Xanthan gum is the simplest readily-available hydrocolloid that’s going to give the required elasticity,’ says Alexander Talbot, co-owner of culinary consultancy Ideas in Food and the Curiosity Doughnuts shop in Pennsylvania, US. However, for ‘delicate items like cakes it may possibly forgo gums altogether, [and use] alternatives like eggs, flaxseed meal, or ground chia seed for bind’, adds House. The purpose of a chemical leavener – or raising agent – is to execute an acid–base reaction in a batter producing carbon dioxide bubbles that help the cake to rise. Bakers first experimented with this idea in the 1830s, using a combination of the base sodium bicarbonate (baking soda, NaHCO 3) and lactic acid (in the form of sour milk) in their recipes.

Dr. Oetker, the UK’s leading home baking brand, is expanding its popular Spectacular Science! cupcake mix with a brand-new create your own solar system cupcake kit: Spectacular Science! Solar System. Understanding how your cupcakes are cooking can take you from being a good baker to a great baker. Many common cake baking issues can be resolved by simply learning how and why these problems might have happened. Since baking is a science, most cupcake related failures will have an explanation and, more often than not, a surprisingly easy solution. Baking can be broken into three stages: expansion, setting and browning. As the batter temperature rises, the gases in the air cells expand the stretchy gluten from the flour, then the chemical leavening agents release carbon dioxide. As the batter reaches 60C, water vapour begins to form and expand the air cells even further. Carbon dioxide and water vapour account for approximately 90% of the subsequent expansion of the batter, the remaining 10% being due to thermal expansion. Friends were invited to join her in enjoying a selection of finger sandwiches, scones, pastries and fancy cakes at around 4pm. Amongst the delicacies on offer were ‘new’ light and fluffy cakes, only possible thanks to the then-novel chemical leavening agents. Salt is another vital ingredient as it acts both as a taste enhancer and to strengthen the gluten network.Over time the smells get darker, richer, more caramelised. Baking a cake on a cold, drizzly, miserable day can't help but make you feel better about the world.

While the cake cools, make some of your favourite icing and apply generously. Mine is butter icing – 2:1 icing sugar to butter by weight, beaten together with a little lemon juice or milk.Preheat your oven! Yes it sounds obvious but putting cupcakes in the oven before it is at the right temperature can ruin the whole process. Once you oven has heated up, make sure you bake your cupcakes in the centre of the oven to even out heat distribution and prevent the sides of your cupcakes from overbaking. And, no matter how tempting it may be, don’t open the oven door until they’re finished! This can cause fragile air bubbles in the batter to burst and disrupt the structure of the cupcakes as they bake, ruining your chances of light, fluffy sponge. Key ingredients are flour, sugar, baking powder, egg beaters, milk, salt, butter (or oil) and vanilla. You can introduce any other ingredients as you’d like, although keep in mind that the more ingredients you have, the more complex the recipes will be and the more you’ll need to prepare for the activity. Management of the ingredients will be easier if they are divided into several cups, with teams sharing these cups of ingredients. Make sure to label the cups properly—sugar and salt can look very similar! If you don’t have an oven, use 2 or 3 toaster ovens. Several cupcakes can bake in a toaster oven at once. Make sure to use the foil cupcake cups if baking with toaster ovens, since a cupcake tin won’t fit in the toaster. You’ll need to be able to tell the difference among the different cupcakes when they are done baking—you can do this by having teams label the underside of their baking cups before pouring the batter into them, drawing a diagram of the cupcake tin that records whose cupcake is in which hole, etc. Brainstorm with the group as to how you could make this process of figuring out who each cupcake belongs to as easier. Sugar: Alternative sugars can be used too. Brown sugar, for example, will lead to a darker cake with different favour profile due to its molasses content. Honey will require some recipe tweaking to ensure the final cake isn’t too wet. Fear not, reassures Lawandi: ‘All roads lead to cake.’ Families can now learn the process of gelatinisation and how liquids and solids react to create stretchy slime with the brand new Spectacular Science! Stretchy Slime Mix. While the science is happening, families can bake twelve tasty cupcakes ready to decorate, meaning the kids can experiment with their creativity and stretch their imaginations to create some slimey treats to wow the whole family. Even the adults will be impressed!