Go to Ask the Baker Vol 2>>

Ask the Baker Vol 1
(Questions answered by Dennis Weaver)

3/9/06

How many ounces is one cup of butter? Likewise some recipes call for one stick of butter. What is that equivalent in ounces? We don't have butter sold in sticks in Malaysia.

Thanks for the question, Sylvia. It’s always interesting to see how foods differ in other parts of the world.

A stick of butter is 1/4-pound or four ounces. It is also half a cup.

Why is flour sifted before being measured?

Sifting the flour aerates it and carries some air into the recipe. More importantly, a cup of sifted flour weighs much less than a cup of scooped flour, maybe 20 to 30% less. If you scoop flour before you level your cup, you will add too much flour to your recipe.

We often whisk the flour until it is light and then spoon it into the cup. It’s a close approximation of sifted flour. The best solution is to weigh the flour instead of measuring by volume.

I have a question about baking bread from scratch. I have a large, cold kitchen with cold granite countertops. How do I get bread to rise in my cold kitchen? Do I resort to using a heating pad?

Patience is one answer. We often refrigerate dough and the cold dough may take hours to rise. When the yeast grows at lower temperatures it grows much more slowly but produces more yeasty alcohol that gives the bread a wonderful flavor. It won’t hurt to let the bread rise all day.

The ideal dough temperature for yeast growth is 75 degrees. If you want the bread to rise quickly, target that dough temperature. Instead of adding water at 105 degrees, add water at 115 degrees. (Be careful not too get the water too warm; it will start to kill the yeast at 120 degrees.) With a little experimentation and a thermometer, you’ll figure it out.

The warmest spot in your kitchen may be in the sun shining through the window or on top of your refrigerator.

We often let our bread rise in a large, food-grade plastic bag. We stick the bowl in the bag and close the bag to create a mini-greenhouse. You could place a pan of hot water inside the bag and next to the bowl of dough. Stop by your local bakery or let us know if you can’t find a food-grade bag.

I would think that a hot pad would overheat the dough on the bottom and not on the top. With the dough at an uneven temperature, it will not ferment evenly.

Ask the Baker 2/18/06

What is self-rising flour and can I use it in my sugar cookies?

Self-rising flour is a soft white flour that has baking soda and salt already added. It is often used for baking powder biscuits. It’s a time saver because you don’t have to measure and add the baking powder and salt. It can only be used in those recipes that are designed for self-rising flour.

In those cookies, your product would have too much salt and leavening.

I have been reading about the benefits of using wooden utensils. What is your opinion?

I don’t know. Maybe I lead a sheltered life but I had not heard of benefits in using wooden spoons. Maybe some one out there can help us.

What is hard spring wheat flour? What flours have a protein content of around 13%? What recipes or dishes might benefit from such flour and protein content? Do you sell this flour?

Let me start at the top. The terms “hard” and “soft” refer to the protein content in the flour with hard having a high protein content. The proteins convert to gluten in the bread making process. Hard spring wheat flours are known for their high protein contents but each crop will have slightly different characteristics depending on the soil, water, and other growing conditions.

A protein content of 13% is quite high, as high as any of the fifteen or so flours that we keep on hand. The flour that we use for most of our bread mixes has a 12% protein content.

High protein flours are used for breads to create the chewy texture that we love. They are not suitable for pastries, cakes, or cookies where tenderness is desirable.

Our Hi-Country Homemade Flour Blend has a protein content in this range and is suitable for most breads.

Do you sell flours or mixes that are not made with enriched flour?

By federal law, wheat flours that have been refined to remove the bran and therefore some of the food value must be enriched. The intent of the regulation was to enrich white flours to the nutritional equivalent of whole wheat flour. In some cases, the enrichment exceeds whole wheat flour.

You can see a comparison of enriched and whole wheat flours here.

Any of our mixes or flours that contain white flour use enriched flour. Only those that are 100% whole wheat are not enriched. Our Sunrise line of mixes is made without enriched flour.

Ask the Baker 2/10/06

Many of your recipes call for a packet of yeast. I buy my yeast in bulk. How much should I use?

A seven gram packet of yeast is about 2 1/2 teaspoons of bulk yeast.

By the way, seven grams is a quarter of ounce so you can compare the bulk yeast to packets. A three ounce jar of bulk yeast is the equivalent of 12 packets.

What role does water play in my cake recipe?

The liquids in a cake recipe, play many roles—consistency, balance, flavor, moisture and even leavening. (Steam has a volume 1100 times that of water and so causes the cake to expand.)

What’s really important is the balance of liquids to flour and sugar to fat (butter or shortening). The following general guideline is appropriate for those cakes that call for creaming the fat and sugar together.

• The weight of the sugar should be no more than the weight of the flour. Since a cup of cake flour weighs about four ounces and a cup of sugar about seven, you should have no more than about 2/3’s as much sugar as flour by volume.

• The weight of the fat should be about equal to the weight of the eggs. Since a large egg weighs about 1 2/3 ounce without the shell and two tablespoons of butter weighs an ounce, two eggs would balance just less than seven tablespoons of butter.

