Category "baking"

Where does the shape of pretzels come from?

I wonder where the shape of pretzels originated. My guesses: The holes make it easy to put them on a stick or rope and store them in a place (under the roof?)

What can I do with batter that has lumpy sugar in it?

I was making a scratch cake, and my sugar (to my chagrin) was inferior. When I beat it into the batter, it turned into many tiny lumps. Has anyone ever figure

how to get a ciabatta with a more uniform shape

My ciabattas tend to have be domed along both axis. So towards the ends they are too thin, and near the middle I end up making them are thicker than I want. I t

How do I change cake recipes for cupcakes?

This is a three-part question: Which classes of cake are unsuitable for cupcakes? Can I do angel food cake or pound cake? What changes do I need to make when

How do I make brown rice bread rise without any wheat flour?

My brown rice bread is not rising and I do not know if I am doing something wrong or if yeast does not work with brown rice flour. I baked brown rice bread in

Can I use aluminum foil as a substitute for parchment paper?

I'm attempting to make this recipe for Greek Meatza which calls for baking ground beef in a pan on top of parchment paper. I don't have access to parchment pa

Why don't my muffins rise and develop tops properly?

I would like to make muffins that have that "spilled over" look that shop bought muffins have, but no matter what I do, the ones I make always look flat or only

Can I marble two cakes that call for different cooking temperatures?

I have two cupcake recipes that I would like to combine into one marbled cupcake. However one recipe bakes at 350 degrees and the other bakes at 375 degrees.

How does foil protect a sandwich in the [toaster] oven?

If I wrap a sandwich in foil and toast it, the entire sandwich seems to warm more evenly, so I don't get burnt edges of bread. Can someone explain what is goin

How do I find tart pans like these?

I want to make a lemon tart, but I want tins with straight walls, like the ones in this image. How would I find them - is there a name I can look for? I've b

How do I adjust for a recipe to bake in an oven instead of on a grill?

I have a recipe for grilling a pear crisp that calls for grilling for 15 to 20 minutes over indirect medium heat. Can I instead bake this in an oven? At wha

What is blind baking?

I am making a quiche. The recipe tells me to "blind bake" the crust at 375 degrees for 7-9 minutes. What is "blind baking"? Is it anything more complicated than

Can palmiers be refrigerated/frozen overnight?

I want to make palmiers and refrigerate or freeze them overnight then bake them in the morning. Can i do that, or would they not turn out right?

How can I prevent pear juice from soaking into pastry dough?

I'm baking a cheesecake with pieces of pears, using rich shortcrust pastry. The problem is that, during the baking, the pear juice is soaking the pastry. How co

How do I make liquid glucose from powdered glucose

I recently decided to make something that required liquid glucose, 140g of it. No problem in general, but for some reason none of my usual suppliers had stock (

Temperature of tandoor for making naan

What is the temperature used in a tandoor for making naan or kulcha? I know it's higher than 500 deg. F [260 deg. C], but don't know the exact range of temperat

What should I do with too-dry vanilla beans?

A few weeks ago, I bought a few vanilla beans to make mint ice cream. I only needed one, so I put the other bean back into the glass container it came in. Today

What does gluten "do" in baking?

I saw many questions regarding converting baking recipes towards gluten-free, and it seems it's not an easy process. But none of the questions I came across hel

Mixing baking ingredients separately

Why would one need to mix the dry ingredients (flour, salt, soda) separately and before mixing into the liquid (butter, sugar) than just mixing everything into

Getting biscuit mix to rise...again

Was looking through my pantry and I found some instant biscuit mix that is still good by date. When I tried making a batch of the mix, the dough did not rise at