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It's a fact, cooking isn't that hard. It's so easy to whip up a batch of cookies and a pie crust.
It's a fact, if you stack up a bunch of easy projects sometimes it isn't so simple. I chased my tail off this afternoon.
- Soft batch chocolate chips cookies. This is my first experiment with gluten free baking. My SILs assured me that gluten free will taste just the same as the regular version as long as the batter has a day to sit around before baking. I'm skeptical but I do want to branch out and give the gluten-free niece in our family more options. I crossed checked the ingredients with my SIL and then sealed up the bowl and put it in the frig out of range of the gluten that was about to fly in kitchen. I will also bake these up first tomorrow and get them out of range of the kitchen before working with the other stuff.
- Chocolate chip cookie cake. For the GF skeptics in the house. I made a cake instead of cookies so that there wouldn't be any chance of getting the GF mixed up with the G.
- Pie crust. To be used in apple pie.
All of the above are sitting in the fridge and will spend the night thinking about how good they will taste tomorrow. I do feel that a lot of baked goods benefit from an overnight stay in the fridge before baking. My other baking tip is that I feel that Trader Joe's Bourbon Vanilla is better than all other vanillas.
Now that I've given my baking tips, let me sound off about my baking pet peeves. I enjoy baking and unless everyone around me is being super polite, they enjoy my baking as well. Possibly these items make a difference for super fancy cakes, but for the kind of stuff I make, my opinion is that it just doesn't matter.
- The dictate that all items used in baking should be room temperature, particularly butter.
- Geeze Louise if I have time to plan in advance, yes I leave butter out to soften. When I don't have the time, you better believe that I zap it in the microwave to get it loosened up. Just so you know, somewhere on this blog there is a post where I use the "amazing" tip of rolling butter between two sheets of wax paper to get it to soften. I gave that "amazing" technique up nearly as soon as I discovered it because ain't nobody got time for that.
- I can't be bothered to leave eggs out all day. I've had plenty of great results with cold eggs so I'm going to keep it that way.
- Egg size. Most recipes are written for large eggs and when I was single I only bought large eggs. Then I got myself a husband who only eats jumbo eggs and I've found that...size doesn't matter. Or if it does, then I guess we have confirmation that bigger is better.
- Sponsored posts for a particular brand of flour or butter that claim that the brand is the one and only. Flour and butter are flour and butter.
That's my hot take. What's your take on these burning issues of the day? Any other baking pet peeves?
Happy T-Day!!! See ya tomororw!
I definitely microwave butter to soft when needed for recipes. Yesterday I made up some spice chocolate chip cookies and remembered to take the butter out early (even though the recipe calls for cold butter - forget that; it's much more of a nuisance to mix that way).
ReplyDeleteEvery so often I'll notice a recipe says room-temp eggs and I just pop them into a bowl of warm water for a few minutes. But usually I forget completely and it always seems to work out okay.
Oooh I never thought about putting eggs in warm water so I will take that tip if I ever bake something where I feel like it might be better to use room temperature eggs. That's another peeve that I have about recipes that call for cold butter - once you mix it then it's warm so what's the point in starting with cold? The only time I follow that rule is for pie crusts and even so I question it.
DeleteWe don't have Trader Joe, but I love the Costco Madagascar vanilla. Whenever we have gone to Mexico, I end up bringing back like four huge bottles. A good vanilla is key!
ReplyDeleteGood tip! I should see what Costco has for vanilla.
DeleteI'll be interested to hear how those GF cookies come out!
ReplyDeleteI agree it's easy to MAKE the pie crust, and i let mine sit in the fridge overnight. It's the baking part where I get screwed up. They looked so good before I baked them, but then shrunk as they baked- how do I avoid that???
Sally's Baking Addiction is one of my favorite website for recipes, and she has a tutorial for softening butter in the microwave if you don't have an hour to let it sit out.
Oh, and I agree about the TJ's vanilla! I have to get more of that soon.
Hmm, I'm not sure what went wrong. Sometimes it's just a bad baking day. I've had other crust recipes turn out badly, so that's why I've always stuck with my go-to. I've also had crusts shrink when I pre-bake them so that's why I never pre-bake crusts.
DeleteSince I am team fridge butter (see Suzanne's post about Two kinds of people https://lifeofadoctorswife.wordpress.com/2022/11/17/two-kinds-of-people/), I also nuke my butter if necessary... although I do try to plan in advance.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip with the TJs bourbon vanilla. I don't think I've bought that yet.
The bourbon vanilla is really good. It's a bit pricey but I don't mind since I feel like it gives my desserts an extra edge.
DeleteI have a GF flour mixture that I use with a 1-1 substitution and then just the regular Tollhouse recipe. People generally don't even know it's GF unless I tell them. That flour mixture is great for cookies and basically terrible for everything else, so I rarely make cakes or muffins. Ha!
ReplyDeleteI wish I'd seen this comment before I tried to make the cookies! What brand of GF flour?
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