• There should be more liquids by weight than sugar in the recipe. A cup of granulated sugar weighs a little less than water (seven ounces compared to eight). So if there is a cup of sugar in your recipe, you would want at least a cup of water. (Remember to include the water in the eggs. There is about 1 1/4 ounces of water in a large egg.)

This is probably a lot more detail than you wanted to know or will remember but it illustrates the precision by which good cakes are formulated. (And by the way, I don’t remember this formula—but I have a text book that does.)

Ask the Baker 2/2/06

I’ve always made bread by hand and enjoyed the intimacy of working with the dough with my hands. Now that I’m getting older, my wrists aren’t as strong as they used to be and kneading dough is harder. Is there anything that I can do to make it easier?

Probably nothing that you don’t already know.

Make your dough as soft as you can with a bit more liquid. A soft dough will rise easier with lighter bread and it’s certainly easier to knead. If you need to add a tablespoon or two of flour as you knead to reduce stickiness, that’s okay.

Knead your dough in stages. As the gluten forms, the dough becomes stiffer. If you let it sit for two or three minutes, the gluten relaxes. You’ll get a rest and when you start again, you’ll detect a softer dough. Let it rest again if you need to.

Hope that helps.

I’ve tried saving leftover pancake batter but it looks kind of nasty the next day. Is it okay to use?

Sure—but you probably need to revive it a little. Depending on the recipe, the batter is probably too thick or too thin. Add a little flour or milk to get the right consistency.

The leavening has probably lost a little oomph overnight. Stir in another 1/2 to one teaspoon of baking powder.

If the recipe used baking soda rather than baking powder, the leavening has probably lost all of its oomph and you will probably need to add more baking powder. Don’t add baking soda. Baking soda is meant to react with an acid such as buttermilk. Once that reaction is complete, the acid has been neutralized and without acid in the batter, further baking soda won’t work.

Ask the Baker 1/27/06

When I get serious about making bread and am trying to turn out a lot of bread in a hurry, I only let it rise once. It’s not quite as good. Why is that?

As the yeast grows, it feeds on the sugars or starches in the dough. The byproducts are carbon dioxide, the gas that makes the dough expand, and alcohol, which provides the yeasty bread flavor that we love. When it only rises once, the yeast has only half the time to make produce that yeasty flavor.

A longer fermenting time also allows the gluten to fully develop for a little better crumb.

Can I just turn my mixer on and let the dough hook do the work? What happens if I mix too long?

A stand-type mixer and a dough hook make bread making easy. It’s not quite as automatic as a bread machine but close enough for many of us. One point of caution—don’t leave your machine unattended; they have a tendency to walk off the counter.

If you mix too long, the dough will turn to a soft, sticky mess. Four to eight minutes at medium speed is sufficient for most recipes. The dough should be elastic and able to stretch to membrane without breaking (the window pane test) when done.

Do you try the recipes out first yourself before publishing them in the newsletter? [Another site] sent out an erroneous recipe last year in a newsletter and unfortunately for me, I had a not-set meringue pie when company came for dinner.

It would be quite helpful if you tested recipes and appreciated greatly by us who are looking for new and different (and easy) ways to prepare food for our family.

We always test the recipes. You get a tested recipe, a picture to help you choose and prepare your goodie, and detailed instructions. That doesn’t mean that every venture will be a success—our methods, ingredients, or kitchen environment may be a little different than yours—but it certainly improves the odds immensely.
We’ll never have the most recipes but we try mighty hard to have the best.

Ask the Baker 1/21/06

My pie crusts are soggy. What can I do about it?

We’ve addressed soggy bottoms before but it such a common question, we’ll tackle it again. The problem is that the bottom of the crust absorbs moisture from the filling before the crust has time to set. Here is what you can do about it:

• To set the bottom of the crust quickly, use a higher heat and set the pie in the bottom third of the oven where it will be closer to the heating element.
• Use a dark pie pan. A dark pan absorbs heat while a light colored pan reflects heat.
• Do not add hot filling to an unbaked pan.
• I’ve never tried this but a trick that some professional bakers use is to sprinkle bread or cake crumbs on the crust before adding the filling. The crumbs absorb some of the moisture.

What’s the difference between baking soda and baking powder? Can I substitute one for the other?

No, in most recipes you cannot substitute one for the other.

Baking soda is powerful alkaline that reacts vigorously when placed in contact with an acid. In that chemical reaction, carbon dioxide gas is released creating the bubbles that makes your batter rise. In a properly designed recipe, you will always find an acid to react with the alkaline baking soda. Honey, molasses, buttermilk, fruit juices, and chocolate are commonly used acids. Cream of tartar is sometimes used as an acid. Heat accelerates the chemical reaction.

Baking powder is a mixture of both an acid and baking soda and therefore does not require an acid ingredient in the recipe. Because baking soda has both components for the chemical reaction, more baking powder is required than baking soda for the same reaction.

