What's the point of letting a casserole rest before cutting into it?
What's the point of letting a casserole rest before cutting into it?
If you spend time baking a casserole, be it macaroni and cheese, lasagna, meatloaf or anything else, be sure to let it rest for a few minutes before cutting into it. (Don't worry that it will get cold; it's been sizzling away in a hot oven for quite some time, and there is plenty of heat circulating in the pan to keep it warm.)
Letting a casserole rest for 10 minutes or so means that the proteins and starches will have time to set, making for a more stable mixture before you cut it into portions. If the casserole is too hot, it will be harder to manage, fall apart more easily, and won't taste as good.
Bundt cake gets its name from the ring-shaped pan in which it is baked.
The Bundt pan was produced in 1950 by Nordic Ware founder H. David Dalquist at the request of the Minneapolis Hadassah Society. The society's members were looking for a modern pan suitable for making a popular German/Austrian coffeecake called bundkuchen. Traditional pans were either too-fragile ceramic or too-heavy cast iron. Dalquist made an aluminum version, adding a "t" at the end of the German word
"bund" and trademarking it.
When a Bundt cake won second place in a Pillsbury-sponsored baking contest in 1966, a Bundt pan craze ensued. Since then, more than 50 million pans have been sold by the Nordic Ware company.
Recipe: Sour Cream Banana Bundt Cake (VeganYumYum)
Recipe: Oat Bran Bundt Cake With Mixed Berry Streusel (hogwash)
In French, the word gratin originally referred to the tasty crust left behind in a pan after baking, which was scraped off and eaten as a bonus for the chef.
Now, cooking something au gratin can mean preparing a dish that is cooked from scratch in the oven, like a gratin dauphinois made with potatoes and cream; or combining several cooked ingredients in casserole form, like a baked pasta dish.
A gratin is usually topped with grated sharp cheese and/or breadcrumbs. Adding just cream will also produce a lightly browned crust if baked in high heat. Technically, macaroni and cheese is a gratin, in that a protective crust forms while it bakes, giving it a lightly browned and crunchy topcoat, while keeping the rest of the dish moist.
Gratins are served straight from the dish; hence the term gratin dish, which refers to an (often oval-shaped) oven-safe serving pan. That old-fashioned favorite, onion soup gratinée, is made by pouring soup into oven-safe tureens, topping them with toasted bread and grated cheese, and baking au gratin until gooey.
In French, le gratin is also an idiomatic expression meaning "the upper crust" of society.
Recipe: Asparagus-Fontina Gratin
Recipe: Portobello Gratin
Recipe: Pak-Choi Gratin (Experimentation of Taste)
Recipe: Cardoon Gratin (Cooking with Amy)
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.
A crumble is a fruit-based dessert with a crumbly topping called a streusel that's a mixture of flour, butter and sugar -- plus optional flavorings like cinnamon, vanilla extract, lemon zest or nuts -- that is baked until crisp. The flour, butter and sugar are combined until they form crumbs; some people like to add oats or nuts to the mixture.
Apple crumble is traditional, but you can make a crumble out of rhubarb, blackberries, plums or just about any fruit. A crumble is delicious warm or cold, plain or accompanied by a scoop of vanilla ice cream, heavy cream or custard.
The crumble is said to have been invented in Britain during World War II, when food rationing made pie crusts an impossibility. Americans sometimes call the crumble a crisp.
Clafoutis is a baked cherry dessert that originated in the Limousin region of France.
Start by placing whole cherries in a shallow buttered dish. Top the cherries with a thick pancake-like batter, then bake the dish and serve it warm with a dusting of powdered sugar. (Don't make extra; clafoutis becomes simultaneously soggy and rubbery when refrigerated.)
Clafoutis is traditionally made with unpitted cherries—purists believe the pits impart an extra almond-ish flavor—though modern cooks often pit the fruit before cooking. Nontraditional fruits such as apples, pears, clementines or berries also work.
A Bûche de Noël is a traditional French Christmas dessert shaped after a yule log for which it is named.
Made from a thin rectangle of Génoise sponge cake that is frosted with a flavored buttercream filling, rolled, and frosted again and decorated to more or less look like a log ready to be tossed on the proverbial fire, the Bûche de Noël can be made in a multitude of variations, including chocolate, chestnut, coconut, exotic fruit, or even truffles.
Legend has it that the Bûche de Noël was created as a reaction to Napoleon I, who ordered Parisians to keep their drafty chimneys closed during the illness-prone winter, forcing them to come up with a replacement for the dearly held traditions of the hearth.
