Did You know I've written an ebook called 'Easy Vegan Baking'? It's coming up to the third birthday of my ebook EASY VEGAN BAKING - how time flies! Have you grabbed your copy yet? It's free on Kindle Unlimited, or £5.99 to download, and is chock full of
- vegan lifestyle tips - baking tips - information about vegan campaigns - a three course meal menu I am so proud of this book, and have even included some of my special 280 Bakes recipes - six in fact! There's no excuse... vegan or not, get baking cake! Louise 280 Bakes
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The easy answer is "generally, no, cake sprinkles are not vegan", but I do have some alternatives for you!
If you're planning to make vegan cupcakes, your sprinkles and pre-made decorations ingredients lists need to be examined to see if they contain animal products. Some are difficult to spot but I have some great alternatives to the normal range you'll find in the baking aisle. Before we start, here are some common ingredients to avoid: Confectioners' Glaze - made from insects Gelatine Cochineal and Carmine (more bugs) Certain colours (E20 is a common one) What do I suggest instead to make your cupcakes look super fancy? First, try Googling for inspiration. There are many companies (e.g. some small businesses on Etsy) who will post sprinkles to you. Vegan Dollhouse has a huge list on her blog too - take a look here. Second, try thinking away from actual sprinkles for cake decorations. How about using... - fresh fruit - strawberries and raspberries work well, but use caution with softer berries like blackberries which might bleed into the buttercream. - popcorn - super easy to pile up if you're using caramel sauce. - dark chocolate squares - a favourite of mine. - edible flower petals - I've used rose and lavender recently, a lovely finish and aroma. - freeze dried fruit - I love raspberries and strawberries here, again. - biscuits like Lotus biscuits, Party Rings and Oreos. - Sweets like Jelly Tots, Flying Saucers, Skittles - inject some colour into your cupcakes! Don't forget cocoa powder too - a dusting of this over bright white buttercream looks great if the swirls are well defined. And if you fancy making your own vegan sprinkles (who has THAT time??), take a look at this video I found on Youtube. Let me know if you give this tutorial a go, I'd love to see your resulting sprinkles! Louise 280 Bakes My customers are full of questions, love 'em! Here are some of the recent queries I've had, and the (helpful) answers below...1. Is a cupcake the same as a muffin?Nope. A cupcake has much higher butter and sugar content and they have fancy icing on the top. Muffins are often more appropriate for breakfast, often being similar to bread, and cupcakes are better for dessert. 2. How do I pay for a 280 Bakes cake?Paypal is preferred (to 280bakes@gmail.com) or cash, as a second preference. This is mainly to make it simple to take payment immediately when a customer books a delivery in, but it also limits physical contact during these Covid-19 days. 3. What's the difference between a Chocolate cake and a brownie?The main difference between brownies and chocolate cake is that brownies have more chocolate content and are gooey. Baking powder and soda are not used in brownies and they often have more sugar than a cake would. Both are delicious, though! 4. Why are bundt cakes so much more expensive?Simply because there's almost four times the amount of mixture that goes into the cake compared to a traditional homebake, and the size means they take so much more time to bake. Perfect for a party, a real centrepiece! 5. What do you use instead of egg in a vegan cake?There are many different things recipes call for in egg-free cakes. For example, many of my cakes contain flaxseed, banana, apple sauce or yoghurt instead. You can also do a mixture of vinegar and baking soda, but I prefer to use fruit based or seed products.
I hope this was useful, please let me know if you have any questions I can answer for you! Louise 280 Bakes It's pretty nasty when cake batter curdles. Here's how to avoid and fix the problem! Avoid those liquidy lumps by using room temperature ingredients. When ingredients that are too cold mix together, they don't combine and can result in a gross lumpy mixture. Eggs are normally the culprits, so ideally get them out the fridge around an hour before you start to bake.
