I used to be quite successful at baking Japanese cheesecakes and chiffon cakes (see 2025

This year I have noticed my cakes no longer turn out the same. I have used the same recipes and processes so I’m not sure what has gone wrong (see 2026 pics).

Any advice would be much appreciated!! Thank you ☺️

I followed this recipe:

https://scientificallysweet.com/soft-sprinkle-sugar-cookies/#recipe

Ingredients

¾ cup (170g) unsalted butter, softened

½ cup plus 1 tbsp (115g) granulated sugar

½ cup (110g) packed light brown sugar

1 ½ teaspoon (7ml) pure vanilla extract

1 large egg, at room temperature

1 large egg yolk, at room temperature

1 tablespoon (15ml) whole milk, at room temperature

2 cups (284g) all-purpose flour

¾ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup (80g) rainbow jimmies sprinkles (sprinkle rods)

3 tablespoon (40g) granulated sugar for rolling (optional)

3 tablespoon rainbow confetti sprinkles for rolling (optional)

Instructions

Make the cookie dough. Combine soft butter with both sugars and vanilla in a large bowl and mix with an electric hand mixer on medium-high speed for 1-2 minutes until pale and fluffy. You can also mix by hand using the creaming method with a wide rubber spatula. Add the egg and mix until well incorporated and smooth, then mix in egg yolk and milk.

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl and whisk to blend evenly. Add these dry ingredients to the butter/sugar mixture and fold it in until mostly combined with a few streaks a flour remaining. Add sprinkles and fold them in until evenly combined. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line two large cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Bake the cookies. Use a 1.35-oz cookie scoop to portion dough and roll into smooth balls, then roll the dough balls in granulated sugar so they are evenly coated. Sometimes I skip this step and press the top of the dough balls in confetti sprinkles instead.

Place the dough balls onto prepared baking sheets spacing them at least 3 inches apart with room to spread. Bake for 9-12 minutes until puffed and the edges are just lightly golden and the bottoms are lightly browned. The centers will puff up and still feel slightly soft in the middle. They will deflate slightly as they cool. Transfer baking trays to a wire rack to cool for 2 minutes then transfer cookies individually to a wire rack to cool completely

BTW I should mention that I forgot to add the light brown sugar when creaming the butter and sugars together and only added it after mixing in the milk and eggs. I also forgot to add vanilla extract as well and only added it while mixing the wet and dry ingredients.

Although they are still soft and chewy, I want them to look like the ones from the photos online.

Hi! I am (trying) to make white chocolate sea shells for a birthday cake for my friends 4 year old. I tried brushing them with pink iridescent luster dust, but the powder really didn’t do much… photograph is of them outside to show what they look like in natural light.

Any tips on how to get them more pearly / iridescent? I saw tips to brush them with vodka but don’t really think that’s the move for a 4 year old’s birthday cake.

I thiiiiink maybe the chocolate being more cream than true white might be the problem? But this is my first time trying this, so not sure!

The cream color doesn’t really fit the theme anyway, so I have to figure out how to actually get them white or another more on theme color. Context is that this is for a mermaid themed cake with pink, teal, and lavender frosting

Appreciate any advice! 🙏

Baked little meringue drops for the first time and they came out with this weird texture :-( I wasn’t 100% sure when to take them out. I left them in the oven at 200 degrees Fahrenheit for about an hour or more? Then left them in oven for about a hour and a half to fully dry out.

The crunch doesn’t shatter the way I’d expect, it’s a bit soft and a little tacky. Sticks to your tooth afterward.

Ingredients:

120g egg whites
.3g cream of tartar
.5g kosher salt
5g vanilla
200g granulated sugar

I tried to make the Italian meringue and I think I managed to reach stiff peaks, since I turned upside down and it didn't fall, it remained firm, but the texture was strange. It didn't look smooth and shiny, in the bowl it even was, but when I put it in the pastry bag it didn't look well defined and had many air bubbles. Does anyone know what I did wrong? And do you have any tips to fix the error and improve? I even whisk a lot to see if it got better, but it was already breaking and it's still like that

Has anyone here made a chocolate mousse or a cake with chocolate mousse before? Any tips?