Ask the Baker 1/14/06

My bread is dry and crumbly. What could be causing that?

There can be a number of causes. To get a good chewy texture, you need a good gluten structure. That takes a good flour--one with a high protein content--and proper moisture and kneading to develop that protein into gluten. So my first suggestion would be to try another flour and make sure that the gluten is developed through proper kneading. (Use the window pane test.)

I’ve never understood why but if the bread rises too quickly, it is dry and crumbly. You are better off with too little yeast than too much.

Salt has a powerful affect on yeast. Too little salt will make the bread crumbly.

Finally, the internal temperature of the bread must be high enough to set the starches and the gluten. Use a thermometer to make certain that the center of the loaf has reached at least 185 degrees.

I hope that helps.

I make bread by hand and kneading is tedious. I would like to understand what kneading does. Can you tell me?

We addressed that in an earlier newsletter but understanding the development of gluten is so important to bread making that we ought to revisit the issue. Here is what we wrote:

Bread dough needs to be elastic in order to capture the gases created by the yeast, stretch as bubbles form in the dough, expand, and rise. Without that elasticity, bread would not have the open texture we enjoy nor would bread be chewy. But what creates that elasticity?

The endosperm of the wheat contains two important proteins, glutenin and gliadin. When wheat flour is mixed with water, these two proteins link with the water molecules and crosslink with each other as they are physically manipulated by kneading. It takes a certain amount of physical manipulation to bring these molecules into contact and create strong links. As the kneading continues and these molecules create stronger bonds, gluten is formed. It is gluten that gives the dough elasticity.

And for those of you who make bread with your mixer:

If you watch the dough being mixed with the bread hook in your stationary mixer, you will see changes occur in the dough as the kneading takes place. First the dough will stick to the sides of the bowl. As the bonds become stronger and the dough more elastic, it pulls away from the sides into a drier ball. The sides should become clean. Within four or five minutes at medium speed, the dough will change even more and become elastic as the gluten is completely formed. After you have watched this process a few times, you will be able to recognize the changes in the dough as the gluten forms. If you pinch a portion of the dough and stretch it, it should pull to a thin layer before it breaks. Without that elasticity, bread isn't good bread.

Ask the Baker 12/29/05

I notice that your recipes call for butter not margarine. Can I use margarine instead of butter in your recipes?

Repeatedly, we’re asked this question. The answer is “probably”. It depends on the recipe and the margarine. Some recipes just wouldn’t be the same without the buttery flavor of the real thing and some brands of margarine contain too much water.

We have not tested our products with margarine instead of butter but suspect that most will work just fine, especially the breads.

Because we prefer to use hydrogenated fats sparingly, we rarely use margarine.

Can I freeze extra bread? I would love to make extra bread when I’m in the mood and save it for busy times.

There are three ways to use bread from your freezer. We keep lots of sliced bread in the freezer. A slice or two of bread is snapped from the frozen loaf and dropped in the toaster while the remaining loaf goes back to the freezer. As long as you don't mind toasted bread for your sandwich, you can have array of breads available for breakfast or sandwiches. Besides, each kid gets to choose the bread that he or she wants.

Bread can be removed from the freezer and allowed to thaw on the counter. Use it within a day or so just like you would fresh bread.

Frozen bread can also be reheated and recharged in the oven. Defrost the bread completely on the counter then reheat it in the oven for ten minutes at the same temperature at which it was baked.

The secret for quality bread from your freezer is starting with the freshest loaves possible. If you freeze the bread as soon as it is completely cooled, it will taste as if it came from the oven when thawed.

To freeze bread—sliced or unsliced—place it in a plastic bag with the excess air pressed out. For longer storage, cover the plastic bag with aluminum foil. Since air will slowly migrate through the walls of a plastic bag, plastic alone will work for only a month or two (heavier, freezer-type bags will help). If frozen in foil or freezer wrap, bread can be stored for three or four months and still maintain top quality. Mark all bread going into your freezer with the date and the type of bread.

Place the new loaves behind the loaves already in the freezer to help rotate stocks.

By the way, never refrigerate bread. Bread will stale faster in the refrigerator than on the counter.

Love your products but I hate to throw away all these Mylar bags. Is there a way to recycle them?

Yes, you can use them over again.

Mylar bags are mostly nylon so they are (1) practically indestructible, (2) resealable with heat, and (3) an effective barrier to light, moisture, and oxygen—unlike paper or plastic. (Our Mylar bags are 400 times more effective as an oxygen barrier than plastic.) Use them to protect food or anything else from moisture, critters, or spoilage due to oxygen or light. They make the ultimate in freezer bags. Do you need long-term storage for electronic parts or keepsakes? Mylar will protect them from rust or dust.

How do you reseal them? You can fuse the top edges together with an ordinary iron set on high heat. For temporary storage to protect items such as cornmeal from turning rancid, just tape the top edges together.

Ask the Baker 12/9/05

Can I replace cocoa powder in my recipe for unsweetened baking chocolate?

Yes, you can.

