Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Kitchen Essentials Part 3 : Basic Baking Measuring

Ever wonder why your cake didn't turn out as how it looks in the book? Why is your cookie too hard? Taking out from the oven a sinking cake?

It can be as simple as, not measuring your ingredients properly? Not measuring or baking time correctly! Yes, it can be so many other possibilities, but this can be one of the simplest answer to your question!

Dry ingredients (ie: flour, almond meal) and also other non-liquid (ie: cream cheese, mascarpone) can be measured using an electronic scale, preferably one with 0.00 decimals, and you can convert from ounce to grams, vice versa. 

Another way, dry ingredients can be measures is by using measuring cups. Simply, loosen up your flour a little in your container with a whisk, do not whisk it too much, your flour might be too light. Dip your measuring cup in, your flour will be over the rim, use your finger or at the back of a butter knife, and swap across removing excess.
Though using the scale will be more accurate, as some might have overpacked the measuring cup and so on.

You might think, what about measuring baking powder, salt, bicarbonate soda...how do we measure that? As this dry ingredients are often really small in amount, using a measuring spoon would do the job. It is important to measure this properly as it acts as a raising agent (baking powder/bicarbonate soda) and might change the taste (salt).

Wet ingredients (liquid) should be measured using only a wet measuring cup/jug. Put your cup on the table, pour your liquid, measure by bringing yourself to see eye level to the liquid. Try not to hold your cup and measure the liquid at the same time. *Though, sometimes I am guilty of doing so.*

Brown sugar, there's a proper way to measure it. Do you notice that recipes often calls for 'packed' brown sugar? Wondering how? Easy. Spoon brown sugar into your measuring cup, press it lightly to cover air pockets, when you flip it over into a bowl, it should lightly holds its shape.

That's all for now. Hope this helps! Remember, it is important to measure your ingredients correctly with the right method and tools!

Happy measuring! :)

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