The Essential Guide To Baking

Taste difference will signal a need for more or less flavoring or spice. Texture difference

can mean either baking time or mixing procedure.

The most important thing to remember about baking anything, is that a recipe should only be

used as a guide. Make your cookies the way you like.

Use the same measuring cups and spoons to measure ingredients. Measuring cups and spoons

will sometime differ slightly in the amount they hold. Measuring cups with smooth lips are for

measuring dry ingredients. Measuring cups with a pouring spout are for measuring liquids.

Baking cookies:

Whether making your cookies from scratch or from a mix, correct baking is essential.

Proper preparation before baking and knowing the properties of your oven will greatly increase

the chances of baking wonderful cookies. Your baking process should flow from the makeup

process and become a part of it. Cookies should be baking, others cooling while you are filling

pans with raw dough.

Have baking pads or mitts ready for handling hot pans.

Have cooling racks ready and a convenient place to put them.

Acquire a timer that signals with a ring and use it to time all your baking.

Turn on your oven about twenty minutes before using. The temperature will be more accurate

when you start baking.

Set your oven at 350 degrees. When the heat shuts off, check the oven's temperature with an

oven thermometer.

Place the thermometer at different points (front and back) and at different levels (bottom

middle, top shelf). The results will let you see how to best bake cookies in your unique oven.

Use cookie sheets with low sides. Heat will circulate around them evenly and give you a better

bake. Also make sure that there is at least 1 to 2 inches of space around the pan. This will

let the oven heat evenly. Make sure that all the cookies on each baking sheet is about the same

size.

When your recipe reads −− bake for ten minutes; set your timer for eight minutes and check

your cookies. Each oven is different. A good baking practice is to check on baking progress.

Use a spatula and gently lift a cookie to check the bottom. Cookies continue to bake on the

hot sheet after they are removed from the oven. Take cookies out a little early rather than

when they are completely done. Establish a minimum and maximum baking time for each type of

cookie.

Cookies baking too fast on the bottom is usually caused by excessive bottom heat in the oven.

Try putting one shelf at the lowest position and cover the shelf with a sheet of aluminum foil

or an empty baking sheet. Put the cookie sheet on a shelf half way up in the oven. This will

cause the heat to flow more evenly around the cookies and not over bake their bottoms. Use

double pans to bake on.

Baking Cookies