Before You Bake

The outcome of baking adventures will always be delicious when certain basic principles are applied.

1. Planning and organizing is the most important of these.  For instance, butter is an ingredient in almost all baking recipes. The results will be good if the butter is brought to room temperature naturally. Melting butter by heating it will change its flavour; well, at least this is true in the case of cocoa butter.  So, this means I can't decide I want cake in an hour and immediately get started.  I need to allow sufficient time for the butter and other ingredients to come down to room temperature.
2. Use fresh ingredients. You can check the freshness of baking powder by dropping a pinch in a bowl of water. If it bubbles, it's fresh; if it doesn't, you can still mix it with hot water and lime and use it to clean your kitchen drains.
3. While I do use measuring cups, I'd rather use a measuring scale to weigh the ingredients.
4. Understand how your oven works.
5. Keeping food too close to the heating coil could get it burnt or overdone at the top.
6. The food gets cooked faster on the outside; it's therefore a good idea to lower the temperature after a while. Well, for the most part, this depends on what you're cooking.