Oven temperature conversion chart

Centigrade……………… Fahrenheit……………….. Gas Mark

130 ………………………..250…………………………. 1

150 ………………………..300 ………………………….2

170 ………………………..325 ………………………….3

180 ………………………..350 ………………………….4

190 ………………………..375 ………………………….5

200 ………………………..400 ………………………….6

220 ………………………..425 ………………………….7

230 ………………………..450 ………………………….8

240 ………………………..475 ………………………….9

Tutorial 2: Separating egg yolks from whites the easy way

A few years ago, when I watched all those fancy-pants cooking shows, I saw Nigella Lawson separate her egg yolks with an incredibly easy and simple method. If you are at all squeamish about touching the slimy innards of chicken eggs, beware: this may not be the best method for you.

Simply put, you just dump the egg into your hand (over the mixing bowl) and let the egg white dribble through your fingers. I used to pass the yolk from one half of the broken shell to the other, letting the white fall out on its own a little bit at a time, but the yolk would sometimes break on a sharp shell corner and all my hard work was ruined.

Gently holding the egg yolk in your hand, with fingers slightly apart to let the egg white escape, but not enough to drop the yolk, and you have easily and quickly separated the two. No hassle, but unfortunately, a lot of mess.

I don’t particularly enjoy the cold slimy egg whites leftover on my hands, but it works so I’ll stick with this method for now. The sacrifices I make for my cakes….

Day 29: Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

My kids’ schools were asking parents this week to bake cakes for their respective cake tables at their summer fairs. I wanted to do something a bit different, so decided to relive my own childhood by making ice cream cone cupcakes. I wanted to make several versions — vanilla, chocolate and strawberry — so I needed a white cake recipe that I could easily colour to my liking.

Recipe from About.com’s archives.

The Recipe

• 1 cup butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 1/2 cups sifted cake flour (sift before measuring)
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 8 egg whites, stiffly beaten

PREPARATION:

Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy; stir in vanilla. Sift flour with baking powder. Add flour mixture to creamed mixture alternately with the milk, beating well after each addition.

Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites, incorporating evenly.

Spoon batter into three greased and floured round cake pans. Bake in preheated 350° oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until cake tests done. Frost with custard frosting (below), if desired.

My Alterations

I followed the recipe exactly. I was really tempted to not bother sifting the flour before measuring, but it was worth it, because I would have ended up with half a cup of extra flour. The egg whites were sort of hard to fold into the batter, but they eventually mixed in.

Obviously, I didn’t use cake pans to bake the cake. I split the batter into thirds, mixing a tablespoon of cocoa into one bowl (chocolate “ice cream”) and 1/8 teaspoon of red food colouring into another bowl (strawberry “ice cream”). I probably could have poured more batter into each ice cream cone, but I was worried about them spilling over in the oven.

They took longer than I expected to bake; about 18 minutes, with me checking every few minutes towards the end.

The Result

These didn’t turn out as picturesque as I had hoped, but they are pretty cute. The cake rose well and took the colouring nicely. There were a lot of bowls and spoons to clean up afterwards, but it was worth it, I think!

The Verdict

The cake itself is lovely. It was very light and fluffy, like a boxed cake mix. The flavour was enjoyable and it was pretty easy to put together. The sifting and egg separating was a bit of a hassle, but it made all the difference in the end.

I don’t particularly like the combination of cake and ice cream cone, but my kids loved it and it’s a fun little treat for the novelty factor at least!

The Rating

4/5

I really liked the cake itself. It’s a bit of extra work involved, and most of the time I’m not up for it, but if I’m in the mood for a light, fluffy cake, this is it. Not a big fan of cake in a cone, though.

As a point of interest, the ladies at the cake table set the price on these cakes at 10 pence each. Ten pence! I’m slightly offended at that; I would have thought they were worth at least 25p. I guess some American foods just don’t translate well across the pond.