#baking-tips

#baking-tips

Whether you're a chronic starter-killer or the whole concept of making bread sans yeast sounds too complicated, you're in the right place. As someone who started and promptly ended her sourdough journey three times over before finally opening a microbakery, I've been in your shoes, and I know how frustrating the initial sourdough learning curve can be. Fortunately, making plentiful mistakes is the best way to learn what not to do in almost any given situation, sourdough included.

Cherry pie: It's one of the most classic desserts that you can order at a diner, and your grandmother probably had her favorite recipe recorded for posterity. With its bold, red hue, cherry pie is seductive, and it tastes best when made with in-season fruit. Nonetheless, if you're craving a cherry pie in the middle of winter, you wouldn't be wrong to seek out a high-quality store-bought pie filling to pick up the slack.

The dough for these scones is fairly sticky, so it benefits from a period of chilling in the fridge, at least two hours. If you're in a rush, it can also hang out for 30 minutes in the freezer before baking. This allows the butter to remain very cold, and as it melts while baking, small air pockets form which give the scones a light, somewhat flaky texture. The chilling also firms up the dough and prevents it from spreading.

For most bakers, it's second-nature to measure out the prescribed dose of vanilla for a cookie dough or cake batter using a measuring spoon, but it turns out that the iconic McCormick bottle can actually save you a dish. The red cap on the 4-ounce bottle of McCormick vanilla holds 3/4 of a teaspoon of liquid - perfect for recipes that call for a multiple of 3/4 (the caps on the 2-ounce bottles hold about 1/2 teaspoon).

My best baking tip is to always be picky about the type of butter you use to bake delicious shortbread cookies and go for European or European-style butter, which may be, in fact, the absolute best butter for baking. Why, you ask? Let's start by defining how European-style butter differs from American butter. To qualify as European-style, the butter must contain at least 82 percent butterfat and no more than 16 percent water content.

Bakeshops with cinnamon rolls are all over the country, offering a long list of unconventional and whimsical fillings. But you don't have to go to a bakeshop for novel cinnamon rolls when you can make them yourself. Many unexpected fillings for cinnamon rolls are available on grocery store shelves or already in your pantry. If you want to put a fruity twist on cinnamon rolls, cherry pie filling is an iconic ingredient you need to try.

Cake mix has many creative uses besides its intended dessert, from pie crusts to waffles. If you can't decide between cake or cookies, why not have a bit of both by transforming your cake mix into cookies with the help of cream cheese. Cake mix provides the dry ingredients and a base of sugar and flavors that takes the work out of making cookies from scratch.

In a world where hundreds of candies can be bought for cheap at any supermarket, making sweets from scratch can be a hard sell. While some treats like caramels are indeed fussy, you can recreate one beloved candy using only chocolate and a jar of peanut butter. Easy two-ingredient peanut butter cups turn out so tasty that you may never buy them at the store again.

"To fix a baked pie, cornstarch works best as a slurry," Cianfanelli explains. "First, stir equal parts of cornstarch and cold water until smooth..." You don't want lumps in the slurry ( here's what water temperature you should use), so it's important to mix well in a saucepan or in a mixing bowl. Then, this mixture, once heated, will become a thickener that can fix watery pies or runny syrups. For the same reason, we mix cornstarch slurry into the soups, gravies, and sauces.

He shared that White Lilly Enriched Self-Rising Flour is his flour of choice. Unlike all-purpose flour brands, White Lily uses soft red winter wheat to make each bag, giving it a lower protein and gluten content that gives your biscuits that melt-in-your-mouth quality. Johnson explained that the self-rising version is generally a great pick "because you don't have to measure the baking powder or salt and [add] stuff to it" since it already contains both leavening and salt. If you opt for self-rising flour, you'll really only need just three ingredients to make light and fluffy biscuits: butter, buttermilk, and, of course, the flour itself.

Without proper attention, a pecan pie recipe can run cloyingly sweet. Thanks to Martha Stewart, however, these offensive slices of pie don't need to be served to any dinner party guest. As she shares on TikTok, Stewart adds the zest of one lemon to each of her pies. "Adding a little grated lemon zest to the filling nicely balances out the flavor of the sweet pecans," she explains.