And what to do to save a curdled mixture? You can add a little more flour to sort out the liquid mess, but don't add too much! This will cause an imbalance of the cake ingredients, making your cake drier. A tablespoon or two should be plenty to make the batter smooth. Yes, you can bake a curdled batter, it's not the end of the world, but it may be a little more dense than you'd normally have. -- Just a quick blog week, I'm going to go and make the most of the sun. August will be over before we know it! Stay safe, Louise 280 Bakes If you're a home baker yourself, you may have had the problem of a cake that sinks. A sunken cake is incredibly frustrating and disappointing. Your hard work and careful preparation has ended up a disaster, and you can't really save it - not even with decoration! << This week I'm sharing my top five tips to prevent a cake turning out like this! How to prevent a cake from sinking:1. Do not open the oven door while your precious cake is baking. If you absolutely need to because the cake is browning a little on one edge, do it when there's 5-10 mins left on the bake. You should be safe in a 40 min recipe. Also, don't slam the door shut! 2. Don't use too much baking powder. It may be tempting to put a little more in for a good rise, but first of all, you may be able to taste it - ick! - and second, the cake will rise too high too fast, and will most likely result in a collapse. 3. Ensure you have your oven at the correct temperature - if it's too hot, the same will happen as with the baking powder overdose. 4. Make sure you don't under-bake the cake. If the sides (which cook first and quicker) are done, the middle may still be a little soggy. Cover your tin with foil and bake for a little longer until a deep, central skewer poke comes out clean. 5. Make the mixture and immediately put it in the pan. Don't leave it on the side for later, stick it straight into a pre-heated oven. Prefer to use your kitchen for cocktail making, parties and doing the laundry? Save yourself a cake baking nightmare and ... All the best,
Louise 280 Bakes Who knew there were rules about using salt? Well, there are!I thought hard about my first blog post following reopening. Salt occurs more in my personal bread baking, but a pinch or so does feature in many cakes (e.g. vegan chocolate cupcakes).  So 'rules' plural may be stretching the concept, but there's definitely one rule you should always follow when using salt in your sweet bakes. Use fine sea salt wherever possible. This is because it is easier to measure, dissolves quickly, and is not iodised. Iodised salt can give an unpleasant taste to baked goods - something to avoid, for sure! For a list of baking rules you can break (in fact, we encourage you to break them!), visit our blog "Three Baking Rules That Were Meant To Be Broken" from July 2018. Louise 280 Bakes PS. As a bonus, while researching this blog, I came across this - apparently salt can be good for your teeth too!
We get asked fairly often if cakes can be frozen, so we're here today to clarify!
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Blackberries are popping up everywhere now it's August, and we're collecting them like mad - we love a blackberry cake!
Picked yesterday evening But what to do with the enormous mountain of blackberries? There's only so much cake you can eat (don't tell anyone I said that!!) and with so much other yummy summer fruit about, you can't just limit yourself like that.
That's when your trusty freezer comes in. You can freeze fruit, and blackberries freeze especially well. Simple follow these steps and you'll be enjoying blackberries and blackberry baking (check out our top 3 blackberry cake recipes!) well into the Autumn.
1. Remove any under- or over-ripe blackberries. You want to freeze them in their best state.
2. Spread the blackberries out on a baking tray in a single layer. Then put it in the freezer. This will stop the blackberries sticking together and make them easier to handle when defrosted.
3. Once the berries are frozen - about 2 hours or so - put them into a freezer bag or box for easy storage. They will keep for up to three months.
4. To de-frost, put the box in your kitchen and leave to soften naturally to bake with or eat as berries. Microwaving them will make them mushy - but then, this is great if you want them for smoothies only.
Enjoy - and carry on picking until your freezer is burstng!
Louise
280 Bakes
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Some Rules are Good. Always Drive on the left. No heavy petting at the pool. However, these baking rules were meant to be broken!
1. WHEN USING BUTTER AND SUGAR IN THE CAKE MIX, CREAM IT TOGETHER FIRST BEFORE YOU ADD THE OTHER INGREDIENTS
This works with a lot of recipes, and is beneficial, but I saw Mary Berry has said that there's two ways to make a Victoria Sponge: The traditional way of creaming the butter and sugar together, then add the other ingredients, or there's the way she prefers, which is to put everything into the bowl together and then mix. I would say that not creaming the butter and sugar is totally ok, then, if Mrs B says so! Do follow the recipe though - some recipes it might be especially pertinent for.
