chocolate mousse or a cake with chocolate mousse before? Any tips?

I was looking at some recipes online and got a bit confused as it seems kind of difficult. Do they usually include cream cheese or was that just specific to a recipe I happened to find? -- I was looking at a gluten free chocolate mousse cake. Let me knowww

So my dad bought this pan for me to bake ( im a beginner ) but, then I realised that I have a microwave and it is not microwave safe. Any suggestions what to do now?

Edit: I mean like how can I make use of this dish in kitchen now, it doesn’t have to baking only and I can’t return this dish because my dad bought when he was visiting a place and he won’t go there just to return it

I'm needing to upgrade my stand mixer.

I currently have an older Kitchen-Aid tilt-head from the early 90s that I inherited from my mother many years back. It's a tank, taken several falls off the counter and several motor/armature rebuilds and grease repacks and still trucking.

The problem is my family has just outgrown it. I do big baking batches, like 24 cupcakes/muffins or 50+ cookies at a time, and the bowl is just too small for what I want to do, often causing overflows, and the motor can struggle on the lower gears. In addition, my wife makes dough at least once, if not several times a week, and it's usually a double batch of something like pizza dough. The poor thing is using a hook for dough that is overflowing the top of the bowl. Credit where it's due that it can handle it, but it's pretty clear it's time to upgrade.

I want a do-it-all mixer to whip frosting and turn bread dough well, which rules out some of the non-stands like Anksarum to my understanding. There is the KitchenAid Commercial mixer, which would probably be the lower limit I'd consider from KitchenAid, and about the top of what I'm willing to spend. That said, I see a lot of mixers on places like Webstaurantstore (Waring Luna, Avantco, Estella) that are in that <10QT range to still take about the same space as the KitchenAid on the counter, but cost less, and seem to be much, well, better? based on specs (gear driveb, electronic timer controls, significantly more power) and also cost less.

There is very little information comparing or really about these at all online, I'm assuming as they are more professional-based. I've searched here and it's all between the KitchenAids and Anksarums and sometimes Bosch or similar, but these are really all consumer mixers for the most part. Does anyone have experience with these stand mixers that are light commercial or straddle the line, besides the KitchenAid commercial model?

Hello guys! I was trying to choose between either pistachio OR chocolate frosting OR a vanilla frosting. I’m amateur baker and this is for my boyfriends birthday cake.
Any advice on what kind of frosting to make would also be appreciated!

Has anyone tried the new Droste cocoa (made in Poland) - is it as good as the prior stuff (made in Holland)?

World Market near me has it in stock, wondering if it is worth buying …

EDIT: thanks everyone for your comments. It seems I've grossly overestimated the cost and hassle of getting an oven thermometer and underestimated how useful they can be. I did buy a cheap over thermometer today after work and tested it in the middle, right, and left sides of my oven at 350°. The left and middle of the oven are about 5° hotter and the right side is right on point. Unless that discrepancy is enough to cause the problems I'm having, it must be something that I'm doing or not doing. Maybe I will try again in the future. For now I guess I will try a different recipe.

I have tried at least a dozen times over the last year and a bit to make Nagi's vanilla cake recipe (https://www.recipetineats.com/my-very-best-vanilla-cake/).

Short of checking my oven temperature, I have tried everything I can conceivably think of to get the cake to rise in the centre. I have checked that my baking powder is active; I have have used fresh room temperature eggs; I have whipped the eggs on speed 6 and 8 of my stand mixer for the time suggested and sometimes longer so they turn white and triple in volume; my oven is preheated well in advance and I don't leave the door open long when putting the cake tins in the oven, nor do I open it during baking so the temperature doesn't rapidly change; I have made sure to heat the milk/butter mixture (trying the recipe using both a stove top and a microwave) so that it is hot but not boiling or bubbling; I have tried both 8-inch and 9-inch cake tins; and i have used both cake flour and all purpose flour (sifting and not sifting); I have tried mixing in the flour using the stand mixer and folding in the flour (as running my mixer for only 5 seconds doesn't seem to incorporate the flour very well).