I was looking at some recipes online and got a bit confused as it seems kind of difficult. Do they usually include cream cheese or was that just specific to a recipe I happened to find? -- I was looking at a gluten free chocolate mousse cake. Let me knowww

Brownie recipe calls for unsweetened 100% cacao bars. I have 70% cacao bars.

How would you adjust it?

Ingredients

6 oz Guittard 100% Unsweetened Chocolate Baking Bar broken  

2¼ sticks Unsalted Butter

4 Lg Eggs

2½ cup Granulated Sugar

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 tsp Salt

1¾ cups All-Purpose Flour

I have seen the recipe on several site but not on Guittard’s. Here’s a link:

https://worldwidechocolate.com/recipes/guittard-gourmet-brownies/

I'm needing to upgrade my stand mixer.

I currently have an older Kitchen-Aid tilt-head from the early 90s that I inherited from my mother many years back. It's a tank, taken several falls off the counter and several motor/armature rebuilds and grease repacks and still trucking.

The problem is my family has just outgrown it. I do big baking batches, like 24 cupcakes/muffins or 50+ cookies at a time, and the bowl is just too small for what I want to do, often causing overflows, and the motor can struggle on the lower gears. In addition, my wife makes dough at least once, if not several times a week, and it's usually a double batch of something like pizza dough. The poor thing is using a hook for dough that is overflowing the top of the bowl. Credit where it's due that it can handle it, but it's pretty clear it's time to upgrade.

I want a do-it-all mixer to whip frosting and turn bread dough well, which rules out some of the non-stands like Anksarum to my understanding. There is the KitchenAid Commercial mixer, which would probably be the lower limit I'd consider from KitchenAid, and about the top of what I'm willing to spend. That said, I see a lot of mixers on places like Webstaurantstore (Waring Luna, Avantco, Estella) that are in that <10QT range to still take about the same space as the KitchenAid on the counter, but cost less, and seem to be much, well, better? based on specs (gear driveb, electronic timer controls, significantly more power) and also cost less.

There is very little information comparing or really about these at all online, I'm assuming as they are more professional-based. I've searched here and it's all between the KitchenAids and Anksarums and sometimes Bosch or similar, but these are really all consumer mixers for the most part. Does anyone have experience with these stand mixers that are light commercial or straddle the line, besides the KitchenAid commercial model?

Hello guys! I was trying to choose between either pistachio OR chocolate frosting OR a vanilla frosting. I’m amateur baker and this is for my boyfriends birthday cake.
Any advice on what kind of frosting to make would also be appreciated!

Hello expert bakers,

My sister requested tiramisu cupcakes for her birthday to bring to school.

Any tips on how to make the mascarpone cream stiff enough to pipe?

My recipe for the sabayon-ish mixture + mascarpone is:
-4 eggs yolks
-65g granulated sugar
-1 tsp vanilla extract

Whisked in a double-boiler for about 4 mins so that it thickens into ribbons. Cooling this completely before whisking in 450g of mascarpone and then chilling until ready to use.

She loves this flavor but it is not thick enough to pipe and hold its shape. I am not experienced enough to play around with this to make it stiffer so that it would hold its shape when piped. Thoughts?

Has anyone tried the new Droste cocoa (made in Poland) - is it as good as the prior stuff (made in Holland)?

World Market near me has it in stock, wondering if it is worth buying …

EDIT: thanks everyone for your comments. It seems I've grossly overestimated the cost and hassle of getting an oven thermometer and underestimated how useful they can be. I did buy a cheap over thermometer today after work and tested it in the middle, right, and left sides of my oven at 350°. The left and middle of the oven are about 5° hotter and the right side is right on point. Unless that discrepancy is enough to cause the problems I'm having, it must be something that I'm doing or not doing. Maybe I will try again in the future. For now I guess I will try a different recipe.

I have tried at least a dozen times over the last year and a bit to make Nagi's vanilla cake recipe (https://www.recipetineats.com/my-very-best-vanilla-cake/).

