Baking for Dummies

by Emily Nolan

  Cornstarch: Sometimes cornstarch is used in baking to thicken the juices in pies. It’s also used to thicken gravies and sauces. Cornstarch keeps forever — just make sure to store it in an airtight container in a cool, dry place.

  Decorative frostings: Tubes of different colors of decorative gels or frostings make adding spur-of-the-moment decorations to cakes and cookies easy. They keep forever and are always ready to turn the ordinary into something extraordinary.

  Dried beans (for pie weights): Dried beans may seem like a strange thing to keep in the kitchen for baking, but they act as inexpensive pie weights when you’re baking a piecrust without a filling.

  Food coloring: Food coloring is great to keep on hand to tint coconut or frostings and to make colored hard-boiled eggs. Be careful when using it, though — it can stain!

  Frozen dough: Piecrust, well wrapped, will keep for up to a year in the freezer. Just defrost the dough before rolling it out. You also can keep puff pastry and bread doughs on hand in the freezer.

  Instant tapioca: Tapioca comes in several forms: pellets, flour, and granules. I love to use instant tapioca (which is made up of small pellets and is found where puddings and flavored gelatin are sold) when I bake fruit pies. It acts much like cornstarch does, thickening fruit juices, but I think it give the pies a better overall flavor.

  Yogurt: Plain yogurt is often used in quick breads and muffins. Its tangy flavor and richness add a nice component to baked goods. You can substitute yogurt for sour cream in many recipes as well. Unless a particular type is specified, you can use nonfat, lowfat, or whole-milk yogurt in any recipe.

  Chapter 3

  Going Over the Gear

  In This Chapter

  Pots and pans for baking, in many shapes and sizes

  The machines you’ll use to bake with

  Tools and utensils for every task

  Baking is a good activity because there is relatively little startup cost. If you have a bowl, a mixing spoon, and some baking sheets, you don’t need much more to make cookies or even bread. I’m a huge lover of kitchen gadgets, but I live in a tiny apartment, so I have to streamline what I buy in the interest of having walking-around room. Because I love to bake, I’ve put together a list of the basics you need in order to use this book.

  If you’re starting from scratch, I recommend looking for bakeware and appliances on sale. Department stores usually have a good sale every few weeks in their housewares section, so keep an eye out for quality products at reasonable prices. Outlet malls are also a good place to find discounted stuff for the kitchen. If you aren’t fully committed to the idea of baking, you can always find heavy-duty aluminum foil baking pans in just about every shape and size at the grocery store. You can usually use the pans only once, so they’re not an economical choice, but they’re perfect if you don’t bake often or are bringing a baked good to a friend’s house — you don’t have to worry about getting the pan back.

  Cost is not always the best indicator of value. Look for sturdy pots and pans; despite the price tag, if something feels flimsy, it is. Your bakeware should feel sturdy and heavy. They’ll be going in and out of a hot oven throughout their lifetime, so you want to choose equipment that won’t warp and will withstand the wear and tear of baking. Before using any new bakeware, be sure to wash it thoroughly in hot, soapy water.

  Baking Pans

  You won’t get very far in baking if you don’t have some baking pans. Although you don’t need many, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with the variety and sizes of pans available. From springform pans to muffin tins, discover all you need to know about the pans that make baking possible.

  Generously grease insides of pans with solid vegetable shortening. Use a pastry brush to spread the shortening evenly, making sure that all the inside surfaces are well covered.

  Baking (cookie) sheets

  To keep yourself sane, I recommend owning at least two cookie sheets so that you can always have a batch of cookies ready to go into the oven. I recommend four baking sheets for an avid baker. Choose heavy, shiny aluminum baking sheets. Avoid dark baking sheets — they tend to burn cookies faster.

  Cookie sheets either are flat (with no sides) or have a lip running around all four sides (see Figure 3-1). I prefer a baking sheet with a lip because I can use it for many things, such as placing it under juicy pies as they bake so that it catches the juice and the juice doesn’t drip into the oven.

  Figure 3-1: Baking sheets can be flat or have a lip running around all four sides.

  Thin baking sheets will warp in the oven, so make sure that yours are sturdy.

  If you find that your baking sheets with nonstick coating are browning your cookies too fast, reduce the oven temperature by 25 degrees. You also can buy insulated baking sheets — they’re a little pricey, but they keep your cookie bottoms from getting too brown. You may find that you need to increase your baking time by a few minutes if you use insulated sheets.

  You can create your own insulated baking sheets instead of spending extra money to buy them. If your cookies are burning on the bottom but raw on top, stack two baking sheets together (one on top of the other) and continue baking as usual. This should prevent further burning.

  Baking (muffin) tins

  Muffin tins are little cups, usually 6 or 12 cups per pan, pressed out of one sheet of metal. They’re used for making muffins, cupcakes, or rolls or for baking small cakes. Like other baking tins, the best muffin tins

  Are sturdy.