Dining out at restaurants, it's usually dinner rolls that arrive at your table first. Golden, tender, and glossy, it's almost too easy to forget they're only meant to be companions for the main courses to come. The secret to this magic is surprisingly simple, and you can recreate it at home with a little help from bacon. Whether you just spent a whole afternoon baking up dinner rolls or got them straight from the supermarket,

Like a float in a Thanksgiving parade, this giant cinnamon roll impresses through sheer size alone. The overflowing bun feels like a never ending spiral of sticky, gooey filling and fluffy bread. The dough is milk-bread-adjacent and comes together easily in a stand mixer. Milk powder and tangzhong make it cottony and tender, but sturdy enough to hold in all of the rich, sweet filling.

To start, a warning. This method is a last-ditch effort and best employed if you are already fairly confident in your piping skills. It's not the easiest solution to this problem, but it can work in a pinch. We tried it ourselves after doubting it, and it proved itself to be another reliable foil hack around the kitchen. You'll need to layer your foil, especially if you have a very thin brand.

We're not talking about those fancy, sugar-loaded protein shakes you might see at the gym, but ultrafiltered milk, a type of fortified cow's milk with a higher level of protein. It's usually found right next to the regular milk you might be used to, most commonly under the Fairlife and Lactaid brands, but instead of having 8 grams of protein per cup, it packs a whopping 13 grams per cup.

Among a plethora of different types of apples, using the right varieties is crucial for the very best flavor and texture. Tasting Table chatted with cookbook author Mark Filippelli to get his must-know tips for the tastiest apple fritters and he strongly recommended avoiding overly ripe apples as well as varieties such as Red Delicious or Fuji as their tender texture will not stand up to the cooking process.

Trader Joe's chocolate croissants might just be good enough to rival fresh ones from the bakery. Chocolatey, buttery, flaky on the outside, and utterly tender within, they check all the right boxes. And the best part? Turning the croissants into sweet rolls is a breeze. You just need to thaw them, cut them into bite-sized pieces, and let them proof.

sweet-toothed foodies: This one's for you. Few things are more disheartening than meticulously, laboriously crafting a visually stunning layer cake, only to have those clean layers mangled by a slicing hack job. Under the unforgiving blade, once-clearly-defined layers can crumble and meld into a mess (so much for all your attention to detail). Or, worse, in the excitement and distraction of a gathering, that cake can get miscalculatedly sliced into totally misshapen, different-sized pieces. Luckily, those days are over thanks to one non-traditional slicing technique.

Getting out your best china is a good start, but a photo-worthy dessert relies on getting a clean slice. If you neglect to clean the crumbs and filling off the knife between each cut, these clumps can end up transferring to the next piece. Not only is this visually messy, but the extra bulk on the sides of the knife will prevent it from gliding smoothly through that classic banana cream pie.

There's a lot to be said for a good old Hawaiian sweet roll. They can be used to make delicious French toast, they taste amazing when served alongside any type of barbecue, and they're a downright necessity when it comes to many slider and sandwich recipes. But they can also be used to make delicious no-fuss desserts, and all you have to do is grab a little pie filling and get inventive.

Similar at the core yet varying in nuance, it is no wonder lemon and lime are so interchangeable. Undeniably, they both have that zesty zing that sparkles anything they touch, but in entirely different ways. Whereas lemon's sour taste is still laced with subtle hints of sweetness, lime is sharper and crisper, with a stronger emphasis on citral aroma. If you thought lemon's brightness was mesmerizing, just wait until you taste what lime can do.

Once the carrots are grated and folded into a spiced, moist batter, their skins vanish into the crumb. In the heat of the oven, the ever-so-slightly-fibrous outer layer softens completely, contributing the same sweetness and texture as the rest of the root vegetable. For anyone worried about flavor, the skin's mild earthiness is no match for cinnamon, nutmeg, and brown sugar; it simply disappears into the background.

Using a springform pan is essential for no-bake cheesecakes, as it allows for easy removal of the dessert while keeping the bottom intact.

When you touch it, it's slightly crispy, and it's firm. It bounces back. If you leave a fingerprint, you know it hasn't baked right in the middle of it.

Cornstarch is particularly popular for berry pies because of their high moisture content. To try it, just add about one tablespoon for every cup of blueberries used when you're preparing your filling.

Martha Stewart suggests adding real fruit to cupcake batter to enhance moisture and flavor. Strawberries, which contain 92% water, are a great example.

Using room temperature ingredients is crucial for making cream cheese frosting. Cold cream cheese and butter can result in a grainy texture due to poor emulsification.