How to know when a cake is cooked

Bouquet garni

Used very frequently in French cuisine, a secret of French chefs, it adds flavour to a lot of recipes, and it's easy to prepare. The basic principle is to make a small bundle of herbs, bind them in green leek leaves and to tie it up, so that the whole thing can be removed and discarded easily after cooking.

Clarified butter

This is a way of melting butter to eliminate all the impurities. The clarified butter can then be heated without spoiling, and is more digestible. It is ideal for cooking at high temperatures where small black specks would spoil the appearance, or for emulsified sauces like béarnaise or mousseline.

How to prepare an avocado

Here is how to get from an avocado only the flesh of the fruit.

Italian Meringue

Italian meringue is made with sugar cooked to 120°C or 248°F. This is different from the French, which is made from caster sugar. The cooked sugar gives a softer meringue which can be added to other preparations or use as it is.

How to dust

"Dusting" in cooking is sprinkling a very fine layer of something in powder form. Icing sugar or cocoa powder on cakes for example. As this is not very easy to do evenly, here is a way to do it.