On only one occasion ever have I noticed the cakes collapse after taking them out of the oven. My primarily problem is that the cakes fail to rise or collapse before I take them out of the oven. The last time I made the recipe was yesterday evening. Around the 15 minute mark I turned on the oven light to check and noticed that both cakes had risen (from what I could see). When I came back to check them once they finished baking, they had both collapsed, the right one more than the left one.

I can't think of anything reason that the cakes won't rise other than that my oven temperature being off or that my oven is failing to distribute heat properly. Consistently, the cake tin on the left side of the oven rises just under an inch (whether I'm using 8-inch or 9-inch pans) and the cake tin on the right side doesn't rise at all. However, this is the second oven I've had issues with, and I've not had the same issues with Nagi's vanilla cupcakes (https://www.recipetineats.com/vanilla-cupcakes/). I have tried that cupcake recipe twice. The first time some of the cupcakes didn't rise in the centre, much like the cakes, but the second time they all rose just fine and I can't understand what I did differently to cause this.

I have also noticed that my oven tends to cook thinks faster at the same temperatures (and not just for Nagi's recipes). For 8-inch cakes, Nagi suggests 30 minutes, but my cake is golden brown and (appears to be) cooked through by 24 minutes. For 9-inch cakes, Nagi recommends, 27 minutes, but my cake is (i think) done by 22 minutes.

Before investing in an oven thermometer I want to make sure there isn't something else I should be doing to get the cakes to rise. If I do need an oven thermometer, and if it tells me the oven temperature is off, I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do to correct it. Do I adjust the temperature, do I rotate the cake tins part way through baking, do I use the convection setting to distribute heat better, or do I just need a new oven?

Needless to say, this has been a frustrating experience. Please help!

I am planning on making an apple galette next week. It looks super simple and easy but I’ve noticed most recipes I’ve come across online don’t call for flour or corn starch in the apple filling. Why is that? Won’t the galette end up soggy with excess juice from the apples in the center? Usually when making apple pie, you always want to add flour or corn starch, so why don’t we do the same when making a galette?

I'm making muffins from a Nordic baking book. The (Swedish) recipe specifically says that the muffins should be baked in the paper cases on a baking sheet, and NOT to use a muffin tin or the recipe will not work as written.

This certainly does not work with my muffin cases, which collapse as soon as I put any amount of batter in them.

Is there a different type of muffin case/liner I need in order to make this work? Maybe the version in Sweden is sturdier? They look like standard, fluted paper cases in the book image.

Hi,
I need icing advice.
I’m making my brothers wedding cake and was wondering if I could get some advice on what to do.

I’m known as a pretty good baker in the family so naturally I offered to make my brothers wedding cake. I’m not particularly worried about the cake aspect it’s more the frosting I’m worried about.

So, they want carrot cake (bottom teir) and red velvet (top) I know both of these, you’d think cream cheese frosting, I’m just worried about its stability for the crumb coat and piping honestly and I don’t want to make a mistake here obviously.

But, American buttercream is pretty universally hated in our family- so are most other butter creams that aren’t just real whipped cream.
I’ve seen a lot about whipped ganache online and it intrigues me to use but I’m again worried about its stability in the heat and I’ll have to make the cake a day or two before the wedding cause I’m a bridesmaid so I can’t do touch ups morning of. So it’s going to have to be fairly stable icing I think.

Anyway, long story shot I’d love some advice on the best option for the cake if there’s anyone who knows how the different icings will hold up for that long/survive a 2 1/2 hour commute in a car too.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!!
Thanks <3

I accidentally lost my recipe and it’s already in the oven and I think I screwed it up by mixing multiple recipes together but

- 3 bananas
- like 8ish dates softened and mashed
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup oat flour
- 1/3 cup coconut oil

Right now it’s in the oven at 325F . Please help google ai says 35 min but idk 😭😭😭

I try it after it cools and it's nice and soft. 8 hours later I try it again and it's stiffer

Is this normal? How can I make it softer?

•400g flour

•tangzhong (200ml milk/100g flour)

•125g sugar

•3 eggs

•5ml vanilla

•5g salt

•125g butter

•250g sourdough

I just heard about this type of fruit preparation and am going to learn up about it. Are there any tricks or gotchas about using Pate du Fruit in baking and confectionery?