Health

Ah yes, the main reason why anyone modifies or changes a recipe, because they want it to be healthier. The yokes have a very high fat content so people looking to slim down tend to eat just the whites. The whites have no fat, and is high in protein, which makes it a good source of energy when fueling up for cardio or strength training. Like with most things, there is another side to this story. While the whites contain no fat they also have little to no nutritional value. So if you’re looking to get your daily doses of vitamins A and D you might consider keeping the yokes or look for another source of vitamins and nutrients.

Baking

When you’re baking something that calls only for egg whites, like meringue and certain cakes, the presence of yoke can dramatically change the consistency of what you’re baking. Like I said before, yolks contain a lot of fat while whites don’t, when the whites are whipped or mixed, they create air bubbles which helps the cake, or whatever you’re baking rise. If there are any yolks mixed in with the whites, the fat from the yoke separates the bubbles causing what you bake to stay flat and dense.

Now that you know why people separate the yokes from the whites it’s important that you know how to do it yourself. In the video below, Marc Bauer from the French Culinary Institute shows us the proper technique for separating eggs. Now that you know why we separate the yokes from the whites, you can go out and make something delicious.

Not all butters and sugars are created equal

Butter and sugar, the two basic ingredients you will almost always need for baking. If you’ve looked around, you might have noticed a wide variety of different butters and sugars sitting around at your local grocer. I’m not talking about the different brands like Land O’ Lakes butter or Domino sugar. I’m talking about different types of butters and sugars that you might be ignoring.

Different Types of Butter

Each type of butter has a specific use and can add a unique flavor to what you are making. Since their are several types of butters fighting for a chance to be in your recipes I’ve decided to do a few comparisons.

Sweet Butter vs. Sweet Cream butter

First off, don’t let the names fool you. Sweet butter is just another name for unsalted and sweet cream butter is just another name for salted butter. To me, the addition of the word cream to denote salted is odd, but I’ll play along. Both unsalted and salted butter is made from sweet, pasteurized cream with the only difference being one has salt while the other doesn’t. As a rule, it is always recommended that you use unsalted butter for cooking because most recipes already call for salt. Baking with too much salt can cause the flour to toughen up making the result a little drier and chewier than normal. Salted butters are better used as a spread on breads to add extra flavor.

Raw Cream Butter vs. Cultured Butter

Raw cream butter is made from cultured unpasteurized cream and has a very creamy flavor due to the unpasteurized milk. You won’t be able to find this butter in the U.S. because the FDA requires all milk to be pasteurized for safety. If you do happen upon this butter remember, since it’s not pasteurized it only has a shelf life of about ten days. Unlike raw cream butter, cultured butter is pasteurized and is made from natural fermentation of the cream. The fermentation process makes the butter more acidic giving the butter a tangy taste. Because of the acidity, cultured butter thoroughly breaks down proteins in flour. If you’re looking to make crisp and light pastries this is the butter for you.

Whipped Butter vs. Clarified Butter

Whipped butter can be made from either unsalted or salted butter. Whipped butter is made through a process called aeration where nitrogen gas is added to the cream instead of oxygen. The aeration makes the butter fluffier and easier to spread. In contrast, clarified butter is much heavier. Clarified butter is unsalted butter that has had the milk solids and water removed leaving only pure butterfat. Clarified butter has a high smoke point because all the milk and water has been removed. Clarified butter has extremely buttery taste and is best for frying.

Different Types of Sugar

Just like butter there are various types of sugars you can find. First off, sugar is sugar. It’s all very sweet and helps make cavities, but what differentiates sugar isn’t so much taste, but the size of the sugar crystal. Here are a few sugar match-ups to help you understand usefulness of different sugars.

Regular White Sugar vs Course Sugar

Regular white sugar is the sugar we use to sweeten our coffee or pie. This is the most commonly used sugar because it has medium sized crystals that allow it to be versatile enough for a wide range of cooking. On the other hand, course sugar is very large and is made when syrup crystallizes. Because of the size of the crystal, course sugar takes longer to dissolve. If you want to make super crunchy cookies or liquors then you will want to use course sugar.

Confectioner Sugar and Superfine Sugar

Confectioner sugar also known as powdered sugar is granulated sugar that has been ground to a smooth powder, sifted, and has had cornstarch added to prevent clumping. Powdered sugar is used in icings and whipping cream and can be used to dust desserts to add a hint of sweetness. Superfine sugar or ultrafine sugar has the smallest sized crystals of white sugars. It is used to add delicate texture to cakes and cookies. It’s also used to sweeten fruits and drinks because it dissolves quickly.

Dark Brown Sugar and Light Brown Sugar

Brown sugar is a different from white sugar because it still has a coating molasses syrup on it. Dark brown sugar has a darker color and stronger molasses flavor than light brown sugar. Dark brown sugar is good for baking gingerbread and other robust flavored foods. When making candies or glazes light brown sugar is the better choice.

Those were some interesting match-ups and I hope you learned something new. Now that you know more about the different types butters and sugars and the benefits each one brings, I hope you experiment with them and try something new. Now go out there and make something delicious.

Meet the Durian: “King of Fruit!”

