The Baking Answer Book (12 page)

Citrus reamer
. Made of plastic or wood, this implement quickly and efficiently extracts juice from a lemon, lime, or orange.

Fine mesh strainer
. Essential for rinsing fruit, straining sauces, and sifting dry ingredients. Choose a fine gauge
or double-mesh strainer with a handle and sturdy feet for stability.

Glass bowls
. A set of glass nesting bowls will help you to organize your ingredients as you get ready to bake. These are also essential if you plan on melting chocolate or butter in the microwave.

Ice cream scoop
. A spring-loaded scoop that holds a generous tablespoon of cookie dough will let you portion out uniform and beautifully shaped cookies. It is a joy to have if you bake a lot of drop cookies.

Pastry bag and tips
. To start off, buy a canvas pastry bag with a small set of tips (star, leaf, basket weave, plain or writing) as well as a coupler so the tips can be interchanged without emptying the bag. If you enjoy using several colors of icing, it’s more practical to buy a box of disposable plastic pastry bags instead of washing the bag each time you want to switch colors.

Pastry brush
. Indispensable soft-bristled brushes will help you grease pans, brush excess flour from rolled pastry and cookie dough, cover pies and pastries with glaze or egg wash, and so much more. I don’t recommend silicone brushes for baking, because their bristles are too thick and rough for delicate doughs. Pastry brushes can retain flavors and odors, so keep a separate set for brushing barbecue sauce on your chicken.

Pastry cutter
. The fluted edges of this wheel will give
your lattice pie top its attractive finished look.

Stainless steel bowls
. A set of nesting bowls will come in handy for mixing and organizing. Stainless steel bowls can also be used to gently heat delicate ingredients like chocolate and eggs over a pan of simmering water in lieu of a double-boiler.

Whisk
. A 10-inch balloon whisk will help you add volume to cream or egg whites. A flat-style whisk is better for whisking a sauce in a pan (such as crème anglaise) so that it doesn’t stick and clump as it heats. Either one will work to blend dry ingredients.

Wire racks
. Have at least two of these, for cooling cakes, cookies, muffins, and many other items as they come out of the oven. Look for sturdy racks with wires set close enough to each other so that small items won’t slip through and delicate ones will be adequately supported when still soft.

CHAPTER 3
What Happens When We Bake

Science for Bakers

For many bakers, the transformation of a liquid cake batter into a solid cake is magical and mysterious. This attitude of wonderment is fine when the result is a cake with an even, tender crumb and a beautifully browned crust. But when your cake is as heavy as a brick or riddled with large tunnels and bubbles, you might lose faith in the magical properties of butter, eggs, and flour.

A little bit of knowledge about how ingredients interact will take some of the mystery out of baking, giving you more control over the outcome of your baked goods and helping you bake with confidence.

HOW BAKED GOODS RISE

Baked goods rise when air bubbles incorporated into them expand in the heat of the oven. There are several different ways of getting those bubbles to form. Sometimes a single technique or leavener is used; sometimes they are used in combination. Here is a rundown of the five different ways rising occurs.

1. Steam.
Steam can be a powerful leavener, working in concert with other leaveners but sometimes raising baked goods on its own. Puff pastry is an example of the power of steam in the absence of any other means of raising dough. Puff pastry is made by wrapping a sheet of dough around a large slab of chilled butter, then rolling and folding it until it consists of many hundreds of layers of solid butter and pastry. When the pastry is placed in a very hot oven, the water contained in the butter turns to steam, expanding and pushing the layers of dough away from each other and upward. An oven temperature of at least 425°F (220°C), is necessary to create the greatest amount of steam quickly, before the pastry hardens into its characteristic crisp flakes and sets.