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)
Shortcake is a thick, sweetened biscuit with a crumbly scone-like texture that is used to make a classic American dessert.
Strawberry shortcake was born in the 1840s in the U.S. and was an excuse for 19th-century ladies to throw a party. The dessert consists of making a biscuit from flour, baking powder, sugar, butter or shortening (which some say is the "short" in "shortcake"), milk and occasionally eggs. The cooked biscuit is split down the middle and filled with sweetened whipped cream and sliced strawberries or other fruits, such as apples and rhubarb, peaches or blueberries. The sliced or cut-up fruit is usually tossed with sugar and left to macerate for awhile before using, so that it becomes extra sweet and creates a light syrup.
Because strawberry shortcake is such a popular dessert, you can find yellow individual sponge cakes or corn muffins with wells for fruit and cream in the supermarket that are marketed as ready-made shortcakes. Shortcake-loving southerners have been known to make shortcake with broken up pieces of pie dough.
Which apples are best for cooking and baking?
Which apples are best for cooking and baking?
There are no firm rules about which of the world's thousands of apple varieties are most appropriate for cooked sweet and savory dishes.
But for baking, Honeycrisp, Cortland, Golden Delicious, Gala, Newtown Pippin and Granny Smith work well because they hold their shape in pies and tarts without turning to applesauce. Some people favor naturally sweeter apples like Golden Delicious and Gala when baking desserts; Newton Pippin and Granny Smith add a tart note to savory dishes like stuffings.
To make apple sauce, Gravenstein apples have an ideal sweet-tart balance; Jonathan apples have a tender texture and moderately tart flavor.