Two and two-thirds ounces of unsweetened chocolate replaces 1/2 cup cocoa. Since baking chocolate has cocoa butter and cocoa does not, you may wish to reduce the vegetable oil or butter by two tablespoons.

We have a whole lesson dedicated to chocolate in our free baking lessons, Course 201. It’s a great source for more information. You can learn more about these free baking lessons here.

My chocolate chip cookies are coming out flat. I haven't changed the recipe except for the sugar. I'm now using a baker's sugar. Is that my problem? If so, should I decrease or increase the amount of sugar?

Sugar could be the problem. Too much sugar will cause spread. As the sugar in your dough heats, it melts and acts like a liquid.

With a finer grain sugar, you will get more weight in the cup but I would not anticipate that would be material.

If you like the sweetness of the cookie, rather than reduce the amount of sugar, substitute powdered sugar for half of the granulated sugar. Powdered, or granulated sugar, has cornstarch added that will reduce the spread. Cream the butter with granulated sugar only; you need the sharp sugar crystals to cut through the butter and aerate it.

We have received a number of questions about cookie problems and have not been able to answer all of them.

We recommend our “A Guide to Troubleshooting Cookies” and “A Baker’s Cookie Guide”. Both are free. The former is printable and the latter is a downloadable e-book.

Ask the Baker 12/4/05

We live in a rural area. Several times each winter the power seems to go out. When it does, how long will the food in my refrigerator or freezer last? How do I know if it is safe to eat?

The rule of thumb when the power goes out is four hours and twenty-four hours: four hours for the refrigerator and twenty-four hours for the freezer. But it is only a rule of thumb, it assumes that the appliance door is not opened (resist the temptation to check) during the outage.

If it is below freezing outside and you think the power may be out for a while, you can carry the products outdoors and set them out of the sun. Even on a cloudy day, exposure to the sun’s rays may warm your food.

Immediately, when the power comes back, check you food. If it is above 40 degrees bacteria has started to grow. If it has been above 40 degrees for over an hour or two (at the most), throw it out.

The cardinal rule is “when in doubt, throw it out”.

I love rye bread. I’ve tried to make 100% rye bread and it doesn’t work. Why?

The protein in rye flour is different than wheat and it doesn’t form gluten. Use at least 40% wheat flour. Maybe you could just add wheat gluten to rye flour--it should work but I’ve never tried it.

This time of year, we get questions about hams—“what kind of ham should I buy, what about nitrates”—and so forth.

We have an article on our web site that answers most of these questions. We thought we would direct you to this article, Selecting and Baking Your Holiday Ham.

Ask the Baker 11/25/05

I have heard conflicting things about using dry milk. Some say it is very healthy, some seem to think it has very little nutritional value. Which is it?

Frankly, I didn’t know. So I did a little research. I went the USDA website which has nutritional information on everything, and started looking. The USDA nutrient database is the best source that I know for information and is user friendly. I highly recommend it.)

Since we’re talking baking, I compared nonfat dry milk (baker’s dry milk) with 2% liquid. I compared one cup of liquid with 1/3 cup dry milk assuming that to be the amount of dry in one cup of reconstituted milk. I built the following table so you could see for yourself how the two compare. The first column is the US Recommended Daily Allowance, the second column is the liquid milk and the last is the dry milk.

Of course, the nonfat dry milk is fat free. The dry milk also has less cholesterol and more potassium, and more protein. It has more calcium, vitamin D, and folate. On the other hand, the dry milk also has more sodium, sugars, and more carbohydrates. Since the liquid milk is fortified, it has more vitamin A.

Which is healthier? You decide. They both have significant nutritional value but different values.

Ask the Baker 11/18/05

Why do they add sulfur to dry fruit and is it harmful?

This question came up as we were doing all this work with dry fruit. I turned to my bible of food storage, Putting Food By, by Hertzberg, Vaughan, and Greene. They point out that sulfur is a naturally occurring mineral essential for life and is not the least harmful in the small quantities that we ingest with dried fruit.

Sulfur is added to dry fruit to inhibit spoilage and maintain an attractive color and desirable flavor. Our experts cite studies that the vitamin content is higher with sulfured fruit than unsulfured.

Keep in mind that the amount of sulfur is miniscule, less than three-tenths of one percent in the fruits that we sell.

I have a French toast recipe that looks really good, but it calls for brioche bread. I have no idea what kind of bread that is or where to get it. Could I substitute another bread?

Brioche is a wonderful butter and egg rich dough that is used for wonderful, rich rolls and pastries. To give you an idea of how rich it is, a basic brioche recipe may call for three eggs and 1/4-pound butter for less than two cups flour.

You can use other breads in this recipe. I would look for another enriched bread with lots of dairy and eggs. Though not as rich as brioche, our sour cream dinner rolls come to mind as a reasonable choice.

When I frost my kids’ birthday cakes, I invariably get cake crumbs in the frosting. Since the crumbs look unsightly in the otherwise smooth frosting, is there any way to avoid them?

