Golden Rule:
ROOM TEMPERATURE
Half of the time when a recipe says to make sure your ingredients are at room temp we skip over that part because could it really be that big of a deal? Yes ma'am, it is a big deal.
Most recipes will have you bring eggs or milk to room temp because they are going to be combined with a fat such as butter, coconut oil, etc. If you add that fat to a cold liquid product you will wind up with chunks of fat floating in your lovely batter. Not a pretty sight and this is bad when it comes to the baking as your fats will not be evenly dispersed as they would be in liquid form.
Tips:
-
Place your cold eggs in a cup of lukewarm water while you prepare other ingredients.
-
Heat up your milk in the microwave for about 10 seconds (no more or it may curdle).
Sorbet
CHECKER
We've all made batches of sorbet that are either hard as a rock or so soft they're un-scoopable. For this trick all you need is a fresh egg to turn out perfect sorbet every time!
What to do:
-
Place slightly sweetened sorbet in a relatively tall container (tall enough for the egg to float in). Start this process with less syrup in the mix than you think you need.
-
Place the *clean* egg into the mixture.
-
If your sorbet is sweet enough to freeze to the correct consistency the egg will float enough to show about a quarter-sized amount of the top of the egg on the surface of your sorbet.
-
If you don’t see enough of the egg, add more simple syrup.
Avoid
BERRY SINKAGE
When making a cake laced with berries or fruity scones the last thing we want is a glob of berries cooked into the bottom of our gorgeous confections, right? It turns out flour is the key to this little issue.
Here's the trick:
-
Cut up your berry/fruit pieces as you please.
-
Toss them in flour to get a good little coating on them.
-
Fold into your mixture and go about your baking without a worry of sinkage!