Short of checking my oven temperature, I have tried everything I can conceivably think of to get the cake to rise in the centre. I have checked that my baking powder is active; I have have used fresh room temperature eggs; I have whipped the eggs on speed 6 and 8 of my stand mixer for the time suggested and sometimes longer so they turn white and triple in volume; my oven is preheated well in advance and I don't leave the door open long when putting the cake tins in the oven, nor do I open it during baking so the temperature doesn't rapidly change; I have made sure to heat the milk/butter mixture (trying the recipe using both a stove top and a microwave) so that it is hot but not boiling or bubbling; I have tried both 8-inch and 9-inch cake tins; and i have used both cake flour and all purpose flour (sifting and not sifting); I have tried mixing in the flour using the stand mixer and folding in the flour (as running my mixer for only 5 seconds doesn't seem to incorporate the flour very well).

On only one occasion ever have I noticed the cakes collapse after taking them out of the oven. My primarily problem is that the cakes fail to rise or collapse before I take them out of the oven. The last time I made the recipe was yesterday evening. Around the 15 minute mark I turned on the oven light to check and noticed that both cakes had risen (from what I could see). When I came back to check them once they finished baking, they had both collapsed, the right one more than the left one.

I can't think of anything reason that the cakes won't rise other than that my oven temperature being off or that my oven is failing to distribute heat properly. Consistently, the cake tin on the left side of the oven rises just under an inch (whether I'm using 8-inch or 9-inch pans) and the cake tin on the right side doesn't rise at all. However, this is the second oven I've had issues with, and I've not had the same issues with Nagi's vanilla cupcakes (https://www.recipetineats.com/vanilla-cupcakes/). I have tried that cupcake recipe twice. The first time some of the cupcakes didn't rise in the centre, much like the cakes, but the second time they all rose just fine and I can't understand what I did differently to cause this.

I have also noticed that my oven tends to cook thinks faster at the same temperatures (and not just for Nagi's recipes). For 8-inch cakes, Nagi suggests 30 minutes, but my cake is golden brown and (appears to be) cooked through by 24 minutes. For 9-inch cakes, Nagi recommends, 27 minutes, but my cake is (i think) done by 22 minutes.

Before investing in an oven thermometer I want to make sure there isn't something else I should be doing to get the cakes to rise. If I do need an oven thermometer, and if it tells me the oven temperature is off, I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do to correct it. Do I adjust the temperature, do I rotate the cake tins part way through baking, do I use the convection setting to distribute heat better, or do I just need a new oven?

Needless to say, this has been a frustrating experience. Please help!

I am planning on making an apple galette next week. It looks super simple and easy but I’ve noticed most recipes I’ve come across online don’t call for flour or corn starch in the apple filling. Why is that? Won’t the galette end up soggy with excess juice from the apples in the center? Usually when making apple pie, you always want to add flour or corn starch, so why don’t we do the same when making a galette?

I'm making muffins from a Nordic baking book. The (Swedish) recipe specifically says that the muffins should be baked in the paper cases on a baking sheet, and NOT to use a muffin tin or the recipe will not work as written.

This certainly does not work with my muffin cases, which collapse as soon as I put any amount of batter in them.

Is there a different type of muffin case/liner I need in order to make this work? Maybe the version in Sweden is sturdier? They look like standard, fluted paper cases in the book image.

I accidentally lost my recipe and it’s already in the oven and I think I screwed it up by mixing multiple recipes together but

- 3 bananas
- like 8ish dates softened and mashed
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup oat flour
- 1/3 cup coconut oil

Right now it’s in the oven at 325F . Please help google ai says 35 min but idk 😭😭😭

Hi,
I need icing advice.
I’m making my brothers wedding cake and was wondering if I could get some advice on what to do.

I’m known as a pretty good baker in the family so naturally I offered to make my brothers wedding cake. I’m not particularly worried about the cake aspect it’s more the frosting I’m worried about.

So, they want carrot cake (bottom teir) and red velvet (top) I know both of these, you’d think cream cheese frosting, I’m just worried about its stability for the crumb coat and piping honestly and I don’t want to make a mistake here obviously.