I’m not sure that you avoid them entirely but you can reduce crumbs. Here are a couple tricks that will help:

Once you place the cake on the platter, use a pastry brush to loosen and brush away crumbs. You’ll get rid of most of them.

On the sides where crumbs seem to be a bigger problem, spread a thin layer of frosting to seal them in. Let the frosting dry for a few minutes and then come back and add the rest of the frosting.

Ask the Baker 11/12/05

I am learning from personal experience that I cannot use freshly ground wheat flour to make my whole wheat bread. When the flour is still hot, it seems as I am mixing the dough that the gluten never develops, heat builds up in it, and all this moisture appears. My bread is a disaster. Can you tell me what is happening and how long the flour needs to sit before I can use it after just grinding it?

This is a really interesting question. I’ve never used hot-out-of-the-mill flour. But strange things happen at higher temperatures. I can tell you about aging flour and ideal dough temperatures.

The reason that we use warm water in our recipes is so that we have warm dough, the right environment for the yeast to grow. Ideally, your bread dough will be about 78 to 80 degrees. Use an insta-read thermometer to check it out. If you start with flour that is too hot or too cold, you will not have the right dough temperature.

Freshly milled flour is not the best for bread making. The proteins that form the gluten need time and oxygen to mature so that the resulting gluten will be strong and elastic. But we’re talking several months, not overnight. I suspect your problems are more temperature related.

Merri Ann has made bread from freshly milled flour many times. She always added gluten rather than rely on the proteins in the freshly milled flour.

Professional mills do not age their flours for months; they use chemicals such as bromates and chlorine to accelerate the process.

I have read that the wheat flour starts losing its nutritional value as it sits at room temperature. Is that so?

Yes, but it is a slow process. We’re talking months, not hours.

Nearly all foods lose nutritional value as they age. Storage factors will determine the rate of nutritional loss. Both heat and oxygen accelerate deterioration and I can’t tell you how quickly deterioration takes place in your conditions.

Incidentally, the flour that we use is very fresh. The flour that we received yesterday, November 11, was milled and packaged on October 24. We’ll use most of it within a week and our mixes are stored in Mylar, an excellent oxygen barrier.

For our personal use, we use mixes that are up to two or three years old. But we store them in a dark, cool room. My guess is that these older mixes still retain seventy percent of the nutritional value but I know that is a guess and that different components will deteriorate differently.

(Nuts and other high fat content items are exceptions. Unless they have been kept at cool temperatures in the refrigerator, we never use nuts over six months old.)

Is it my imagination or do my garlic dishes become stronger after they sit?

It’s not your imagination. If you are seasoning by taste, use less garlic than your taste buds dictate during cooking. Garlic becomes more pungent as the dish sits.

Some of my recipes call for toasted nuts. Why should I bother? How do I do it?

Toasting intensifies the flavor of most nuts. If nuts are an important part of the recipe, consider toasting them.

Spread your nuts on a baking sheet and toast them in the oven for five to ten minutes at 350 degrees. You can also toast them in a hot skillet for several minutes, stirring often, until they are warm and fragrant.

Store extra toasted nuts in the refrigerator or freezer so they will not become rancid.

Ask the Baker 11/4/05

Can I mix all purpose and pastry flours together?

Yes you can, but every flour has a purpose. Pastry flour has a low protein content to make tender pastries while bread flour has a high protein content to make chewy bread. (Protein forms gluten and the gluten strands make the bread chewy. In pastries, we want to avoid these strands.)

All purpose flour is a compromise between pastry and bread flours. By mixing pastry and all purpose, you will have a further compromise but it should be a satisfactory one for muffins, cookies, and pastries. It would not be good for bread.

It's a little scary when you go to a page on "learn how to be prepared" and it is blank. Will it be available in the future?

We apologize. It seems that most could get to this page but some couldn’t. We clicked on that link repeatedly without a problem and then—suddenly--it didn’t work. We hope that we have whatever it was fixed. Try clicking on this emergency food storage article now.

Can I substitute fresh cranberries for dried cranberries in my recipes?

Certainly but this is a significant change to the recipe altering the recipe’s hydration, pH, and flavor. It may take a bit of experimenting to perfect your recipe. And every recipe is going to be different.

You can probably tell how many fresh cranberries to use by observation. If the batter looks like it needs more, add more. Keep track of how many berries you used to so that you can repeat the process.

Fresh cranberries will add more liquid so I would cut back a little. If the batter looks dry, add more liquid.

Depending on how much acidic juice escapes from those berries, your batter will be more acidic. A more acidic batter will react more strongly with the baking powder. But I doubt that it will make much difference.

The most significant change will be taste and texture—and that is matter of personal preference. Go for it.

Can you help me find information on the long-term storage of soy beans? Are they treated differently than dried beans?

Check with the cooperative extension service in your state; they’ll be glad to help.

I think you will find that they store as dried beans do since they are related legumes. I’ve never stored soy beans; I have stored –and thrown away—lots of dried beans. They only last two or three years before they start to become hard. They’ll become so hard that they are absolutely uncookable by ordinary humans.

