10 top baking tips from Annie Bell

Annie Bell has brought the wealth of her 20 year career as a food journalist to her latest cookbook, Annie Bell’s Baking Bible. Full of exceptional photography and a collection of meticulously refined recipes that are sure to make a baker’s heart gooey, we’re excited to welcome this new book to the Yuppiechef shelves. To celebrate its arrival, we asked Annie Bell for her 10 top baking tips.

Baking bible by Annie Bell

1. Always have your eggs at room temperature, especially if you are making meringues and buy free-range or organic eggs.
2. Most of my cakes rely on caster sugar, it is finer than granulated and blends with other ingredients in a particular way. Even better, ‘Golden’ caster is exactly the same but unrefined and has a little more flavour.
3. Ground almonds are one of my favourite ingredients and frequently replace flour, or some of it, making for a really luxurious, moist cake.

Red Velvet Cake by Annie Bell

4. Always use butter rather than margarine.
5. Invest in a small bottle of really good vanilla extract, rather than essence which is a synthetic product.

Florentines by Annie Bell

6. I love long-handled wooden spoons and use them for everything. Ditto old-fashioned pudding basins which I have in different sizes for weighing ingredients into.
7. I swear by my Magimix food processor, it’s a compact model and fits perfectly in my small kitchen. I don’t have a food mixer, and on those occasions where I need to incorporate air, then a hand-held electric whisk does the job perfectly.

Nanaimo bars by Annie Bell

8. A set of digital scales and several electronic timers are also indispensable.
9. Always buy the deepest non-stick cake pans available, as you can still bake shallow sponges in them. And look for heavy-guage non-stick.

Chocolate and fennel cookies by Annie Bell

10. Lastly, always read through a recipe from start to finish before setting off, to see what can be done in advance. Then relax, baking cakes is a lovely, pleasurable activity to get lost in.

Annie Bell has also given us three recipes from her Baking Bible to inspire some baking adventures near you.

A big thanks to Annie. We’re chuffed to have your book onboard.