Baking Essentials
lynnescountrykitchen.net

Can you change a mass of dough into crisp, flaky, tender biscuits? Can you make a spicy, juicy apple pie or create a lucious chocolate cake? If you can you are an artist.! Be proud of your skill in baking. The boy or girl who knows how and likes to cook is popular with the crowd. It can be just as satisfying to create a picture with foods as to paint one with water colors and a brush.

Every meal you eat has some evidence of the importance of knowing how to bake. Breads, muffins, biscuits, waffles, cookies, cakes and pies help to make a meal a complete picture.

Baking is an art as well as a science. You mix certain carefully measured ingredients, much as the scientist does. You pop them into the oven and presto - out comes a real work of art - something to talk about - a cake, a pie, some cookies that are wonderful to look at and to eat.

You can improve your ability to create food pictures in this way if you will remember these three rules. Good baking results depend on them.

1. Use high quality ingredients.

2. Use the right equipment.

3. Use tested methods and recipes

First, let us take a look at some of the materials that go into baking -- shortening, sweetening, flour, eggs, liquid, leavening and flavoring.

Prepare To Bake	About Flour	What Is Shortening?	Sweetenings
Liquids	Leavenings	Baking Ammonia	Eggs
Flavorings	Whipping Cream	Melting Chocolate	Ganache

BAKER’S HINTS

Preheat your oven before you mix the ingredients or, for yeast breads, after rising.

Measure liquid ingredients in a glass measure on a flat surface, lining up the markings at eye level.

Measure dry ingredients in a dry measuring cup, leveling top with a straight-edged blade.

Stir all-purpose flour before measuring. It is not necessary to sift it. Cake flour does not need sifting.

Choose your bakeware according to its browning ability. Shiny bakeware reflects heat and slows the browning process, making it ideal for shortbread and soft crust breads. Cookware with a dull finish and glass baking dishes will absorb more heat and brown crusts much more quickly, which is perfect for pie crusts, cookies, coffee cakes, and crusty breads.

When making cutouts, try to get as many biscuits or cookies as you can from the first rolling. Too many rerollings may cause them to become tough and dry.

For yeast breads, use fresh yeast and a thermometer to make sure the heat of the liquid won’t kill the yeast.

Grease muffin cups and baking pans on the bottoms and only halfway up the sides to prevent unwanted rims around the edges of quick breads.

For even baking, bake on one rack of your oven and allow space between the baking sheets or dishes for the warm air to circulate.

To avoid soggy sides and bottoms, cool baked foods in the pans only as long as the recipe directs, then transfer the baked goods to a wire rack to finish cooling.