Ask the Baker 10/28/05

I love fresh pumpkin in my recipes and don’t care for the taste of canned pumpkin. Can I use an equal amount of fresh pumpkin puree in place of canned?

Yes, we do it all the time. Sometimes our fresh puree has a little higher water content, especially if the pumpkin was not quite mature, and we have to adjust the water content a little in the recipe. If we baked the pumpkin instead of steaming, we rarely have that problem.

Incidentally, we use winter squash and yams interchangeably with pumpkin. In most recipes, we can’t tell the difference between winter squash and pumpkin. Yam puree (usually we just mash it) is a little different but very good in most recipes calling for pumpkin.

Some years ago I was able to buy ready- made pie crusts in "cardboard" pans. I really liked them. I thought they baked better than the shiny pans. Why don't they make them anymore?

I can’t tell you about the cardboard pans; I've never used them.

The type of pie pan makes quite a difference with the crust. A shiny, light colored pan will reflect heat and make it more challenging to get a well-baked, crisp pie crust. For our pastry crusts, we use dark colored pans. For crumb and nut crusts where we want to minimize the baking, we use light shiny pans. That’s why we carry both heavy, dark-colored pie pans for pastry crusts and stainless steel pans for crumb and nut crusts.

Why is my cake too dry and what can I do about it?

Troubleshooting cakes without seeing the recipe is tricky. Let me make some suggestions.

I would try, in the order that I set forth:

1. Make certain that you are not over-baking the cake. As soon as it tests done, get it out of the oven and let it cool on a rack.
2. Add another egg. An egg ads both fat and protein to the structure.
3. Reduce the leavening. Too much leavening will make a cake dry and crumbly.

Ask the Baker 10/21//05

I never seem to use as much flour as bread recipes call for. What am I doing wrong?

I suspect that you are getting too much flour in your cup. It makes a big difference how you measure it. Flour compresses and packs easily. If you are scooping packed flour into your cup, you’ll have a lot more flour, as much as 25% more.

Many recipes call for sifted flour. Sifted flour is light and airy. So if the recipe developer uses soft and fluffy flour and you use densely packed flour, you will be adding considerably more flour. It’s one of the major reasons that recipes don’t turn out quite right.

All of our recipes call for light flour as do most other professional recipes. We don’t bother sifting it; we use a scoop or whisk to churn the flour in the bag until it is light and airy as if it were sifted. Then we spoon the flour into the cup and level it with a straightedge.

I moved from LA to Utah where the elevation is about 4,000 feet higher. What do I need to do to use my favorite bread recipes?

Probably nothing. Bread is remarkably adaptable. Your breads will rise a little faster. Some sources will tell you to reduce the amount of yeast or add a little salt. (Salt slows the growth of yeast.) I don’t think either is necessary. If you want to slow the rise in your recipe, lower the water temperature by ten degrees.

Higher altitudes tend to be dryer and flour absorbs water. To keep your flour dry in a moist climate and to keep it from becoming drier in a dry climate, we recommend that flour be stored in an air tight container, at least a heavy plastic bag with a twist tie.

Yeast is impervious to altitude. You give yeast the right environment—temperature, moisture, and acidity--and it will grow. I’ve used yeast at nearly 11,000 feet in the mountains. It works just fine as long as it’s warm enough.

Enjoy your bread

Ask the Baker 10/14//05

Please, please tell me how to make bread like you see on the TV cooking programs. It's crusty on the outside with an open crumb. I would be so grateful for this sort of recipe. I love making bread.

Nancy, you can make really great bread including the hearth breads that you are talking about. The crust is formed with steam in the oven; the open crumb is created with the proper manipulation of the yeast. The doughs are always lean, that is, they have little fat or sugar in the dough. Once you understand these principles, you can make wonderful bread.

A good starting point is our Easy Sourdough Bread. This bread is lean with an open crumb and a wonderful crust. And it is not hard to make.

By the way, we probably made this bread fifty times over six months before we published the recipe. Even when it didn’t turn out exactly right, it was wonderful.

You might also look at this focaccia recipe. Try baking it with steam just as you did with the Easy Sourdough Bread and maybe fermenting it overnight. I think you will find this wonderful too.

You’ll get better with experience but I think you will be well on your way to some wonderful baking.

Have you ever made the homemade egg noodles with all whole wheat flour or part whole wheat flour? If so, how did they turn out? I am thinking of making these with the whole wheat flour.

I’ve never made whole wheat noodles but my mother did many times. In fact the Homemade Egg Noodles Recipe on our site is basically her recipe. I think a mixture of bread flour and whole wheat flour would be best. I would start with 40% whole wheat.

If I wanted to use all whole wheat flour, I would consider mixing the flour with the water and setting it in the refrigerator overnight. The long soak tends to temper the grassy, bitter taste that whole wheat flour sometimes has.

I bought a set of springform pans--a ten-inch, nine-inch, and seven-inch pan. I don’t make that many cheesecakes and most of my recipes call for a ten-inch pan. Can you help me use my pans.

