Baking Tips and Baking Hints

Add a pinch of baking soda to your frosting and the frosting

 will stay moist and prevent cracking.

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• Do you bake pies? Especially Meringue? To stop the meringue from shrinking away from the sides of the pies, be sure that when you put the meringue on top, you make sure it touches the pastry all around the edge. This way, it will bake onto the pastry and will not shrink!

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Baking Cakes? Do you have a recipe for cake flour, but you only have all purpose flour on hand? Take your all purpose flour and sift the flour about 5 times! There, now you have cake flour!

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• Baking with fruits and nuts: To stop them from sinking to the bottom of the cake, etc., be sure to mix in a little flour with them and bake in an oven for a little time. Now, you can add to the cake mix.

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If you are making cookies, you can cut down on the amount of sugar the recipe calls for. Do this when you are adding raisins, dates, chocolate chips, mom's, etc.

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When making cookies, always use unsalted butter, never margarine. The unsalted butter gives the cookies a lighter texture.

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• When making pastry of cakes, it is best to begin by weighing out the ingredients, sifting the flour, pounding and sifting the sugar and spice, washing the butter, and preparing the fruit.

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• Sugar can be powdered by pounding it in a large mortar, or by rolling it on a paste-board with a rolling pin. It should be made very fine and always sifted.

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• All sorts of spice should be pounded in a mortar except for nutmeg, which it is better to grate. If spice is wanted in large quantities, it may be ground in a mill.

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• The butter should always be fresh and very good. Wash it in cold water before you use it, and then make it up with your hands into hard lumps, squeezing the water well out. If the butter and sugar are to be stirred together, always do that before the eggs are beaten, as, (unless they are kept too warm) the butter and sugar will not be injured by standing awhile.

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• For stirring them, nothing is so convenient as a round hickory stick about a foot and a half long, and somewhat flattened at one end.

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• The eggs should not be beaten till after all the other ingredients are ready, as they will fall very soon. If the whites and yolk are to be beaten separately, do the whites first, as they will stand longer.

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• Eggs should be beaten in a broad shallow pan, spreading wide at the top. Butter and sugar should be stirred in a deep pan with straight sides. Break every egg by itself, in a saucer, before you put it into the pan, that in case there should be any bad ones, they may not spoil the others. Eggs are beaten, most expeditiously with rods. A small quantity of white of egg may be beaten with a knife, or a three pronged fork. *

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• *These Baking Tips are from an 1828 cookbook entitled "seventy-five Receipts, For Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats" Written "by a Lady from Philadelphia" Published in Boston 1828 by Munroe and Francis.
  

Six Easy Steps to a Perfect Pie

1. The ingredients for the perfect pie crust: 1 teaspoon salt, 2 cups of flour, 1 cup shortening or lard, and a few tablespoons very cold water. (Very Cold Water is a must)

• 2. Cut lard into the flour and salt mixture with a fork or pastry blender until crumbs are coarse and granular.
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• 3. Add 3 to 6 tablespoons cold water, a little at a time. Mix quickly and evenly through the flour until the dough just holds in a ball.
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• 4. Roll half the dough to about 1/8 inch thickness. Lift edge of pastry cloth and roll crust onto rolling pin. Line pie pan, allowing 1/2 inch crust to extend over edge
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• 5. Add filling. Roll out top crust, making several gashes to allow escape of steam. Place over filling. Allow top crust to overlap lower crust. Fold top crust under the lower and crimp edges.
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• 6. Bake at 425 degrees for 35 minutes. For the best pies, use fresh fruits if possible. for about 10 minutes, then turn the temp down. This will help prevent a soggy crust.
  

When making a custard type pie, put the pie in a hot oven

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