Not sure what 'creaming' means, in baking terms? It's simply mixing the sugar and butter together until they are well combined, and you can't really see the sugar anymore.
2. ONLY USE HIGH QUALITY BUTTER FOR THE FAT NEEDED IN CAKES
Well, you can throw that one right out the window! Over 60% of the orders we have are for vegan cakes, so there's no butter at all there. We use other things like bananas, avocados, oil and dairy-free margarine.
Yes, the cakes will taste different, and if you'd prefer to use high quality butter when 'real' butter is required, that's a good thing, but cakes can easily be made with no butter at all. Check out our recipe for Chocolate Guinness Cake, for example.
3. ALWAYS PRE-HEAT YOUR OVEN
If we were just talking cake baking, I'd agree. Pre-heating the oven is essential for cakes to ensure a consistent bake - and also for bread, actually, as the dough needs to be baked hot and fast. However, when baking pies or crumbles, it's totally fine to whack the dish in the over before it's up to temperature, and it makes the process more heat efficient too.
Can you think of any more rules you can break while baking, cakes, bread or otherwise?
The Team @ 280 Bakes
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If you have no scales or your set has broken, don't despair! you can still bake a delicious cake!
It's always best to weigh your ingredients when you bake, especially flour, as it can be a huge variable in terms of the dryness of the cake and the quality of the bake if you get it wrong. However, you do have a few ways you can make a cake if you don't have any scales - let's take a look...
1. Bake a cake using a yoghurt pot
1 pot of yogurt
2 yogurt pots of sugar
2 eggs
Grated zest of 1 lemon
3 yogurt pots of flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 yogurt pot of neutral-tasting oil or melted butter
Heat the oven to 350ºF/180ºC.
Beat the yogurt and the sugar together in a bowl.
Beat in the eggs and lemon zest. Sift the flour with the baking powder and beat in.
Finally, add the melted butter (or oil, although it doesn't taste quite as nice) and beat the whole mixture well.
Pour into non-stick muffin tins or a greased and floured loaf pan. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, approx. 25 minutes for a loaf, 15 mins for buns.
1. Bake a cake using a yoghurt pot
1 pot of yogurt
2 yogurt pots of sugar
2 eggs
Grated zest of 1 lemon
3 yogurt pots of flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 yogurt pot of neutral-tasting oil or melted butter
Heat the oven to 350ºF/180ºC.
Beat the yogurt and the sugar together in a bowl.
Beat in the eggs and lemon zest. Sift the flour with the baking powder and beat in.
Finally, add the melted butter (or oil, although it doesn't taste quite as nice) and beat the whole mixture well.
Pour into non-stick muffin tins or a greased and floured loaf pan. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, approx. 25 minutes for a loaf, 15 mins for buns.
| 2. Use cups to measure This is the 'American way'. There are so many recipes online which use cups to measure, you'll never run out. Just nip down the shop and buy a cheap set of measuring cups - they can be as cheap as £1.00. 3. Use a liquid measuring jug My mother-in-law uses this method. I don't like it myself, as it can be incredibly inaccurate, but, you know, horses for courses! 4. Try cookies instead And if you'd like to start a little more simply, try a cookie recipe like this. I call these 'Emergency Biscuits' when there's nothing interesting in the baking cupboard and I can't find the scales! Great optional additions include a couple of tables spoons of oats, chocolate chips or dried fruit. |  |
2 level tablespoons sugar
4 level tablespoons butter
9 level tablespoons flour
Cream together the butter & sugar, stir in flour.
Roll out the dough, shape/cut out, and cook for 10 mins at 180 degrees.
Look away now, we don't approve of this final idea!!
5. Buy a packet mix
Everything's already weighed out in these mixes, you just need to add eggs normally, sometimes oil or milk. I warn you now, it won't taste as good as 'proper' cake, but it kind of had to be included on the list as an option...
Next time your battery goes in your digital scales or you old ones break, don't give up. Why not try one of these baking hacks? Let us know how you get on!
Louise
Owner, 280 Bakes
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Author
Welcome to the 280 Bakes blog! Most posts are by myself, Louise, but if you fancy guest blogging, give me a shout!
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