Top 5 Pro Baking Tips From Daisy’s Head Baker
March 10 2024 – Dawn Chapman
Taya Shears is our biscuit queen and has been Lazy Daisy’s Head Baker for over two years. She is a stickler for quality and cleanliness in her kitchen and has shared her Top Five Tips for (better) baking at home. While these tips are tailored for large-scale baking, they are equally beneficial for home bakers whipping up cakes, cookies, or biscuits in their own kitchens.
1. COLD butter is KEY!!! (when making any pastry) - whether you’re baking biscuits, butter tarts or pie dough, this baking rule is a must! If the butter is too warm it will dissolve into your mix and you’ll be left with a less flaky dough. To avoid this, I pop the butter in the fridge or freezer (which ever has more space) and I let it chill until it’s nice and firm. Room temperature butter has its place in many baking recipes, but a pastry dough isn’t one of them!
2. Avoid over-mixing - when I’m combining my dry and wet ingredients, I start by adding a little bit of the wet mixture to my dry mix, slowly mixing it all together until it’s just incorporated. This will keep your pastry nice and pillowy soft (because trust me, no one likes a tough biscuit!). With Lazy Daisy biscuits, we roll them out by hand so if we missed any bits at the bottom of the bowl/mixer, we can still add them in while rolling, making sure we don’t over mix the dough...which is why we have some of the softest and fluffiest biscuits around!
3. Stay organized - when you’re baking at home, keeping your work area tidy can help you stay organized and make the entire baking process more enjoyable. Clearing clutter from your countertops, washing dishes as you go, and putting away ingredients once you're finished with them are all simple ways to maintain a clean and ecient workspace. Do this, and you'll have a roomier workspace and less chance of spills and accidents.
4. Pre-measure your ingredients - in fancy terms - prep your ‘mise en place’ - this way you are prepared for each step of your recipe without scrambling to chop / grate or weigh your ingredients while your pot is bubbling over. I do this when I have a long list of biscuits to make or if I’m making multiple flavours or types of pastries. One thing that always helps me is pre-measuring my dry mixes, pre-cutting the butter (it then sits in the fridge so it doesn’t get too warm) and prepping whatever I’m going to use to flavour the dough (grated cheese, fruits, herbs etc). Doing this cuts my production time in half making it easier to produce more biscuits in a day. For a home baker, this could mean stress-free baking or more time to do other things.
5. Prioritize sanitation - this is a BIG thing for me! Making sure that everything I use is properly sanitized is a key step which I never miss. Many people have food allergies and dietary restrictions, so I make sure that all surfaces, cutters, bowls, tables and our mixer are clean. This is really important to keep in mind if you are baking for others, especially if your guests have food sensitivities (such as gluten intolerance).
BONUS TIP - If cooking is an art, then baking is a science...With cooking, you can add a ‘smidge’ of this and a ‘dollop’ of that without far reaching repercussions. But if you start dolloping and smidging where you should be tablespooning and cupping you may end up with gloop instead of ganache or blobs instead of biscuits! So when baking, be precise with your measurements, temperatures and methods for most the delicious results.
If baking from scratch isn't your forte, why not indulge in our Bake-at-Home Buttermilk Biscuits? Simply pop them in the oven, and in just 30 minutes you’ll be tucking into Daisy’s soft and buttery homemade biscuits that will bring back memories of grandma’s kitchen. Enjoy!
