Read the recipe carefully before starting to bake.

Remember to turn the oven on before starting to mix ingredients.

Always prepare cake tins before starting to mix ingredients.

There is no need to grease the sides of cake tins. Grease the bottoms only as a knife is easily run around the sides.

If the bottom of a cake tin is lined with baking paper there is no need to grease the tin.

Use a sifter or sieve to sift dry ingredients.

Use soft, not melted butter when creaming butter and sugar. Creaming beats air into the mixture which helps the cake to rise.

Mix sifted dry ingredients in alternately with liquids, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Do not beat. Mix just enough to combine the ingredients. Over-mixing produces a tough, low-volume cake.

A slotted spoon helps mix ingredients more quickly.

Two-thirds fill cake and patty tins to allow for rising.

Cooking times are a guide only as ovens vary.

The cake is cooked when it springs back when lightly touched with the finger.

Use a metal skewer to test when heavier fruit cakes are cooked. An inserted skewer will come out clean when the cake is cooked.

Leave cakes to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack. This allows the cake to 'set' and helps prevent breaking when removed from the tin.

Sponges and cakes cooked in sandwich tins need to cool in tins for 5 minutes before turning onto a cooling rack.

Leave large, rich fruit cakes to go cold in the tin before turning out.

Leave all cakes and biscuits until completely cold before filling and icing

Sticky situation

To help spread crumb mixture into a pan to make a base for slices, simply cover with a sheet of plastic wrap or baking paper and press out with the palm of the hand until evenly distributed. This prevents the dough sticking to your hand

Paper cut

To line a pan with baking paper, place the pan to be used on a sheet of baking paper and mark around the edges with a pencil. Measure the pan's height and allow this amount extra as an edge past the pencil marking. Cut out with scissors

Place pan over pencil markings again and use scissors to cut into corners, using a mitre cut or a square cut from each of the four sides. Line pan, folding the corner pieces one under the other and running a finger between the base and sides to make a crease so it fits neatly all around

Bake and roll

Turn hot sponge out onto a clean tea towel lightly dusted with caster sugar and quickly peel off paper and trim edges. Roll up immediately in the tea towel, starting from a short edge. Leave to cool, unroll and spread over filling before rolling up again

Cream together

Cake recipes often start by beating butter and sugar until light and fluffy. It helps if you start with soft or room temperature butter. It should not be melted.

Using an electric mixer, cream butter first and gradually beat in sugar until the mixture appears light in colour and texture, because of the incorporation of air

This creates the base for the cake batter, enabling the addition of other ingredients without the structure collapsing. This proper beating of the sugar into the batter results in a light, fine-grained cake

Know your ingredients

Unless stated otherwise, use caster sugar in cake making. It dissolves more quickly and helps give cakes a lighter texture

Bicarbonate of soda and baking powder are sometimes added to cake batters with the flour. It is important that these rising agents are very fresh, and once added to the wet mixture, the batter should be baked immediately, or these agents won't work

Baking powder is a mixture of bicarbonate of soda (alkali) and cream of tartar (acid). When mixed with a wet ingredient, the two agents give off carbonic acid gas, which bubbles and becomes a leavening agent

Sour cream, buttermilk and yogurt work as an acid in recipes using bicarbonate of soda, helping the cake to rise and making for a wonderfully light texture.

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