Timely Baking Tips
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Timely Baking Tips
Noone ever spent less time in the kitchen than me though from somewhere back in the dark ages I have a degree in Home Economics. In my day a girl went to college for two certificates: teaching and marriage. One can safely assume I flunked both courses. These helpful cooking tips came from some old notes I found when I was cleaning out the files. They are things your grandmother learned by trial and error. Male or female it doesn’t matter who prepares the meals in your house laugh with me at some old ideas that made baking easier, when no one is looking you can try a few for scientific experimentation.
Fruit pies are a favorite – when making one sprinkle the sugar under the fruit instead of on top. Juice will boil up through the fruit and not over the top for a nasty clean up job.
Add this to the above: to prevent the bottom pie crust from becoming soggy, grease the pie pans with butter. Crust will be soft and flaky.
Oven temperatures matter – too hot or two low baked goods suffer. Dry biscuits are caused from baking in too slow an oven and the dough being handled too much. Coarse textured muffins are caused from insufficient stirring and cooking at too low a temperature.
On the flip side when a custard pie shrinks away from the crust it has been baked in too hot an oven. When cutting cream (custard) pies dip the knife in warm water and none of the filling will stick to the blade.
Meringue will always stand up high and perfect if a generous pinch of baking soda is added to beaten whites.
Pancakes make a winter breakfast, lunch, or dinner – who cares when they are always good. When cooking them grease the griddle for the first cakes (dogs love them.) After removing them rub a piece of raw potato over the hot griddle. The cakes will have a brown-gold color with no oily taste and there will be no smoke.
To give your nut bread a special zip – toast the nuts and while they are hot add a little butter before adding them to the batter.
Does anyone do deep-fat frying at home anymore? If you sneak a real french fry or fish fillet good for you. An old favorite were cake doughnuts called ‘bear sign’ by cowboys of yesteryear. Heres a note for increasing the flavor of the round cakes – add a few whole cloves to the kettle.
To put a shinny glaze on rolls, biscuits, pie crusts etc. brush the tops with an egg white slightly with a tablespoon of milk before baking.
I exhausted my kitchen baking wisdom for the year or any other year. Maybe you can think of others that never made the pages of Helouise or any other baking authority.