Today during the Christmas season, Paris pastry shops compete to create the chicest and most unusual bûches, often hiring designers like Karl Lagerfeld to create bûches with exotic ingredients and high-concept designs. And French cooking magazines are full of variations to keep the annual tradition from getting boring.
Chiffon pie is a light, airy pie made with gelatin and beaten egg whites. It usually has a ginger-based crust and is sometimes covered in a layer of whipped cream, to add to its light-as-chiffon reputation. Lemon chiffon pie is a famous example, but you can make a chiffon pie with strawberries, coffee, pumpkin, mango or other flavors.
Early chiffon pies were apparently called Sissy Pies (as well as Fairy Tarts, Fluff, Sponge and Souffle pies) in the early 20th century, when they were made by mixing pudding with egg whites and baking in the oven. Now, 21st century chiffon pies use gelatin to set the filling.
Chiffon cake is a light, airy cake made with oil (rather than butter) and beaten egg whites.
What's the point of bringing a casserole to room temperature before cooking?
What's the point of bringing a casserole to room temperature before cooking?
When baking a casserole that you've pre-assembled and stored in the refrigerator, remember to bring it to room temperature (usually about 30 minutes) before subjecting it to the heat of the oven.
If you stick a cold casserole in a hot oven, you risk drying out the top of the casserole before you've given the inside time to cook or heat through.
If you want your casserole to cook evenly, do yourself a favor and let it come to room temperature first. If for some reason you can't, then as a last resort, reduce the heat to allow it to cook more slowly without drying out.
Yeast, that magical microscopic fast-multiplying fungus that makes bread dough rise and beer and Champagne effervescent, comes in various fresh and dry forms. When mixed with flour and liquid at a warm temperature to make dough, yeast ferments, converting sugar and starch into ethanol and carbon dioxide gases that allow the bread to rise.
Fresh yeast: Fresh yeast is a type of baker's yeast that comes in squares. It is light beige and has a yeasty fresh smell (if the odor is too strong or the color is too dark, it is past its prime). It must be refrigerated. When you're ready to use it, fresh yeast is mixed with lukewarm water and sugar until it froths up from fermentation and can be mixed in with other ingredients. Once dough rises once, it is punched down and allowed to rise again before baking.
Active dry yeast: Dehydrated baker's yeast keeps longer than fresh yeast. Regular dry yeast is activated by adding lukewarm water and a bit of sugar and left to foam up before mixing with other ingredients and allowed to rise twice before baking. Instant, fast-acting or quick-rising yeast can be mixed in with other ingredients and only needs to rise once before baking.
Brewer's yeast: Not suitable for baking, brewer's yeast is a non-leavening yeast used to make beer and as a dietary supplement.
Nutritional yeast: This deactivated yeast is grown on mineral-enriched molasses, then pasteurized to kill the yeast; unlike live or brewer's yeast, it tastes good and is also an excellent source of protein, B vitamins and minerals that help stabilize blood sugar.
Yeast starter: The yeast starter was the leavening method for bread before commercial yeast was developed in the 19th century. It is a mixture of yeast, flour, sugar and water that is fermented and kept refrigerated until needed, then brought to room temperature and used to make a fresh batch of dough by refreshing it with water and flour.
Why is it called a pound cake?
Why is it called a pound cake?
A pound cake is a simple loaf cake made from equal parts flour, butter, sugar and eggs. It gets its name from the original recipe, which first appeared in English and American cookbooks in the 18th century, and which called for a pound of each of the principal ingredients.
Pound cake is often flavored with vanilla or lemon; the Brits sometimes add a bit of booze or dried fruit; the French sometimes add a swirl of chocolate. Speaking of the French, they call their version of a pound cake a quatre quarts, meaning four quarters, another way of explaining that the four main ingredients are measured in equal parts.
Recipe: Orange Pound Cake (Barbara Kafka Dessert Anthology)
Recipe: Pound Cake (Cookthink)
Russet or Idaho potatoes have a high starch and low moisture content, meaning they bake well, are fluffy when mashed and make excellent French fries. Because they tend to fall apart when cooked, use a waxy variety when making a potato salad or a gratin.
Potato starch or potato flour, made by grinding cooked, dried potatoes, is a gluten-free thickening agent. Be careful not to boil a preparation once it has been thickened with potato starch. Potato starch is also an approved ingredient for Jewish Passover preparations, because it is not grain-based like cornstarch.
Store potatoes in a cool, dark place. Refrigeration will turn their starch to unwanted sugar, making them grow unpleasantly dark when cooked.
