Vegan Baking Tips
Have vegan baking tips we should know about? Let us know and we'll share them with the world!
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Vegan Baking Tips
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 Chopping chocolate with a serrated knife such as a bread knife is considerably easier than chopping with a sharp chef or santoku knife. Why? The serrated knife edge creates cracks in the chocolate that enables separation whereas the sharp knife cuts through which requires considerably more effort.
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Vegan Baking Tips
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When making chocolate chip cookies and other baked items containing chocolate, always reach for chocolate chips. They're specifically designed to melt without losing shape and mixing with your dough. This is because chocolate chips contain less cocoa butter. Conversely, when using melted chocolate for confections, avoid chocolate chips for better meltability and smoother consistency.
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Vegan Baking Tips
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Be careful when adding lemon juice or other acidic ingredients to muffins, breads or cakes. Acidic ingredients inhibit gluten formation when used in larger quantities and can turn these eats into a gloppy unleavened mess. For lemon flavors, lemon extract or zest is preferred.
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Vegan Baking Tips
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To help frosting stick to your cake and make it as free from crumbs as possible, give it a Crumb Coat. This is a thin coating of frosting meant to absorb the outermost crumb of the cake. The cake is then placed into the refrigerator for about an hour so the frosting hardens. You then spread frosting over this hardened frosting with minimal fuss.
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Vegan Baking Tips
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Whole wheat flour and wheat germ contain the endosperm of the wheat berry which is high in polyunsaturated fats. These extremely perishable fats can impart off flavors and become a health hazard when they go rancid so keep whole wheat flour and wheat germ in the refrigerator in air tight containers where they will keep for up to 6 months. |
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Vegan Baking Tips
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When baking with margarine, avoid tub margarine and always use stick margarine. Tub margarine contains extra water for easier spreadability. This is great for things like toast but can negatively affect your baked items due to it's lower fat content and higher water content. Stick margarine still contains more water than butter in most cases but will result in better performance than tub margarine, especailly in things like puff pastries, pie crusts and tart crusts.
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Vegan Baking Tips
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Measuring lots of cups, Tablespoons or teaspoons in succession? Counting out loud will slightly make you look like a dork but not as much of a dork than if you add 2 Tablespoons too much margarine and ruin your brownies. So don't be afraid to count out loud!
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Vegan Baking Tips
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Is the bread, brownie or cookie dough sticking to your hands as you're trying to shape it or form it? Dampening your hands with water will get you out of this sticky situation and make the dough easier to work with.
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Vegan Baking Tips
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 Add about 2 Tablespoons agave syrup or corn syrup to your caramel ingredients to keep your caramel from crystallizing after it cools.
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Vegan Baking Tips
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When baking cakes or cupcakes, sift your flour before adding it. This will reduce clumping and aerate your flour, allowing it to rise more easily and make a more tender cake.
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Vegan Baking Tips
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When gliadin and glutenin proteins join together with the aid of moisture they form gluten. The more gluten in your flour, the more water required to hydrate these proteins into gluten. This is why bread flour requires more water than cake flour.
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Vegan Baking Tips
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Knead your yeast-leavened bread dough until it springs back when poked with a finger. Usually this is after 12 to 15 minutes of kneading. Don't worry, it's not possible to overwork the gluten by hand-kneading.
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Vegan Baking Tips
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Embarking on a cookie baking marathon? Let your baking sheets cool down before you put the next batch of cookie dough on them so they don't spread out too early and end up burning. When I ran my cookie company, I would refer to unwanted cookie spread as cookies 'farting out'.
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Vegan Baking Tips
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If you're cooking or baking with nuts and they're going to be under heat for less than 15 minutes in the final recipe, toast them before adding them to the recipe for maximum flavor. To do this, heat your oven to 350F (177C) place your nuts on a baking sheet and bake them for 10 to 15 minutes or until they're golden.
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Vegan Baking Tips
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Mixing a Tablespoon or two of tapioca or arrowroot flour into your fruit filling will cause excess juices to gel, reducing runniness while improving the mouthfeel of your pie or cobbler.
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Vegan Baking Tips
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To get the maximum juice from your lemons and oranges before juicing them by hand, first roll them back and forth on the counter while applying slight pressure with your hand. This will loosen up the fruit and allow the juices to flow out of them more easily.
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Vegan Baking Tips
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To blanch almonds, cover them with boiling water and let them sit for 2 minutes. Then drain, rinse them in cold water and remove the skins by pinching them with your thumb and forefinger. Lastly, dry them off with a paper towel.
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Vegan Baking Tips
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Does your chocolate have a white powder on it? Put the anthrax medication away and rest easy. The white chalky substance on your chocolate is called 'bloom' and it's just the cocoa butter rising out of the chocolate. It will go away completely and melt back into the choclate as soon as it's re-melted and flavor and texture won't be affected.
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Vegan Baking Tips
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Fats that contain more saturated fats such as shortening and coconut oil produce flakier pie crusts. If you're still after buttery flavor, use half stick-margarine and half shortening or coconut oil in your crust.
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Vegan Baking Tips
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Doing lots of chocolate or fondant work with a double boiler? Don't run out of steam! Place a metal jar lid in the water. When the water gets too low it will rattle, telling you to fill 'er back up!
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Vegan Baking Tips
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Allow your pots, pans, baking sheets and baking dishes to cool down until they're warm before washing or soaking them in cold water to prevent warping or shattering them. Shattered cookware = shattered dreams.