  Are made of heavy aluminum.

  May have a nonstick coating.

  Specialty muffin tins are also available in mini-muffin size, as well as muffin-top pans (from which you get only the crunchy tops of the muffins and not the cakey bottoms).

  Bundt and tube pans

  Bundt and tube pans allow a hurried cook to make a beautiful, tall cake without the worry of layers. The secret is the funnel, which cooks the cake from the inside out. Bundt pans almost always have some sort of cut-crystal design molded into the pan and have tall sides with a hollow tube in the center. Check out Figure 3-2 to see what a Bundt pan looks like.

  Figure 3-2: Bundt pans let you make fancy cakes, sculpted cakes.

  A tube pan (shown in Figure 3-3), or angel food cake pan, has a funnel in the center, too, but the sides of this pan are smooth, which allows the batter to climb up the walls of the pan as it bakes. Tube pans often have feet, which are little metal nubs that stick out above the rim of the pan, allowing the pan to be flipped over while it cools without smashing the cake inside. If your tube pan doesn’t have feet, chances are the tube center is higher than the sides of the pan, which will give you the same clearance that feet would. Angel food cakes need to cook this way so that they don’t collapse in the pan.

  Figure 3-3: The funnel in the middle of this tube pan helps your cake bake evenly.

  If you don’t know how many cups of batter your Bundt or tube pan holds, fill the pan to capacity with measured water to find out what its volume is. The same goes for any baking pan you need to use.

  Cake pans

  Cake pans come in several sizes. The most common are 8-inch round and 9-inch round. When you’re buying a cake pan, make sure to get one that’s at least 1 1/2 inches deep. You’ll need two 9-inch-round baking pans for making a layer cake. I recommend heavy aluminum pans, with or without a nonstick coating, and with straight sides. Be sure your pans are sturdy; you don’t want them to warp and produce an uneven cake.

  These pans will mold the batter you put into them, so you want them to be straight and flat.

  Loaf pans

  Loaf pans come in two standard sizes: 9 x 5 x 3 inches and 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches. Either size is fine for the recipes in this book. You can find loaf pans made of glass, shiny metal, and nonstick aluminum. Glass pans and dark, nonstick pans have a tendency to brown your breads a bit faster than shiny metal, so you may have to lower the oven temperature by 25 degrees.

  Alw
ays have two loaf pans for bread-baking, because most recipes make two loaves of bread, and you’ll need both pans to put the bread in to rise; you can’t really bake one loaf of yeast bread at a time. I also don’t recommend baking quick breads one at a time. The leavening will become active when the wet ingredients are mixed together, and if the batter sits around for too long, the leavening may become inactive.

  Pie plates (pans)

  The most common sizes for pie plates are 8 inches and 9 inches. Pie plates can be a bit tricky because the size refers to the diameter, not the depth, of the plate, so they vary in the amounts they hold, even if they’re the same diameter. Pie plates come in a variety of materials:

  Glass: A glass pie plate is often the best choice for pies that bake for 30 to 50 minutes. The glass radiates and conducts heat at the same time, so it cooks the crust quickly. If you have only glass pie plates and you need to cook a pie for more than an hour, lower the oven temperature by 25 degrees so that the crust won’t burn in the pan.

  Aluminum: A thick aluminum pie plate gives you a more evenly baked crust than a thin plate does. Dull metal or dark pans also absorb heat faster and cook faster than shiny pans. Be sure to adjust the cooking time and temperature accordingly.

  A shiny pie plate reflects heat, so your pie will end up with a soggy bottom crust if you bake your pie for less than an hour.

  Ceramic: Ceramic pie plates are less popular, but they are available. They behave like thick aluminum pie plates, baking crusts evenly and slowly. They’re a good choice for quiches and double-crust pies that require a longer cooking time.

  Springform pans

  Springform pans are clever contraptions. They allow the cake to bake, but then you can remove the sides of the pan (there is a clasp on the side) without having to invert it, and you’re left with a lovely cake ready to be cut and served (see Figure 3-4). They’re the perfect pans to make cheesecakes in. The most common sizes of springform pans are 8 inches, 9 inches, and 10 inches. Finding sets of springform pans sold in these three sizes is common.

  When shopping for a springform pan, make sure that the bottom fits in tightly and the clasp is strong. Carrying a cake to the oven and having your clasp give out on you, bottoming out the whole pan and leaving you wearing the cake, is not a pleasant experience. Even worse is when this happens when you’re carrying the finished cake to the cooling rack!

  Figure 3-4: The sides spring off of a springform pan so you don’t have to disturb your cake.

  To make sure that your springform doesn’t spring a leak, place it on a baking sheet when you place it in the oven. The baking sheet will help catch any drips and allow you to transport your cake without any risk of the bottom falling from the cake pan.

