Mastering the kitchen involves understanding healthy fat profiles, variety-specific grain preparation, and safe food handling techniques.
Sweet and fudge-like, brownies are a classic bake sale treat or dressed-up dessert. While cookies and cakes typically rely on baking powder as leavening, brownies require less leavening and can be made with baking soda in place of baking powder.
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Glutinous rice, or sticky rice, is a refined short- or long-grained white rice that is a staple food in many cultures, including Laos and Thailand. It is called glutinous or sticky rice because of its glue-like texture, and it can be eaten out of hand or alongside soups and stews.
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While shortening is a typical ingredient in most biscuit recipes, you can whip up a batch of fluffy and delicious biscuits without shortening. Depending upon your needs, you can create delicious flaky biscuits, perfect for honey or jam, or cut the fat and calories for biscuits without the guilt to pair with soup.
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Accurate oven temperature is essential when baking bread, cakes or cookies. If your oven is set too low or does not heat to the correct temperature, it can alter the cooking time, texture and color of your cakes and other baked goods.
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Whether you bake the old-fashioned way or use a bread machine, many of your favorite bread recipes likely require butter. Melted butter is a common ingredient in yeast breads, including white and wheat breads, as well as sweet rolls.
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Baking pans and sheets come in a wide variety of sizes and shapes. Most recipes call for a specific type of pan, but understanding the difference between a cookie sheet, a jelly roll pan and a cookie pan can be confusing, especially since you may bake the same treats in all of them.
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Saffron is the world's most expensive spice, so when you use it, you want to use it correctly. You'll find saffron in two forms, threads and powder. Saffron threads are the whole stigma from the saffron crocus, while saffron powder has been gently dried and ground.
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Pound cake is a dense and rich cake, traditionally baked in a loaf pan. The cake takes its name from the original recipe, which called for a pound each of butter, eggs, sugar and flour. Today, most pound cakes include chemical leavening like baking powder to help them rise.
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Soaking chicken in buttermilk produces moist, tender meat with a flavorful tang. Buttermilk is traditionally used as a marinade for bone-in fried chicken, but it can also improve your pan-fried chicken breasts.
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Large Asian pearl tapioca is used in desserts, like old-fashioned tapioca pudding and in Taiwanese bubble, or boba, tea. Cooking methods vary, but cooking completely is essential to achieve a desirable texture, rather than a starchy and unappealing dish.
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The question, when slow cooking mushrooms, is how slow can you go. A long cooking time will give you tender and rich mushrooms, perfect to serve with steak, or over pasta or potatoes.
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Canned pumpkin puree is a convenient choice for pumpkin breads, pies, waffles and soups; however, shortages can make it difficult to find, and some stores don't stock it all year round.
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Soya mince, called texturized vegetable protein or TVP in the United States, is an easy to use and inexpensive source of protein. Soya mince is made from soy flour and may be left plain or flavored to mimic chicken, sausage or ground beef.
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Most cookie recipes call for all-purpose flour. A very few require cake flour or bread flour; however, sometimes you need to work with what you have on hand.
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Homemade donuts let you bring this favorite treat home, and if you skip the fryer in favor of the oven, you can keep the fat and calories under control. While specialty doughnut pans are available, you can make donuts in your favorite flavors in the oven on a standard cookie sheet without any special equipment.
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