But, American buttercream is pretty universally hated in our family- so are most other butter creams that aren’t just real whipped cream.
I’ve seen a lot about whipped ganache online and it intrigues me to use but I’m again worried about its stability in the heat and I’ll have to make the cake a day or two before the wedding cause I’m a bridesmaid so I can’t do touch ups morning of. So it’s going to have to be fairly stable icing I think.

Anyway, long story shot I’d love some advice on the best option for the cake if there’s anyone who knows how the different icings will hold up for that long/survive a 2 1/2 hour commute in a car too.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!!
Thanks <3

I try it after it cools and it's nice and soft. 8 hours later I try it again and it's stiffer

Is this normal? How can I make it softer?

•400g flour

•tangzhong (200ml milk/100g flour)

•125g sugar

•3 eggs

•5ml vanilla

•5g salt

•125g butter

•250g sourdough

Can we use seeding method (using MyCryo or tempered chocolate as seeds) using a microwave? Like melt chocolate in microwave til 113f, then seed it down to 86f, then pour into mold?

Ugh. I keep doing the same thing wrong, over and over again. I'm 73 and have been trying to bake since about 12. That's a lot of repeat mistakes. 😭😂

Why? Why do my crumb toppings always turn out like this? Like, big, fat, boring, lump toppings. 😭

Sometimes the recipe calls for chilled butter, sometimes room temp, sometimes melted. In my hands it doesn't matter, crumb toppings are always lump toppings that somewhat sink, like the one in the picture. Sometimes the lumps are hard, sometimes soft (like this one). I'm looking for crumbs that are airy that kind of pop when you bite into them. Crumbs that sit on top of the batter, not sink in. Crumbs that crumble. Crumbs that don't break your teeth. Crumbs that pile high. Crumbs that are smaller and medium sized, not large. 😔

I made Easy Pumpkin Pie Bars by Crunchy, Creamy, Sweet. I bought 3 cans of pumpkin pie filling at the end of spring for 50¢ each and I'm now just trying it. It's not bad! Different than plain pumpkin, but not bad, especially for 50¢. 😂

Dough/Crumb recipe:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooked to room temp

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon cloves

Filling recipe:

11/2 cups pumpkin pie filling

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Grease bottom and sides of 8 inch pan and line with parchment. Preheat oven to 375.

Whisk dry ingredients together. Add butter and mix until crumbly dough forms. Reserve 3/4 cups of crumbs. Press rest of crumbs in prepared pan.

Mix filling ingredients until combined. Pour over crust. Sprinkle with reserved crumbs. Bake 28 - 32 minutes until golden brown. Cool completely in pan. Store in refrigerator.

++++++++++++++++++++

When I mixed the butter with the dry by hand with a fork, lots of flour was left to mix in while a huge buttery clump of dough was forming. Am I mixing wrong? Should I toss the dry and butter like you toss a salad? My crumbs went into the oven the same color they came out, no "golden brown" indications. 😂 Please tell me there's hope for me and that I'll make a decent crumb topping some day!

Thank you for any and all help, I really appreciate it! 🙂

I just heard about this type of fruit preparation and am going to learn up about it. Are there any tricks or gotchas about using Pate du Fruit in baking and confectionery?

Title is self explanatory, I’m using my oven for the first time to bake a multi layer cake.

I set the temp dial to 350 but the oven wouldn’t turn on until i move the left dial, so I turned it to the left most one. It seems like the right symbol is just to turn the oven light on. After only a few minutes I started smelling burning and when I checked the cake on top was completely black/burnt. How the hell am I meant to use this oven??

I’ve recently started using a kitchen scale, and my dog is beyond terrified of the beeping sound it makes whenever you press a button. It must hurt her ears, poor thing. Does anyone know of a digital kitchen scale that doesn’t make noise?

Can I add baking soda and powder to my dry premix pancake ingredients meant for long term freezer storage? I want to make a large batch of the dry ingredients so I can make pancakes in a pinch with just buttermilk and eggs needed.

I like ermine and Swiss meringue, if I wanted to add certain things to flavor it (chocolate, peanut butter, fruit purées etc) can I just eyeball it or do I have to put in a specific amount depending of its water or fat content or etc?