Cooking Tips

I'll put up a cooking post tomorrow, but for today I'd like to share some baking tips. I think my friends will probably know these tips already, so these are for anyone stumbling across the blog.

1. Don't scoop flour into your measuring cup with your measuring cup.


This is the trick to keeping any flour-based food from being too dense, dry or crumbly. You can find examples on YouTube, but I'll explain it briefly here. Scoop up flour with a large spoon and pour it into your measuring cup. If you want to be really thorough about your flour measuring, you can shake the spoon, lightly sprinkling flour into the measuring cup. Fill the cup until it's heaping and level off with a straight edge, such as the back of a knife.

If you scoop up the flour with the cup, the flour will be densely packed and you'll use too much of it.

2. Never pour ingredients into your measuring tool (spoon, cup, etc) over the mixing bowl.


One time, as I was attempting to bake cookies, I held the teaspoon over the mixing bowl and poured vanilla extract into the spoon. I poured a little too enthusiastically and wound up with probably about 2 tablespoons worth of vanilla with all my other ingredients. A few months later, I did the same with a smoothie. Then I did it with another batch of cookies, but this time the over-poured ingredient was salt.

Keep a bowl or even a plate to the side of your mixing bowl and pour over that.

3. Never break eggs directly into the mixing bowl.


I guess you could number this "2a", but there is a different reason for this. Bits of eggshell camouflage nicely with creamed butter and sugar, especially if you use pale-colored butter. Use a small bowl (custard bowls are great for this) and crack the egg into that, then pour it into the mixing bowl.

If you notice a bit of eggshell in the little bowl, it's easy to scoop out with a larger piece of eggshell.

4. Check the oven before preheating.


Some people store things in the oven, like cookware. Some people dry out wooden spoons in there. Or let bread rise. Or hide dirty laundry. Or put toys in there. Always open the oven and look all the way to the back before turning it on. I torched a cutting board and two spoons by not checking before preheating.

Also, check before broiling. That's how the cutting board went.

5. Set out all the ingredients before cooking.


Flour, sugar, cinnamon, butter, eggs, nutmeg and baking powder. Two of those are in the fridge. Cinnamon, nutmeg and baking powder are probably together. Flour and sugar are in the pantry if you have one. Get them all and set them out. You might be short an egg, or the nutmeg is low, or you're actually out of sugar. This is infuriating to discover in the middle of a cookie-baking extravaganza.

6. Read the recipe all the way through.


This is an oft-repeated piece of advice, but it is so crucial. Not only should you read it all the way through, but you should carefully read it all the way through. In a giant wall of text might be hidden something like, "and let sit for two days". Or it might throw something at you completely out of the blue near the end like, "and dust with the glitter of a unicorn's horn, which any good cook should have in their kitchen."

7. There is no shame in pizza.


If the oven is on fire, the nutmeg is missing, you don't have a "casserole dish" and what the hell is ghee, there is no shame in throwing everything away and ordering pizza. Things will look brighter the next day, and you'll be able to learn from your mistakes a little better with a full stomach.

Smaller tips!

• Broilers don't need to be preheated.
• If you don't have unsalted butter, salted butter is usually okay to use in baking.
• Defrost meat in the fridge, not on the counter.