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Equipment

Your baking basics can be simply a large mixing bowl, a wooden spoon, a rolling pin, a baking sheet (with a lip on one side) and the most commonly used cake tins: a 20cm (8in) square cake tin and a 20cm (8in) round cake tin – preferably springform with high sides. With those few pieces you can make a variety of cakes and biscuits from this book, including small square cakes such as brownies.

Many biscuits are cut directly from a biscuit dough rolled into a sausage shape, but for others you will need a 6cm (2½in) cutter, either round or shaped. It is also essential to use accurate kitchen scales.

Oven temperatures are given for a standard oven; if you are using a fan oven, reduce the stated temperature by 20°C.

From muffins to smooth icings

You will need muffin and cupcake trays to make those popular small cakes, and both usually require paper cases to fit them.

Other sizes and types of tin appear in the book, including, most frequently: a 25 × 38cm (10 × 15in) Swiss roll tin for making flapjacks, cake squares, traybakes and focaccia; a 900g (2lb) loaf tin for making bread loaves and sweet tea loaves; two 20cm (8in) sandwich tins for making sponge sandwich cakes; and a loose-bottomed 23cm (9in) tart tin for baking savoury or sweet tarts.

A baking tray (with a lip all round) is used for toasting nuts. For melting chocolate you will need a heatproof bowl that can sit just inside the top of a small saucepan. And a palette knife will enable you to create a smooth finish to a buttercream covering.

By hand or faster?

For speedy cake making, an electric beater will help you to cream sugar and butter together quickly – the basis of many cakes. A food processor will also do this for you. Most of the recipes in this book can be made without using a food processor or a stand mixer, although you can use them if you have them. A stand mixer, however, will make short and less tiring work of kneading yeast-based doughs.