Baking Cake

See the best cake recipes. Trusted recipes for chocolate cake, white cake, banana cakes, and carrot cakes with photos and tips from home cooks.

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Baking powder

Baking powder is a raising agent. It's made up of bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar. Cream of tartar is an acid which activates the bicarbonate of soda causing it to release carbon dioxide and aerate the cake with the addition of moisture. It's often used in baking, especially in creamed cakes.

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Bicarbonate of sodaBicarbonate of soda

Bicarbonate of soda can also be bought separately but it's still necessary to add an acid and moisture to activate it. Common acids that you will find in recipes include cream of tartar, buttermilk and milk. Bicarbonate of soda has a strong flavour so care must be taken not to use too much. It's best used in full-flavoured cakes such as ginger cake.

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Butter

We haven't included many fresh ingredients in our list as most, such as carrots for Carrot cake, you'll want to buy as and when you need them. However, butter is a must for many cake recipes and is a useful all-round item to have in your fridge. Butter imparts a distinctive flavour and is ideal for creamed cakes where it's beaten together with sugar to incorporate air into the mixture and produce a light cake.

ChocolateChocolate

Ingredients: for breaking up to use as chocolate chips and for making rich chocolatey cake toppings. In most recipes a plain chocolate of around 40 per cent cocoa solids is adequate unless otherwise stated. You might also want to keep a stash of white and milk chocolate for your recipes.

Chocolate cake recipes

Cocoa Another key ingredient for chocolate cake recipes, cocoa provides an intense chocolate flavour. It has the benefit of not needing to be melted and is completely stable.

Eggs Another all-round useful ingredient, eggs are used in cake batters to trap air in the cake as well as to bind the ingredients together. At Good Food we usually use large eggs unless otherwise stated in the recipe.

Plain flour and self-raising are white (refined) flours that are essential for baking. Self-raising flour is made from plain flour with a small amount of baking powder mixed in (1/2 tsp per 100g). If a recipe states plain flour, it will also specify a raising agent such as baking powder or bicarbonate of soda to ensure a good rise. Wholemeal flour is not generally used in cake recipes as it provides a denser texture so would usually be mixed with plain or self-raising flours.

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Caster sugar, Icing sugar, Brown sugars

Caster sugar is the most popular sugar for cake making, particularly for creamed cakes as its fine texture blends well. Icing sugar, as the name suggests, is the key ingredient for both glacé icing (icing sugar mixed with water) and buttercream (icing sugar mixed with butter). It's also useful to have a variety of brown sugars; light and dark soft brown sugar and muscovado all have distinctive flavours and are commonly found in fruit and other richly flavoured cakes.

Common spices used in baking include ground cinnamon, ground mixed spice, ground ginger and nutmeg. It's worth having jars of these to hand and buying others as needed.

Sunflower oil has many culinary uses and it's ideal for baking as it has a mild flavour which allows the other ingredients in a cake to shine through.

Vanilla extract

Vanilla extract is a storecupboard essential