We use these pans a lot and love them. Think of springform pans as general use pans, not cheesecake pans and you’ll find that you use them a lot for desserts, cakes, and more. We just made brownies and used the ten-inch pan instead of an 8 1/2 x13-inch pan. We unsnapped the base and cut the brownies into wedges right on the base.

We love the seven-inch pan for pie recipes, especially those with crumb crusts. It almost converts a pie to a tart. It presents well and with the ring released and removed, it’s easy to get a server under a slice for a clean removal.

Ask the Baker 9/30/05

What’s your favorite apple?

I’m not sure that’s a baking question—I guess it is. But it’s apple season so I’m happy to answer it.

For an eating apple, there is no hesitation—it’s Honey Crisp. It is absolutely our favorite apple. We can’t wait for them to come on in early fall. When we lived in Minnesota, we would cruise the orchards checking on their status.

They still should be available right now. Check your local orchard, farmer’s market, or store. They are worth making some phone calls for. And when you find them, they are worth whatever they cost. Now they are an eating apple, not baking, and reportedly they won’t store particularly well—but we don’t know for sure. We’ve always eaten them too quickly.

For cooking—it’s anything tart though I’ve grown tired of Granny Smith’s. Head to your local orchard and take whatever cooking apple the manager recommends as his best.

Is moldy cheese safe?

Cheese is one of the few foods that can be salvaged if it has a bit of mold on it. Just because it looks bad, doesn't mean it is. We put a lot of cheese in the refrigerator and it regularly gets moldy. We simply cut away the moldy parts and use the rest.

Your items are great for food storage but in case of a real emergency, what should we use in place of real eggs? I assume that cooking oil could be used in place of butter if needed?

I wish I had a really good answer for you Julie. I haven’t found anything that works as well as Mother Nature’s eggs. Without the eggs, the cookies won’t be as cake-like. But in a real emergency, cookies without eggs might be very good.

We’ve baked hundreds of cookies trying to find a dry substitute for eggs. The best we have found has been some of the gums, especially xanthan gum, but even then, it’s not quite as good as the real thing.

We have cookie mixes in our own emergency storage. We’ll eat them without eggs. We may have to add just a bit more water to make the batter just right. If we don’t have power, we’ll cook them over a fire like pancakes.

And yes, oil will work fine for butter. We send quite a few bread mixes to Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of our soldiers are using squeeze bottles of margarine-like spread to get more of the butter flavor. But in an emergency, they will taste great with vegetable oil.

One final note, products with whole wheat will not keep as long as white flour products. We tell people to use whole wheat products within six months but I made some bread today with a whole wheat mix that we had for over two years. The bread was great and the yeast was still potent. (The mixes are stored at about 55 degrees.) Anadama bread with its cornmeal should not be used for long term storage either.

Ask the Baker 9/23/05

I cook for my brother who is on a reduced sodium diet. Can I cut the sodium by reducing the baking powder or soda?

Good question.

Your leavening is what makes your baking work and cannot be eliminated. Chemical leaveners, of which baking powder and baking soda are the most popular, create the carbon dioxide bubbles that raise the batter. While you can create those bubbles with a chemical reaction between acids and alkalines, the easiest way to do so is with baking soda (an alkaline that will react with an acid in the batter) or baking powder (an alkaline and acid together). While acidic ingredients are common, fruit juices and buttermilk for example, I’m having a hard time coming up with a practical substitute for baking soda. (Dutch processed cocoa and egg whites are slightly alkaline but probably not practical for our purposes.)

All is not lost. Recipe designers tend to over leaven many baked goods—a cake with too much leavening is still acceptable where not enough leavening is a failure. As a rule of thumb, recipes should contain 1/4 teaspoon baking soda or one teaspoon of baking powder for each cup of flour. If you think your favorite recipe may have too much leavening, start experimenting.

In many recipes, it may be more practical to reduce the amount of salt. Salt generally affects flavor, not performance.

These days, whipping cream seems to last a long time. I notice that it is often called ultra-pasteurized. What does that mean?

In most stores you can buy ether pasteurized or ultra-pasteurized whipping cream. Ultra-pasteurized cream has been heated to a very high temperature, usually about 280 degrees, for a very short period of time. The flash heating extends the shelf life and the cream will last a very long time.

Ultra–pasteurized cream often has a “cooked” taste that is noticeably different than pasteurized cream though a little vanilla and sugar will mask the taste. Also, ultra-pasteurized cream will not whip as well. The heat destroys some of the enzymes that help the fat globules clump together.

Not only is it more difficult to whip but it is not as stable and tends to weep.
If we know that we are going to use the cream right away, we prefer to buy pasteurized whipping cream, not ultra-pasteurized.

Ask the Baker 9/15/05

I love biscotti. What do you do to cut them without crumbling?

Ah, I love biscotti also. I’m a biscotti and talk glass of milk guy. Maybe it’s a carryover from all those graham crackers that I ate as a kid.