Since we’re coming up on pie season. . .

Actually, is there really a pie season? Yes! But, If you ask us, pie is good every day all day. . .right?

Right! Anyway, pie means fruit, and if you’re one to try your hand at baking with a few exotic fruits with which you’re not commonly familiar, you might want to take a look-see at Baldor Speciality Foods Culinary Council, and sign up for their free “Baldor Bites” newsletters.

Each month the company will highlight one of their unique products and outline how you can use each one. Not bad for those of us still looking up what a Mandarinquat is, or curious as to how to eat a Tamarillo, or a Sorrell.

Yum.

So, head on over to the Baldor Specialty Food site, and sign up for their newsletter. . .tell ‘em TheBaker.com sent you!

Whether you live in a sky-reaching locale like Colorado, as our friends at Mermaids Bakery and Pie House do, or you’re just visiting one, you may have noticed that when you’re thousands of miles above sea level your desserts can end up. . .well, a bit flat. So what goes wrong? Well, it’s all about sea level, and being too far above it. Never fear, though, with some quick adjustments baking in the clouds can be a breeze.
 
The reason why a cake tends to fall in high altitudes is because of the lack of air-pressure. With less air-pressure pushing down on the cake the natural gasses (CO2) created while baking, escape faster then usual. So, essentially, in this scenario, the CO2 escapes before the cake can set, leaving the cake with no air pockets to support itself. Neat, huh? So then, midway through baking the cake loses its structure and. . .boom! It falls flatter than a bad note in the first round of American Idol.

 
To prevent this from happening, all you need to do is add less leavening ingredients. . .things like baking powder, yeast, or sugar. Additionally, because of the higher altitude you will experience lower humidity which can dry out flour, so you can fix this problem by adding a little extra liquid to the recipe to make the cake stay nice and moist.

Here are some measurements you may want to follow when you’re cooking at various elevations.
 
3,000 ft
 
If you’re cooking 3,000 feet above sea level, reduce your baking powder by 1/8 of a teaspoon for every teaspoon required. Remove 1 tablespoon of sugar for each cup, and increase all liquids by 2 tablespoons for each cup. Turn the oven up by an extra 25° F to ensure the cake cooks evenly. 

5,000 ft
 
When cooking 5,000 feet above sea level, decrease your baking powder by 1/8 of a teaspoon for every teaspoon required. Remove 2 tablespoons of sugar for each cup and increase all liquids by 3 tablespoons for each cup. Again, crank up the oven an extra 25° F.
 
7,000 ft or more 
And if you’re cooking 7,000 feet or higher, decrease your baking powder by 1/4 of a teaspoon for every teaspoon required. Remove 3 tablespoons of sugar for each cup, increase all liquids by 4 tablespoons, and turn the temperature up by an extra 25° F.

 
Remember, if you modify a recipe make sure to keep an eye on the oven to make sure you don’t burn whatever you’re baking. Now that you know how altitudes can affect baking you are one step closer to making moist, fluffy and most importantly delicious desserts in the sky.

Because there are a lot of pointy knives out there I’ve decided to focus on the Chief’s Knife also known as the French Knife. This knife is found in every restaurant and bakery because of the verity of cuts it can do. You mice, slice, and cut any thing from small vegetables like garlic to large cuts of beef like ribs with relative ease and is a must have for any kitchen. The Chief’s knife is a modified butcher knife that was scaled down to be used by cooks. If you’re looking for a Chief’s knife they are generally have an eight-inch blade in length and 1 ½ inches in width.

In the videos show you will learn how to properly hold the knife and the technique all cooks use for cutting with the knife. When the knife is held properly you can maximize the effectiveness of the blade and cutting with the right motion will enhance the speed at which you cut. Another important skill they will show you is how to hold you ingredients while cutting. When holding the ingredient, you want make sure to protect your fingers. It’s important to hold the ingredient like a bear claw or a monkey paw to insure you don’t lose any of your precious digits.

The first video is of Jennifer Claire from Home Cooking New York and she shows you how to hold the knife and how to hold the ingredients that you are cutting. The second video by Chef John Gonzales from A Chef’s Kitchen will expand on Jennifer’s video by explaining the cutting motion and the importance handling the knife properly. With enough practice you’ll be cutting like the pros. Bon Appétit!

A Guide to Improving Your Knife Skills

A Chef’s Kitchen: Knife Skills

So we have all been there before, we find a recipe that looks really good, but when we look a little closer we realize that the recipe makes an absurd amount. I can say from personal experience that reducing a recipe can be a little confusing. Take for instance when I tired to make a batch of carmel sticky buns….Mmmmm sticky buns. The recipe made twenty-eight, but I only wanted twelve. What did I do? I’m not proud of this, but I freaked out a little.

After regaining my composure I did some internet searching and I found that all it takes to reduce a recipe is to do a little high school math. I began furiously hyperventilating because math was never and still isn’t one of my strengths. So I began looking for ways to get around actually using math. I mean it’s the 21st century, the internet has all of the answers to my problems and I’m sure there’s an app for that some where. Sadly, internet had failed me and there wasn’t an app.

