Recently in Baking Tips category

I’m thrilled when folks want to make recipes from this site and my books, including those who are gluten-intolerant or have celiac. However I’m the first to admit that gluten-free baking is not my area of expertise. So I can’t usually say how and what to substitute in recipes that call for wheat flour.

Wheat flour acts as a binder in recipes and gives cakes and cookies, the gluten gives doughs and batters structure. Broadly speaking, if a recipe has just a small amount of wheat flour, such as 2 to 4 tablespoons (20-40 g), you can often just swap out another flour. I like flours such as buckwheat, chestnut, quinoa, corn, and oat flours, because they are “natural” tasting and go well with most other flavors and ingredients used in baking. Note that some of those flours may be processed in a facility that processes wheat flour, so always check and make sure that the flours you are purchasing are gluten-free, especially oat. Other substitutions include nut flours (also called nut “meal”) as well as corn and potato starch. If the recipe calls for more flour than that, I recommend using one of the work-arounds, listed below.

I generally assume that people who are gluten-free, and bake frequently, know better than I do how certain ingredients and substitutions will behave in recipes. So I often defer to gluten-free bakers since most have work-arounds that they have success baking with. Here is a round-up of tips, suggestions, and recipe that should help gluten-free bakers find an appropriate swap-out for wheat flour.

Continue Reading Gluten-Free Baking and Substitutions…

A while back, a friend made the Apple-Red Wine Tart (in Ready for Dessert), which calls for the fruit to be cooked in red wine in a nonreactive pan. I didn’t realize it at the time, but many people don’t know what nonreactive cookware is and he called to tell me the dessert was great, but his pan was stained. (And this was someone who cooks a lot.) Which is why I specify in some recipes, most notably those that use citrus juice, certain fruits and vegetables, some brown sugars, or wine, to use “nonreactive” cookware. But I’m often asked – What does “nonreactive” mean?

It means to use cookware made of a material that will not react with acidic ingredients. The most common nonreactive cookware is made with a stainless-steel finish and will not discolor or pit when used with acidic ingredients. You can see from the two saucepans above, the finish on the one on the left (nonreactive stainless-steel) has remained intact and has not pitted, whereas the lining and finish (reactive) in the copper pan has become worn off.

Continue Reading What is Nonreactive Cookware?…

I was recently at Metro, a members-only store that sells things for professionals in large quantities with lots of food items. However unlike “members-only” stores elsewhere, you need to have some professional affiliation to join. Excitedly, I stocked up on lots of the things that I use a lot of, including cassonade sugar sold in bags close to 5-pounds, hazelnuts, tin containers for giving away treats from recipe-testing, and I picked up a few cases of wine, just because there happened to be a little extra room in the trunk of the car that needed filling.

(I like to think my wine consumption is somehow tied to my professional activities, too. But maybe it’s just because of them?)

Continue Reading Can I Freeze Cream?…

I wasn’t planning on writing about my kitchen timer. But I was in the middle of a couple of baking projects yesterday, and realized that I was gazing at it lovingly. Like, a little too much, perhaps. And as the tears welled up in my eyes, I decided that I’d share my affection for my new buddy in the kitchen.

One of the hardest transitions for me – from being a professional baker, to writing recipes for folks at home baking in their jammies – was figuring out precise baking times. In the restaurant, you just kept checking in the oven, or used that special sense that bakers develop when things are ready to come out. Sure we used timers, but they were more back-up reminders; a majority of pro bakers just know when things are done, or simply keep checking and pull things out when they’re ready.

Continue Reading My Timer…

When I moved to France, the one thing I made sure to bring along was my bread knife. It’s not that you can’t get bread knives here, but I was particularly attached to mine, having used it for nearly three decades. It was a good value Victorinox at the time, and if you don’t believe that I’ve had it for so many years, I think I paid about $14 for it, and the list price now is nearly three times higher.

(And for those who live in the Bay Area, I think I might have bought it at Whole Earth Access – if you can remember that far back.)

Of the knife “trilogy” that I think everyone should have – a chef’s knife, a paring knife, and a bread knife – the first two should be of top quality, since you’ll be chopping on a board and relying on their sturdiness and good blades to cut through firm vegetables and meats.

Continue Reading The Bread Knife…

When I moved to France way back when, one of the first things I set out to buy was a kitchen scale. Kitchen scales are not difficult to find in Europe because most of the countries use weights for baking and in every other type of recipe. In spite of their ubiquity, it was hard to find a scale that measured in both in grams and kilos as well as ounces and pounds. Since few use those standards of measurement in Europe, even kitchen scales that I’d used in America would have a little toggle switch somewhere on them (often on the underside) to shift back and forth between ounces and grams. But whenever I looks at scales in Europe, there was invariably a gaping hole where that switch would be.

(I always thought it odd that they would leave a switch off the same kitchen scale that they make for one part of the world and not the other. Seems to me that it would be easier to make one scale for everyone. But on the other hand, it would also be easier if everyone used the same system of measurement.)

Continue Reading My Kitchen Scale…

A friend once told me that the one word which terrifies people, enough to dissuade them from tackling a recipe, was the word “thermometer.” Candy making generally requires the use of a thermometer and I’m not sure why people get uneasy around thermometers because like kitchen scales, when things are in precise measurements – like degrees, pounds, or grams – it’s pretty straightforward. In fact, when you think about it, grilling meat or fish to the right point require far more savvy than simply reading the numbers on a thermometer.

Candy (also know as deep-fry thermometers) are readily available in houseware stores and almost every supermarket in the states. So there’s no reason to be wary of them as some baking, and candy making projects really do require the use of one. But sometimes recipes don’t turn out as intended and although candy making is famously persnickety (factors such as temperature of ingredients, weather, and variations in ingredients, like various chocolates, butters, and sugars can affect the results) many candy making issues can be resolved by verifying the accuracy of your thermometer.

Continue Reading Candy Thermometers…

This isn’t the most photogenic of posts, but one of the dirty secrets of writing cookbooks is the dishes. And this season, as the cavalcade of cooking tips comes tumbling forth in anticipation of all the holidays – and the cooking and baking that go along with them – this is the best tip I’ve ever been given.

Most of you probably know how many dishes to takes just to bake a simple cake: a stack bowls, a mixer and the whip, a gaggle of spatulas, and for my fellow Americans, a bunch of measuring cups and spoons. Now imagine if you made that same cake three times in a row, making a few other sets of dishes dirty. Then did it again.

In spite of that fact that I have a real dishwasher, I spend a few hours each and every day washing dishes. It’s funny because when friends call and ask me if I’m free for dinner, sometimes I have to decline because I have to work, and they don’t seem to understand that part of my “work” is washing and/or putting away dishes and pots and pans. It’s a cycle that’s part of my life and when I left the restaurant business, being able to hand off a bustub full of dirty dishes to someone else was something I missed a lot. (If you ask anyone who is the most important person in a restaurant kitchen, even more than the chef, it’s the dishwasher.)

Continue Reading My Favorite Kitchen Tip, Ever…