Baking with the Queen of Cakes

I have recently been adding a small column to the local newspaper, not sure how I got myself into that one 🙂 So consequently I have some nice written words that I am going to start adding to my website blog, so if you want to know a little about baking please read this, I am writing to help people to ‘learn to cook cakes’ – as many of us can cook but we don’t often have the time or confidence to cook a ‘good’ cake. There are certain rules to cooking a good cake, as opposed to the Jamie Oliver style of general (meals) type cooking by ‘throw it all in’!! His food is fantastic!!! But cakes require precise ingredients and are a science. It is process that must be followed in order to get the cake to ‘rise’ as cakes need to be light and fluffy.
Below I list my set of rules:
No 1. The biggest ingredient is love! Yes cook with passion and love and your cooking will improve immensely. Any successful cook/chef will start their conversation with ‘my passion’ before speaking about their own particular skills, in fact this is the case with all people who are a success in any walk of life. It is true passion and love for the ‘job’ that has to be there in order to create something special.
No.2. Gordon Ramsey made a very true statement when he was speaking with a young chef, the chef proclaimed he needed to cook something he didn’t like so he asked Gordon how to do it, Gordon replied : ‘don’t cook it – you cannot cook something you don’t like’!! I totally agree with Gordon, If you don’t like it don’t cook it! It doesn’t mean you have to eat everything you cook, even though it is very tempting  it just means you need to LIKE what you cook, your passion has to be passed into the cooking process in order for it to be a success.
No 3. The ingredients: you need the finest, always use the best quality, in everything you do. If you are adding eggs use the best quality. If adding wine (ok not many cakes use wine in the ingredients but we are in Ibiza so we need to speak about wine ) use a good wine – if the wine is not good then how can you expect the recipe to turn out good?
No.4. Use the right equipment ‘a workman is only as good as the tools he uses’ is a very true saying and is essential in cake making.
No.5 Follow the instructions. In the early stages take the time to thoroughly learn each and every process of the recipe and make sure that the required ingredients and tools are ready to hand, before you begin.
Summary Rules
1. Cook with love and Passion!
2. Only cook things you like with Love and Passion!!
3. Use the best quality ingredients.
4. Use the right Equipment
5. Follow Instructions

So there we have it. I will follow on with a recipe in my next blog.
Eileen xxxx