I asked all my baking friends and I got the same answer. Cut the recipe into easy measurements either by halves, quarters, or thirds. I decided to cut the my 28 roll recipe in half so I multiplied everything by .50. This keeps the measurements even and cuts the recipe into a manageable size. When I cut my recipe in half I had fourteen rolls which wasn’t too bad. I reasoned that eating two extra rolls wouldn’t hurt me that much more than eating the other twelve….right?

There is another method that lets you make the desired quantity of food, but it’s a little trickier. First you want to divide the number of servings you want to make by the recipe’s original number of servings. This will give you a conversion factor and once you have your conversion factor multiply everything by that number. For me, my conversion factor was .43. The problem came when I had to guess were .43 cups of milk was on the measuring cup. I decided that measuring .50 cups was a lot easier then .43.

So what if you’re cutting a recipe that calls for an odd number of eggs? I asked around and here are the answers I got.

Everyone who I asked said their way works and swears that there is no change in taste. I hope my little adventure in scaling down recipes helped you with your scaling needs. By the way those fourteen sticky buns were delicious.

All Purpose Flour

All-purpose flour (AP) can be used for all purposes as the name suggests. The flour itself contains an average amount of protein when compared to other flours and is good for cooking breads and pastries. With some simple modifications you can transform all purpose flour into both cake and self-rising flour.

Self-rising

Self rising is just like AP flour except it already has the salt and baking powder mixed in to make it rise. Self-rising flour is great for pastries such as scones, muffins, and biscuits.

Cake

Cake flour is much finer then other flour, contains less protein and is high in starch. This is great for cooking cakes because the starch distributes the protein more evenly throughout the cake. Using cake flour helps the cake set faster, rise better, and guards against a cake from falling.

Substitutions

Now that we know a little about each flour lets get down to the nitty gritty….substitutions. I’m using AP flour as the the base for all of the substitutions because again, it is the most commonly found flour in households. Remember, when performing a substitution of any kind the baking time is going to be different so make sure you keep a close eye on whatever you’re baking.

AP to cake

Take a cup of all-purpose flour and remove two table spoons of flour from the cup. Then mix two tablespoons of cornstarch into the remaining flour. Make sure to thoroughly sift the flour to make sure the cornstarch is evenly distributed. The cornstarch will add extra fluffiness to the flour and create a lighter cake when finished.

AP to self-rising

Next is transforming AP flour into self-rising flour. This is also very simple. For each cup of all-purpose flour add one and a half teaspoons of baking powder and a half teaspoon of salt. The salt and baking powder gives the AP flour the leavening agent needed to make dough rise.

Conclusion

Hope breaking down the differences in flour into bite sized chunks made this lesson in baking science easier. If you stick around you might just learn a few cool new tricks and hopefully you can come up with a few of your own baking recipe solutions when you come across a problem. If you don’t have your Ph.D. in baking yet then hang around, we have a ton of tips and tricks that we are itching to share with you. Bon Appétit!

References

http://bakingbites.com/2007/05/subbing-all-purpose-flour-for-cake-flour/

http://southernfood.about.com/cs/breads/ht/self_rise_flour.htm

So I’ve heard a lot that baking with yeast is terrible so I’m here to well….comment on how terrible it can be. Actually baking with yeast isn’t horribly difficult by any streach of the imagination. The only problem I’ve found is that it takes way to long and since we live in a world were things can happen in an instant, baking bread can seem like a laborious task.

First lets take a look at yeast. According to that great encyclopedia of shared knowledge known as Wikipedia. Yeast, is a leavening agent that converts the fermentable sugars in the dough into carbon dioxide. In less academic terminology yeast is a bacteria that you put in dough. The bacteria eats the sugar in the dough and expands creating air pockets. When you bake the bread the heat kills the yeast, but leaves the air pockets giving the bread a soft spongy texture.

I got a lot of my information from the video below. It’s from a TLC clip about proofing yeast. If you want, you can watch the video right now and listen the the melodious voice of the speaker. If you don’t want to spend time waiting for the video to load and play through a 20 second commercial I’ll give you the highlights.

Good you’re still reading…you’re my kind of people; people who like to get straight to the point. Working with yeast itself is really simple on paper. You want to heat up a half cup of water to about 100 degrees. If you don’t have a thermometer don’t worry. When you stick a finger into the water it should be hot, but not so hot that you jerk you finger out of water as if you had just touched an open flame. Pour a yeast packet into the warm water and add a pinch of sugar to activate the yeast. Follow your bread recipe for the specific measurements and pour the activated yeast into the flour and begin mixing.

When you’re done mixing, take the dough and throughly knead it to evenly distribute the yeast. When you’re done, put the dough in a bowl and cover it in plastic rap and let it rise for two hours. Once your two hours are up take all your frustrations and ball them up into your fist and punch down the dough then let it rise again. Letting the dough rise for a second time will add more texture and flavor to the bread. Place the dough in your cooking pan a let it bake. See, yeast isn’t very hard unless you count the hours of kneading and waiting, but hey, nothing beats a fresh homemade loaf of bread. Actually, I can think of one thing that beats making homemade bread…getting someone else to make you homemade bread.