How to Take the Cake

How do they turn out perfect cakes, cookies and pies year after year? It turns out there are very few secrets to great home baking. The main thing all of the regular winners we talked to agreed on is that it takes lots of practice.

Here are some hints that can help:

* For her highly praised chocolate cakes, Kathy Specht starts with a standard home recipe and experiments, adding more eggs to give the cake a richer taste and lighter texture, and doubling the amount of chocolate to make it very dark.

* Cecilia Rubio says no matter what recipe you use, you have to follow the measurements exactly. “They have to be followed to a T,” she says. “They can’t be varied unless you really know what you’re doing.”

* Alberta Dunbar says she only uses the best ingredients. Don’t ever stint on them, she says. “Some people will have a can of shortening open and instead of going out and getting a new one, they’ll just use the old. And a lot of times it’s a little rancid. Don’t start baking without doing everything from fresh--baking soda, baking powder, everything.

* Rubio agrees. “It’s really important to have true ingredients, not imitations,” she says. “You have to use real butter, cake flour when it’s called for and extracts that are not imitation.”

* Specht has taken several blue ribbons for her apple pies, but says her recipe is no different than anyone else’s. The secret, she says, is in the technique. Make the pastry as quickly as you can, handling it as little as you can. That’s the way to make a flaky pastry.

* Finally, says Rubio, a mother of six, keep the kids out of the kitchen. “I’m real picky on that. My kids will say, ‘Gosh all you do is bake. Why do you have to be so picky?’ But I’m always telling them don’t run around the oven. Don’t open the oven door. That will make a cake fall for sure. They’re right. I’m picky.”