In muffin recipes, the instructions often say to stir the mixture till "just combined". Why does over-stirring the muffin mixture result in tough muffins? An
I've been making bread for a while now, but I can never get it to rise enough. The bread comes out really dense, so it's not very useful for sandwiches. I give
When baking cakes, I often find that there are instructions for high altitude, which usually is just a matter of adding some extra flour. I understand the conc
An entire cake is too much food (and temptation!) for me and my husband. Generally speaking, how do I halve a cake recipe? I have heard you can't just cut every
I have a bread machine and when I follow the recipes in the included booklet that came with the machine, the bread rises for about an hour, but the collapses ba
Are there tricks for baking thick and fluffy pita bread? The ones I make come out fine, with an even puff and nice pockets, but they are on the thin side. I w
When I make snickerdoodles, they taste too "tangy" to me which I believe is due to the acidity of the tartaric acid. The recipe I have calls for a 2:1 ratio of
It is winter down here in Australia and I find it challenging to find a warm spot to raise my bread dough. What I have been doing is placing the dough in the ov
When you are measuring out your flour, sugar, etc with the measuring cups, is it better to scoop and then shake the cup to get a leveled cup, or scoop and then
When a recipe (like for muffins) calls for vegetable oil, does it matter if I substitute the oil for butter because I want that buttery taste in the muffins? D
The baking recipes I use specify many kinds of sugar e.g. caster, raw, white, soft etc. Generally, I always just use raw sugar, mainly for convenience. Does i
If I am making pie dough, for instance, is there a reason to prefer doing things in batches, besides it being more manageable for my tools/hands? This would hel
I was cleaning out my spice cabinet and deep in the back I found two packages (e.g., six envelopes) of active dry Red Star yeast that expired in March 2009, 15
Has anyone got a foolproof method for Yorkshire Puddings? With the recipe I have they never seem to rise properly.
I buy and make box brownies all the time, but the top crust always ends up looking more like the topping of a cake, rather than the flaky top shown in the pictu
I've always learnt that you add the wet ingredients to the dry ones. Looking at some recipes: "Combine the dry ingredients, the flour ... Add the other wet in
Does it make any difference when you wrap food with aluminum foil for grilling or baking or making a steam pouch whether you put the shiny side in or the shiny
I was always taught to add a pinch of salt to flour when baking (mainly cakes / muffins and puddings). I have recipes that specifically mention adding salt and
When I made chicken pot pie, the filling was fine but the puff pastry on top didn't puff up though it did cook through. How can I remedy this? The pastry was
I hate the idea of measuring flour using something as imprecise as measuring scoop. What numbers do you treat as definitive/authoritative/canonical for doing w