What's the point of sifting flour?
What's the point of sifting flour?
Originally, the point of sifting flour used to be to remove lumps and the occasional insect, although modern flour is generally free of those concerns. If you don't buy pre-sifted flour, sifting can still be a good idea for a number of reasons.
First, it loosens up flour that has been sitting around in storage for a long time, aerating it and helping your baked goods to have a lighter texture. It's also a good idea to sift flour if you are combining it with other ingredients, such as salt, baking powder or soda, or cocoa powder, to give the mixture a homogeneous texture.
Flour can be sifted either with an old-fashioned sifter, or by shaking flour through a sieve. Dry ingredients can also be whisked together with a wire whisk in a pinch, which also helps lighten up the flour.
Nevertheless, some people think that sifting flour is a pain, and skip it altogether, claiming they don't notice the difference. Do you?
Recipe: Sour Cream Bundt Cake (VeganYumYum)
Recipe: Banana Hazelnut Upside-Down Cake (Hogwash)
M.F.K. Fisher (1908-1992) was an inspired food writer born in Michigan, schooled in California, and enlightened about life culinary and otherwise as a young bride in Dijon, France.
Her more than 20 beautifully written books include How to Cook a Wolf (1942) and a compilation called The Art of Eating (1954).
Fisher's essays on eating are philosophical, often autobiographical literary works that transcend their subject matter and utilize food as metaphor. The late John Updike called Fisher "a poet of the appetites."
Some recipes call for just egg whites or just egg yolks. How do you separate them? You could use an egg separator, but it's really not too tricky to just use the shells.
Set yourself up with two bowls -- one for the whites, and one for the yolks.
Carefully crack the egg on the edge of your bowl. Holding it over the bowl you intend to use for the whites, turn it vertically while you separate the halves, so that the yolk sits in one side of the shell. Some of the whites will spill over and into the bowl.
Gently pour the yolk back and forth between the halves, keeping the shells tilted so that the rest of the white can drip over and into the bowl. Once most of it is gone, dump the yolk into the other bowl, discard the shells and repeat. It takes a little getting used to, but a few eggs into your angel food cake, and you'll be a master.
Grand Marnier is a French orange-based liqueur that is one of the world's most famous after-dinner drinks and the signature ingredient in Escoffier's Grand Marnier soufflé and Grand Marnier-flamed crêpes suzette, landmark clichés of French cuisine.
Grand Marnier was born in 1827 when a cognac connoisseur named Lapostolle got the idea to mix it with orange, a rare and prized ingredient at the time. His friend the hotelier César Ritz named the liqueur and helped make it famous. Now, its signature bottle, tied with a red ribbon with its name spelled out in Gothic lettering, is a familiar site on bar shelves the world over (the company claims that a bottle of Grand Marnier is sold every two seconds somewhere on the planet).
The company is still run by the sixth generation of the Marnier-Lapostolle family.
(Image courtesy of Wikipedia, under the Creative Commons Share-Alike license.)
Crème anglaise is a French term for the pourable English custard sauce that is used to dress up cake, fruit, bread pudding and other desserts.
The main ingredient in the famous dessert floating island, crème anglaise can be used as a basis for other desserts such as ice creams and crème brûlée.
Made from egg yolks, sugar, milk (or cream) and vanilla, crème anglaise is cooked on the stove rather than baked like solid custards. It very rich and can be served hot or cold.
Once a prize kept under lock and key in wealthy households, sugar is now ubiquitous and comes in many forms. Most commercial sugar is made from cane or beet root. Here's a look at the most common types of sugar used in the kitchen.
Granulated white sugar: White sugar is highly refined and made from sugarcane or beets. This all-purpose refined white sugar has small but fairly coarse crystals and is used to sprinkle on food, sweeten beverages, or add to dishes during cooking. Golden granulated sugar is a brown sugar made from sugar cane molasses that is similar but has a light brown color.
Castor (caster) or superfine sugar: This refined white sugar has fine crystals that dissolve more quickly than regular granulated sugar, making it a good choice for baking meringues. Golden castor sugar is made from unrefined cane sugar.
Brown sugar: Brown sugar is nothing more than white sugar that has been mixed with molasses to color it and give it a moist texture. Light brown sugar has less molasses than dark brown sugar. Brown sugar should not be confused with raw sugar, which has a similar color and taste but is actually the residue from processed sugarcane.
Turbinado sugar: A sugar cane extract that is made by steaming unrefined raw sugar. It has large crystals and a slight molasses flavor. It's a shade paler than brown sugar and can be substituted for brown sugar in recipes. We like to use turbinado sugar for sprinkling on top of muffins, cookies and scones. It holds its texture well and, when cooked, has a nice sweet crunch.
Demerara Sugar: True Demerara sugar is raw or partly refined sugar with large crystals, but some impostors are nothing more than white sugar stained with molasses.
Muscovado Sugar: This raw cane sugar comes in light and dark varieties and is used to make cakes and desserts.
Powdered, icing or confectioner's sugar: This sugar is made by reducing granulated sugar to a powder and mixing it with starch to prevent it from lumping up. It's used to decorate cakes and can also be used in making sweet dishes and baked goods.
what you should know
Unsalted butter is always equally unsalted, but salted butter is never quite salted the same.
The NaCl uncertainty is the main reason we prefer to use unsalted butter when we cook. Often that salt can subdue the sweet flavor of butter. (Unsalted butter is often labeled as "sweet butter.")
salt conversion In most recipes, the little extra salt will go unnoticed. Still, as a general rule if a recipe calls for unsalted butter but all you've got is salted butter, cut 1/4 teaspoon of salt per stick of butter (1/2 cup) you use.
stick it up Salt acts as a preservative for butter. Tightly wrapped in foil and stored in the fridge, salted butter can last for five months, while unsalted butter lasts about three before going stale. (Spot stale butter by slicing into the stick; the outside will be darker than the inside.) Then again, many people don't store butter in the fridge to begin with.
cooking with butter Sometimes, when you want a nuttier flavor, you'll want to let the butter's foam subside. But butter has a low smoke point, so be careful using it as your cooking fat. It'll burn easily. Clarified butter, or ghee, has a higher smoke point (and also makes a tasty dipping sauce for crab, lobster and anything else).
roux-dimentary Butter forms the foundation for countless classic sauces and thickeners, including béchamel, beurre manié and roux.
what you need
Have you ever wanted to make fresh butter at home? This traditional butter churn is based on the famous Dazey churn from the early 20th century.
You can also make a small batch of butter by putting cream in a jar and shaking it for a long, long time until you've shaken it solid.
The water-cooled crock owners we know swear by the constant supply of creamy, spreadable butter they keep on their tables.
Other butter lovers who shun the refrigerator prefer the classic rectangular butter dish.
what you do
Sage and butter are absolutely delicious together. How delicious? Try this rich and pillowy tortellini with sage brown butter and parmesan to find out.
Steamy Kitchen likes to top her slow butter- braised asparagus with parmesan and sea salt. With that savory finale, you definitely don't need salted butter.
Drizzling roasted sweet potatoes with cilantro-lime butter gives them a burst of tart richness.
Salted butter might interfere with the complex sugar-spice interaction in these orange-scented popovers with cinnamon-orange honey.
These better-for-you whole-grain flapjacks from hogwash are made with quinoa, millet and flaxseed. After using butter to grease the pan, you can afford to use a little extra on the cakes themselves.
Coconut & Lime's worked out one of the fastest and tastiest cinnamon bun recipes out there.
