Best products from r/AskBaking

Agreeing with others: vanilla extra will always taste horrible, but good quality vanilla extract should taste good. A little bit goes a long way when it's quality: it'll impart a good vanilla flavor without tasting like it does if you lick it!

It's really pricey, but I have found that Sonoma Syrup Company's Vanilla Bean Crush is super good. It smells incredible and bonus points for ordering on Amazon!

Unfortunately with vanilla extract, you get what you pay for. If you buy watkins or imitation vanilla extract from Walmart, you won't get much vanilla flavor at all. The impact in your baked goods is really negligible. However, if you buy quality extract you'll notice a big difference -- or at least I do! My baked goods always have a good bakery-quality flavor, even if it's a simple thing like white cake.

Hi, I've never made that particular design, but I found a couple frog prince cutters. Here's a head. Here's a profile. Here's a hella expensive full frontal. Although I have bought cutters from Copper Gifts years ago and they were nice, but definitely not that pricey back then. This is my favorite design, I think... but it says it's for fondant, though they say you can ask if it would work for dough. Good luck... hope you can post them somewhere when you're done. They sound adorable!

I used to use dog food bins for my home use. They are fairly cheep and my thinking was if it’s food safe enough for your pet it should work for flour too. You can get large ones designed for 50+ lb. bags and they have wheels. Was very convenient.

But also have you seen these?

Kitchen Flour Box with Wheels Seal Locking Lid PP Rice Storage Container Food Containers ((33Ib / 80 cup),Pack-2) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07LBY6325/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_ky.ZCbXWEYN0A

I’ve personally noticed restaurant web-stores always charge more than what some stuff is worth. Try looking up a used restaurant supply store in your area. They basically go buy up equipment when restaurants close down. Not sure where you’re based but in my home city we have several where you can pick up stuff like this used but still in great condition for a fair price.

Preventing your dough from warming up too much does a lot to prevent sticking, and a pastry sleeve and cloth are also really helpful. I use a chilled marble slab, put the pastry cloth on it and the sleeve on my rolling pin (both generously floured), and I have no problem with sticking. Of course, you don't have to use a marble slab - there are some tips here on keeping dough cool. I think if you focus on that and maybe also try the pastry cloth, that should help. Good luck!

You wouldn't be able to call it sugar-free but have you ever tasted this glucose syrup? https://www.amazon.com/Wilton-707-2601-Glucose-Syrup/dp/B01EOK9GVU It's been a long time since I've tasted it but iirc it's not very sweet. I wonder if you could use it for texture while keeping sweetness minimal. Then maybe balance with more salt than you'd use for sweet cookies, potentially mix in herbs? To counteract some of the water in the syrup, you might want to use a solid fat such as coconut oil or shortening. Or, you could brown butter to cook the water out.

ohhh, I didn't know that about white chocolate. Thank you!, I'll look for either powder coloring or gel paste.
Here is gold sheen its meant for an airbrush so i'm not sure if its more liquid or gel.

Also would something like Lustre be good enough as a powder

Use Fleischmann's Pizza Yeast can usually find it at Walmart or the grocery store.

IMHO you lose a little flavor but if you have King Arthur Flour's Pizza Dough Flavoring, it's better. But the overall product is just as good

This is the biggest hemisphere pan I've seen, it's 10 inches, and easier to handle than a floppy silicone one. But I can't see how you'd make a spherical cheesecake retain its shape, or honestly even a half-sphere, or keep the mirror glaze from running off. That's for one cake, let along tiering them.

If you must have a dome, what about a layered thing like in the illustration for your 7-inch pan? You could do a baked alaska-style dessert with ice cream on the outside and mousse or cheesecake in the center. Still, I don't see how you get from a half-dome to a full one, let alone something stackable. Just doesn't seem too physics-friendly.

Well Amazon would have the widest range, for example here’s a baking set I recently got. The quality was good and I think it’s a solid set for beginners (like me) to get started into cake baking.

If you wanna try UK stores though, I can only suggest HobbyCraft. A friend told me about them after she went into one of their stores and she liked it. Their online store has some stuff too but I find them too pricey. For example I saw they sell offset spatulas for ~£5.

Jumping on the "scale" train.

I have a cookbook/textbook called "The Food Lab" by J. Kenji Lopez. In it he has several people measure out flour by volume in order to make a pizza. None of them were the same by weight and there was some serious differences between them.

Baking relies a lot on proportions for ingredients and a scale is important to make the right measurements.

I have This one and it works great for measuring baking ingredients because of the bowl. But most will work as long as it measures in 1 gram increments.

I haven't actually read this book, but I ran into it at a Renaissance festival. It might be just what you're looking for.

Yes, they sell tube pans for this purpose. They're 2 pieces so the bottom comes out. Or a springform pan would work as long as the batter doesn't go above the lip of the pan. I didn't see your recipe or instructions so I can't say for sure this is the problem, but cakes using whipped egg whites almost always come out better this way. Here's a link to the type of pan I'm referring to:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000VMGTW/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_bNu1CbJA5D625

They make arm length oven mitts, but they wear out fast if you’re using them daily. When I had to wear Kevlar arm sleeves I wore something like this under them to prevent chafing HOPESHINE UV Protection Cooling Arm Sleeves 4-Pairs Sun Protection for Men & Women to Cover Arms for Cycling, Driving, Golf, Basketball and all Outdoor Sports (Army Green+Black+Grey+White) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PMQ1C61/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_oH5jDbPB7KXM6

Highly recommend this book!

I have some ideas starting with a cake iced with white icing.

To ensuring that the stripes are evenly spaced, either ‘draw’ the lines in with a tooth pick/ press with a ruler first, or use strips of parchment paper to mark out your negative space.

Then for actually making the stripes you could either pipe black icing down the cake using a flat piping (and then do the same to fill in with the whit icing). (Something like this )

Or use a decorating comb, this to make the stripes in the white buttercream. You would then freeze the cake to make sure the buttercream is really firm and fill in with the black buttercream and then ‘smooth’ removing icing until the whit stripes show. You’d need the cake to be really cold for this.

A good spinning cake stand. It’s pricy but a hefty one will give you more stability when decorating cakes than a plastic one. I have this one .

Just in case you need . . . :
https://www.amazon.com/Winco-RD-5-Roller-Docker-Full-Size/dp/B001CDQ9GI?psc=1&SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duckduckgo-d-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B001CDQ9GI

here you go

this is the one I use.
https://www.amazon.com/Peak-Whole-Milk-Powder-900-Grams/dp/B004K0862K/ref=sr_1_1_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1522516717&sr=8-1&keywords=peak%2Bmilk%2Bpowder&th=1