Baking for Easter: SOS tips for beginners
Dry muffins, burnt cake, not enough food prepared for your Easter brunch? No panic! With our SOS tips for baking and cooking, you can look forward to the upcoming holidays with peace of mind. Something can always go wrong – but from now on, you have everything under control.
Baking is easy – or not?!
Cooking and baking are engrossing hobbies, and getting started is easier than you think. If you want to bake for your family at Easter, all you need are the right tools, the right mindset, and a few golden rules.
The most important? Cooking is about feeling, baking is about precision. Things can get chaotic in pots and pans, but discipline reigns in the baking tray. The more precisely you execute each step, the better your cakes, bread, quiche, and other baked goods will turn out. Sounds like a challenge? With our tips for Easter baking (and every other baking moment), you'll be able to do it with ease from now on.
Follow the recipe precisely
During baking, chemical reactions create fluffy dough, crispy crusts, or the exact opposite. These reactions change as soon as you deviate from the quantities in a recipe or substitute ingredients. Clear signs of quantity or ingredient errors include:
- Baked goods that are too dense and too firm (e.g., oil used instead of butter)
- Baked goods too dry (e.g., too much flour)
- Baked goods don't rise (e.g., wrong leavening agent)
Of course, your artistic works taste good even with flaws. Nevertheless, you should read through each recipe completely before starting and measure all ingredients precisely. It's best to use a kitchen scale for this – also for liquids.
If you want to substitute ingredients, you need to find a perfect replacement. If you use baking soda instead of baking powder, the dough will also need acid – for example, lemon juice or buttermilk. If you want to replace butter with vegetable oil, add some semolina to the dough so that it retains its loose structure.
Properly mixed is half the battle
The ingredients are correct, the quantities are right
– just throw everything together? Certainly not! The mixing technique determines the result in the oven. If there is insufficient mixing, lumps will form in the dough. If too much is mixed, it won't rise properly.
The following generally applies: Mix dry and wet ingredients separately before combining them. Flour, baking powder, and similar ingredients are added to eggs, vanilla, and butter as late as possible.
The choice of appropriate tools and the mixing time are also important. If you need to whisk ingredients until frothy, it's best to use a hand mixer or a food processor and process the mixture on a low setting for a longer period of time. Fold in the flour and baking powder by hand – only until no flour is visible anymore.
Take the correct bakery mould
Whether you use silicone baking moulds or classic sheet steel moulds is up to you. Size is more important than the material. It must be appropriate for the amount of dough. The baking mould should be filled no more than half full; the dough must touch the edges. Otherwise, it will not be able to “climb” onto it during baking and rise well.
Know your oven
Where does the most heat develop, and which rack is suitable for which recipe? Your oven has a mind of its own – and you should know it. This prevents black cake crusts from ending up on the table while the dough inside is still raw.
If the surface browns too quickly, do not reduce the heat, but place the pastry on the lower rack and cover it with baking paper. After the specified baking time, do a toothpick test and add a few minutes if necessary. Until approximately the end of the baking time, the following definitely applies: The oven door must remain closed! Every time the door is opened, the temperature drops, and important reactions are interrupted or altered.
It's easy to fix the deficiencies
Even professional bakers sometimes experience this: The pastry breaks when removed from the mould, or the cake is drier than desired. Such baking mistakes can often be corrected afterwards.
Dry pastries become instantly fresher with an infusion of milk or fruit juice. Use a toothpick or wooden skewer to make holes in the surface and drip the liquid into them. Let it steep briefly, and then put it on the table.
Broken cake halves can be repaired with a quick frosting. To make it, beat powdered sugar and butter softened at room temperature until fluffy, then add cream cheese. If you pour chocolate glaze over it, nobody will notice!
Didn't bake enough? More stock is on its way!
You spent hours baking for Easter, but your treats aren't enough to feed all your guests? Instead of calling the delivery service, you can rely on two Blitzback tools:
With an air fryer, you can prepare practically everything you need for Easter brunch in record time. Baking bread in an air fryer? With a curd pastry, it takes barely 30 minutes. Even for an easy cheesecake, you only need about 15 minutes. You can find the suitable recipe ideas in the Lidl recipe world.
Even a waffle iron can do more than you might think. You can perfectly prepare waffle batter with a hand blender and cook it in a flash. For waffle rolls, you can take the ready-made dough from the refrigerated section, tear it into small portions and bake it in a greased waffle iron in a few minutes. This also works with frozen croissants and similar breakfast classics.
Either way, it's always worth having a few tricks up your sleeve when baking for Easter. Anything not needed for Easter brunch can simply be reused after the holidays. Most types of dough can be frozen and simply placed in an air fryer, oven, or waffle iron as needed.