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Vegan Baking Tips
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Yeast leavened dough should not dry out during rising. To prevent this either cover it with a damp towel or coat it in oil and cover with a plastic bag. In extremely hot kitchens, the oil and plastic bag method is the most effective. Just don't forget to remove it before you put it in the oven!
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Vegan Baking Tips
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Want to ripen fruits or vegetables as quickly as possible? Place them in a paper bag with a ripe banana. Fruits, especially bananas, produce gasses when ripe that encourage other foods in their vicinity to ripen as well.
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Vegan Baking Tips
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For optimum shelf life, store popcorn kernels in an air tight container in the freezer. Stored this way, they should keep for years and reduce the number of unpopped kernels.
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Vegan Baking Tips
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When baking cookies on a cookie sheet, avoid darkened cookie sheets because they will actually absorb more heat, possibly resulting in burned cookies. This holds true for other cookware as well.
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Vegan Baking Tips
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Want to make your brownies, chocolate cake or other chocolate treat pop with more chocolate complexity and depth of flavor? Add about ½ to 1 full teaspoon of instant espresso powder to the batter.
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Vegan Baking Tips
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Want to make your brittle a little more crispy and easier to bite into? Mix about 1 teaspoon of baking soda into the hot brittle just before it's poured onto the flat surface. The baking soda will make tiny little air bubbles in the brittle and cause it to get slightly puffed up, making for a lighter and crispier brittle.
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Vegan Baking Tips
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Yeast is a very tempermental beast and may not activate fully if subjected to things like excessive sugars, salts and acids. If possible, add these ingredients after the yeast has gotten a chance to activate for best results.
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Vegan Baking Tips
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Unfortunately, if you cook and bake a lot you will eventually have to pay the 'kitchen tax' and sustain a cut. Make sure you have bandages on hand so when this happens you can deal with it and carry on with your baking. Running to the store to get bandages in the middle of baking something can be just a tad inconvenient. |
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Vegan Baking Tips
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Only add your pie filling to your pie crust right before the pie goes into the oven. This will ensure the crust doesn't absorb the filling moisture and become soggy. |
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Vegan Baking Tips
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One of the many tricks to mastering pie crusts is keeping your ingredients cool so the fat doesn't melt before the crust hits the oven. When the fat melts, the crust turns out tough and mealy instead of light and flaky. Use ice water (without the cubes) and keep your flour and bowls in the refrigerator beforehand to keep things as cool as possible. |
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Vegan Baking Tips
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Lightly dusting your cake's serving platter with powdered sugar will allow the slices to easily come away when the cake is served. |
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Vegan Baking Tips
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Frost your cake on it's serving platter with some strips of wax paper under the perimeter of the cake. When you're done frosting, quickly pull away the wax paper strips and your serving platter will look nice and clean. |
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Vegan Baking Tips
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It's important to only frost your cake after it's cooled to room temperature. This allows moisture from the cake to escape and keeps your frosting from heating up and sliding off. |
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Vegan Baking Tips
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After removing your cake from the oven, allow it to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before turning it over onto a cooling rack. This will keep the cake from falling apart during "the flip". |
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Vegan Baking Tips
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To check your cake to see if it's done baking, poke the center with a toothpick, small clean knife or skewer. If it comes out clean, your cake is ready. If it cake sticks, put the cake back in the oven for another 5 minutes before checking again. |
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Vegan Baking Tips
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Yeast should be stored in the refrigerator to prevent spoiling. Stored in this manner, yeast will keep for up to six months. To test your yeast to see if it's still good, combine 1 teaspoon sugar and 2 teaspoons yeast with ¼ cup warm water. If the mixture starts bubbling it's still good. If it doesn't it should be discarded. |
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Vegan Baking Tips
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When you bake with baking powder and baking soda, chemical reactions start to take place as soon as they go into your batter. Your item must be put in the oven immediately so the proper chemical reactions happen under heat. Preheat your oven when you start your recipe so it can go into the oven as soon as possible. |
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Vegan Baking Tips
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Do your spices date back to the Clinton Administration? If they're older than one year, they're not going to be fresh enough to do their job and your finished product will suffer. Discard them and start with a new collection. |
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Vegan Baking Tips
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If your baking powder is too old it won't do it's job and your recipes won't turn out. Buy your baking powder in small quantities. Write the date on the container and discard it after six months. To check baking powder for freshness add 1 teaspoon baking powder to 1/3 cup hot water. If it bubbles vigorously it's still good. |
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Vegan Baking Tips
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There's nothing worse than opening your oven to reveal a burned recipe after all that work. Check your baked item for doneness at the minimum baking time to prevent this. Usually this is five minutes less than the total baking time specified in the recipe. |
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Vegan Baking Tips
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It's a good idea to play it safe and get a fire extinguisher for your kitchen. Keep it an an easily accessible area and check it's pressure gauge once a year. |
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Vegan Baking Tips
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If you're ever unfortunate enough to experience a grease fire, remember to throw salt on it. Never use water to put out a grease fire. |
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Vegan Baking Tips
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Is your pot bottom burned? Fill it with two inches of water, add 1 Tablespoon of baking soda and bring it to a boil. Boil for five minutes with the lid on then remove from heat and let it sit for about 30 minutes before scrubbing. |
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Vegan Baking Tips
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Keep a pen and paper handy so you can write down what you need if you're getting low. You may also want to write down a trick you just learned so you don't forget it in the future. |
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Here's a Tip!
Be careful when adding lemon juice or other acidic ingredients to muffins, breads or cakes. Acidic ingredients inhibit gluten formation when used in larger quantities and can turn these eats into a gloppy unleavened mess. For lemon flavors, lemon extract or zest is preferred.
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