Use a sharp serrated knife. Don’t saw back and forth; just press down and gently draw the blade toward you. You’ll still have a broken piece or two (which belongs to the baker) but this will end most of your problem.

Be sure not to over bake your biscotti. I know that is tricky as they keep baking after they come from the oven. Over baked biscotti break more easily.

We know one baker that wraps her biscotti loaf in aluminum foil and freezes it overnight before cutting. We’ve never found it necessary to do this but you can try it.

A friend of mine gave me some white peaches. Are they okay to use in your peach pie recipes, or should the ingredients be different than a regular peach?

By all means use them. Different peach varieties, like apples, vary but we have not found a peach not to love. A good peach makes a great pie . . . or cobbler.

White peaches tend to have a lower acid content than yellow-fleshed varieties and therefore taste sweeter. If you would like, you can cut back on the sugar a bit but it won’t be necessary.

I’m having trouble substituting instant yeast in a recipe that calls for active yeast. What am I doing wrong?

You don’t say what is going wrong . . . but let me take a shot at it.

It takes less instant yeast to equal a tablespoon of active yeast, about 2 1/2 teaspoons. So you may be over-yeasting your bread. If your bread rises faster than it should and has a yeasty, beer-like odor, you probably have too much yeast in your product.

When using yeast, less is better. Too much yeast will tend to make crumbly bread and it won’t stay fresh as long. If you have too little yeast, it may take longer to rise but the longer rise will give the bread some complex flavors that are more sourdough-like and delightful. Great bread bakers are patient.

My aunt gave me some off-brand bread machine mixes that just don’t work in my machine. Is there anything I can do with them?

Sure. The bread mixes may be just fine . . . just not for your machine.
You have two choices. The easy choice is to put the machine on the dough cycle, take the dough from the machine, and bake the bread in pans in the oven. You could have some great bread and the machine will eliminate much of the work for you.

The second choice will take a little tinkering. Check out our article, “Fine Tuning Bread Machine Mixes.” Chances are the water is wrong—the wrong temperature or the wrong amount. Use a thermometer. And watch your dough ball. It should be soft and just a bit tacky. Add another spoon of flour or a dribble of water. With a little tinkering, you can usually make perfect bread.

Ask the Baker 9/9/05

As I get older, I am becoming more health conscious—both for me and my family. If I make my own bread, is that healthier than buying bread from the store?

I certainly won’t make a blanket statement—I can’t say that every homemade loaf is better for you than every commercial loaf. But I know what goes in the loaves that I bake. And I know that it isn’t loaded with preservatives to keep it soft from bakery to warehouse to store to home. And I don’t eat loaves with hydrogenated fats so that eliminates many of the loaves on the shelf.

You can make healthier bread than most of what you buy in the store. While it makes good sense to bake your own bread, I recognize that sometimes that just isn’t possible. So when you do buy bread form the store, my advice is to read the labels. Remember that labels list ingredients in order of amount with the ingredient weighing the most listed first. Look for ingredients that are healthy for you like whole grains and dairy products. Avoid chemical preservatives and hydrogenated fat.

Since the local bake shop does not have to add preservatives to make his or her bread last for days, you will often find healthier bread than in the chain stores.

Incidentally, our mixes have homemade ingredients, which is one reason that they taste homemade. You won’t find any preservatives and you won’t find any hydrogenated fat. The only item that you will find that does not look homemade is the dough conditioner and it is mostly made with flour, sugar, and soy.

Is Splenda safe?

That depends on who you listen to. The FDA says that it is safe; there are individuals who disagree.

Our Sunrise series of bread mixes are made with Splenda. Before we developed these products, we did our homework and were convinced that sucralose—Splenda is a brand name for sucralose—was safe. That doesn’t’ mean that we’re right but we think we are. You can read more here and make up your own mind.

Ask the Baker 9/2/05

I’ve never used dough conditioner in my bread and it comes out just fine. My sister-in-law says that I should add dough conditioner. What will it do for my bread and will it really make it better?

In most instances, a good dough conditioner will make a difference. In some cases, it will make a good bread great. What you should see is a lighter bread with a better crumb or texture.

Yeast works best in a slightly acidic dough and a good dough conditioner will provide that. (You might have seen some old heritage recipes that called for a tablespoon of lemon juice. That’s what they were doing—making a more acidic dough.)

A dough conditioner makes the dough more extensible, that is it makes the gluten better able to stretch. I have no idea how it does that.

You can purchase a good dough conditioner on our site.

We eat a lot of cornbread and have some leftover from time to time. It’s not nearly as good the next day. Is there some way that I can keep it fresh? Can I keep it for corn stuffing for the upcoming holidays?

We don’t think that cornbread is nearly as good the next day either. If you make it with honey or brown sugar which is hygroscopic, it doesn’t dry out as quickly and that helps a little. For corn stuffing you can keep it for three days.

Saving your leftover cornbread for stuffing is a great idea. Cornbread will keep in your freezer for six weeks, maybe a li