helpful tips
When I am feeling lazy I will avoid steps in a recipe's instruction that I feel are unimportant and just extra work for me to do, but sometimes these steps are the most important to the perfect dessert. Here are some helpful tips when baking.
1. Always cream the butter and sugar. One day before work I wanted to bake some cookies. I was in a rush to I threw all the ingredients in a bowl and began to mix them together thinking that this would be the fastest and most successful way to make some cookies. However by doing so the butter stayed in little lumps and it was not easy to mix the ingredients all together because the other wet ingredients kind of took over. Make sure to always cream the butter and sugar first before adding anything else to ensure a perfectly smooth batch of dough.
2. Parchment paper is a bakers best friend. When you are constantly baking, parchment paper is your best friend because that is one less pan you have to clean up. Layer your cookie sheet with a piece of parchment paper. But don't just use this once. You can flip it over and use the other side of the parchment paper and bake some more! You can keep reusing the parchment paper until you feel that you cannot use it anymore.
3. Parchment paper, not wax paper! I have made this mistake before. It's a common mistake for beginning bakers. It sounds silly but parchment paper and wax paper look the same when you're in a rush. Wax paper will melt in your oven and burn while parchment paper is just plain useful. Make sure you read what you're using before you use it!
4. Always melt chocolate in a double broiler. Chocolate does not melt properly in the microwave. Use a double broiler for best results. A double broiler is a pot with about an inch of boiling water and another pot over it. I do not personally own a double broiler so i use a small pot to boil the water and an oven-safe bowl on top to put the chocolate in to melt it. Butter can be melted like this also, pretty much anything can. But the easiest way to melt butter is indeed in the microwave.
2. Parchment paper is a bakers best friend. When you are constantly baking, parchment paper is your best friend because that is one less pan you have to clean up. Layer your cookie sheet with a piece of parchment paper. But don't just use this once. You can flip it over and use the other side of the parchment paper and bake some more! You can keep reusing the parchment paper until you feel that you cannot use it anymore.
3. Parchment paper, not wax paper! I have made this mistake before. It's a common mistake for beginning bakers. It sounds silly but parchment paper and wax paper look the same when you're in a rush. Wax paper will melt in your oven and burn while parchment paper is just plain useful. Make sure you read what you're using before you use it!
4. Always melt chocolate in a double broiler. Chocolate does not melt properly in the microwave. Use a double broiler for best results. A double broiler is a pot with about an inch of boiling water and another pot over it. I do not personally own a double broiler so i use a small pot to boil the water and an oven-safe bowl on top to put the chocolate in to melt it. Butter can be melted like this also, pretty much anything can. But the easiest way to melt butter is indeed in the microwave.