Post your baking tips here

Instead of buying buttermilk, use regular milk with a tablespoon of either white vinegar or lemon juice which has been left for 10 minutes to curdle.

1+ cup self-rising flour = 1 cup sifted all-purpose flour + 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder + 1/2 teaspoon salt

To avoid getting crumbs on your beautiful cakes you need to apply a crumb coating of icing. The crumb coat is a thin layer of icing that is the “base coat” if you will. It sort of glues the crumbs into the cake which is especially important for dark cakes with light colour icing. No need to make this coat perfect, but you do want to make sure you cover every crumb of the exposed cake or they will sneak through, trust me. Once you’ve finished masking the cake with the crumb coat, you can set it in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour before adding the final coat.

Buy an oven thermometer. Most ovens (even the fancy ones) aren't callibrated accurately well resulting in cakes that end up with domes on top. They cost about $10.

For baking flat cakes you need to lower the temperature by about 10 degrees and bake for a little longer.

If you are worried that your cake is going to dry out try brushing it with a simple syrup, one part water to sugar, or even three parts water to one part sugar (if you’re concerned about the cake getting too sweet) before you start decorating it is the best way to avoid this.

To avoid making a mess of your serving plate slip little pieces of baking paper underneath the edge of the cake all around its circumference until the edges are covered. No matter how much of a mess you make decorating, the serving dish still looks shiny and new when you’re completely done and remove them.

Oh I have one.

When making cakes e.t.c Give the dry ingredients a good mix before adding wet ingredients, that way you won't over mix it all (overmixing causes toughness).

This also works well if you can't be bothered shifting dry ingredients first. A good mix works just as well.