  Basic Pots

  You don’t need that many pots and pans for baking. However, you may have to melt chocolate for a cake or cook a filling for a potpie or even a pudding for a pie. This section presents a very short list of essential pots you need to have in the kitchen. For all pots, I recommend heavy, stainless steel cookware (with or without a nonstick coating).

  What? No double boiler?

  If you’re in a pinch and need to make a double boiler, take two saucepans of different sizes or a saucepan and a stainless steel or tempered glass bowl to fit on top. Fill the larger saucepan with about 2 inches of water and rest the smaller saucepan on top of the water (it doesn’t matter whether the second saucepan touches the water, because the bottom of a regular saucepan is sturdier than the bottom of a double boiler) or insert the bowl in the saucepan. Use as you would a regular double boiler.

  A word of warning: Because the two pans will not be fitted, you need to make sure that none of the simmering water gets into the top saucepan. Also, be very careful when removing the top bowl if you’re using a bowl. It will be hot!

  Or you can use a stainless steel bowl large enough to sit on top of the pan of simmering water. What’s nice about this setup is that there’s no danger of the water mixing in with your melting chocolate. Just remember that the bowl will be very hot to touch, so use an oven mitt.

  Saucepans

  You should have at least a 1-quart saucepan and a 2-quart saucepan on hand for stovetop procedures such as scalding milk and melting chocolate. Heavy-bottomed saucepans are better conductors of heat, and you’re less likely to burn or scald the bottom than if you use thinner metals. I prefer stainless steel saucepans because they’re nonreactive (they don’t react with acidic ingredients, which can cause discoloration) and durable. They also don’t pick up food odors or stain easily.

  Double boiler

  If you melt chocolate, you need a double boiler. A double boiler consists of two nesting saucepans or a saucepan with a fitted bowl inside. To use a double boiler, heat water in the lower pot until it steams with the upper pot in place. This warms the bottom of the upper pot or bowl. Make sure that the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the simmering water. Then the chocolate can melt with no risk of burning. This method of indirect heating also is used for making some creams and sauces.

  Never use the top saucepan of a double boiler over direct heat, because the metal used to make the upper pan is not as sturdy as the bottom saucepan.

  Dutch oven

  Its name is said to have come from its Dutch ancestry, dating back to the 1700s. These large pots or kettles are good for going from the stovetop to the oven, which is great if you’re making potpie or stew and dumplings. Make sure that your Dutch oven has a tight-fitting lid and is flameproof (oven safe). This includes the handles and lid knobs.

  Electric Tools

  Although most baked goods don’t require electric gadgets, these convenience tools certainly speed up the baking process. Electric mixers enable you to speedily beat sugar and butter, whip egg whites, and mix together batters. Food processors and blenders can chop and puree in no time.

  Blender

  A blender is great for a number of tasks, such as

  Pureeing fruits

  Making cheesecake

  Crushing crackers or cookies for a crumb crust

  Grinding or chopping nuts

  There’s no better tool than a blender when you need superfine (quick-dissolving) sugar and have only granulated sugar on hand. Just dump the amount you need into the blender and whiz it for a minute or so, and — voilà! — superfine sugar. (I once tried this in my food processor and the results were not the same.)

  Food processor

  A food processor (shown in Figure 3-5) is a wonderful kitchen tool because it’s strong, simple to use, and pretty quiet — but it’s also quite expensive. I absolutely love my food processor and use it all the time. You can use a food processor to

  Make pastry dough with the dough blade.

  Chop nuts or citrus zest with the metal blade.

  Puree fruit with the metal blade.

  Juice lemons or limes with the juicer attachment.

  Shred carrots with the shredder attachment.

  Slice apples with the slicing attachment.

  Food processors can do these tasks and more — all in a fraction of the time required to do it by hand.

  If you’re considering purchasing a food processor, don’t skimp on quality. Make sure that you purchase a reputable brand with a good, durable motor. The money you spend on it upfront will save you money and time in the long run.

  Figure 3-5: A quality food processor comes with numerous blades for a variety of tasks.

  Handheld mixer

  A handheld mixer is relatively inexpensive and great to have on hand. You can use a handheld mixer for

  Whipping up cake batters and light cookie doughs.

  Whipping cream and egg whites.

  Handheld mixers have three speeds: slow, medium, and fast. They are portable and easy to clean (the beaters just pop off when you’re finished), which can save you a great deal of time and frustration.

  Although the motor in a handheld mixer is not as strong as the one in a standing mixer
, you can find sturdier, more expensive models that come with attachments for creaming thick cake batters and dough hooks for bread doughs. The advantage of a handheld mixer is that it’s portable, which means that you can use it wherever you need it (as long as you can plug it in).

  Stand (table) mixer

  A good stand mixer (shown in Figure 3-6) has been called the most efficient tool known to man. It can handle just about any workload you dish out, because the motor is about six times stronger than that of any handheld mixer. It also has a wider range of speeds than a handheld mixer.

  Figure 3-6: A sturdy stand mixer can tackle many of the toughest baking tasks.