"baking tips" news and stories

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:

• Parlez-vous food? Test your command of the comestible lexicon.
• This burger recipe hides a cheesy, oozy surprise.
• Before strawberry season says sayonara, make these 10 simple dishes.
• Peek-a-boo, ForageSF, an underground farmers market -- and, no, it's not run by mole people.
• If your blazing-hot baking skills result in an conflagration, put it out with these tips.
• Ellie Krieger wants you to grill lettuce.

The beginning of fall marks the height of apple season. Why not make some fresh applesauce and get baking?

A cannele is a small pastry with a custardy center and crisp crust that develops by caramelizing sugar and butter during a long baking time. They are relatively difficult to find at bakeries in the US, though they remain very popular in France, where they originated. Traditionally, they are made in small, specially-shaped copper molds that most people would not want to purchase for the sole purpose of attempting to make these treats. Silicone pans are inexpensive, but are tricky to maneuver in the oven and do not allow the exterior of the pastry to get dark enough. Molly, at Orangette, circumvented the need for a special mold to make these by using a mini bundt pan, which are far more versatile than the more traditional options. For a recipe that uses the traditional molds, try this one, but you may need to experiment with baking times if you try Molly's trick.

Source

Now that you have finished your cake, let's review the steps. You read your recipe carefully, preheated the oven, made the streusel, greased the pan, creamed the butter, added the eggs, finished the batter and baked it. It's time to taste it.

The cake is moist, rich and delicious. It isn't a light, spongy cake, but it is very tender and does not seem heavy or dense. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a cake with this much streusel on it – in fact, there was nearly as much streusel as batter in the recipe! I loved how simply pressing the streusel mixture into big chunks before spreading it on the cake resulted in professional looking and tasting topping. Aside from the hitch with the incorrect baking time being given in the recipe, I didn’t have any problems and found the recipe to be easy to follow. This cake is a little too rich for everyday breakfast, but it is a great choice for special occasions and is classic comfort food. The recipe says this serves 10-12, but I far prefer to cut it into 16 smaller slices.

Thanks for watching this "episode" of Cooking Live with Slashfood!

[Photo by Nicole Weston]

Put your finished cake into the preheated 350F oven and bake. Martha's recipe says that this will take only 50 minutes, but mine took quite a bit longer, which is hardly surprising given the size of the cake. Perhaps it is not the ingredients or method, but instead the baking time that causes people so many problems when they are working with recipes published by Martha Stewart Living. It is also possible that more people enjoy raw cake batter than I previously imagined. Unless you, too, enjoy raw batter, I suggest that you always perform the "toothpick" test or simply bake until the cake springs back to make sure that your cake is finished. When a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, it is done.

After the cake has cooled slightly, you need to turn it out of the pan and onto the cooling rack. Run a sharp knife around the around the outer and inner edges of the pan. Remove tube portion with cake attached. Run knife over the bottom, loosening the cake. Gently replace cake in pan high-sided pan, which will support it as you turn it upside down. Place a clean dishtowel on top of pan and a baking sheet on top of that. Carefully flip pan over, turning cake out onto the baking sheet. Reinvert onto wire rack. Allow to cool completely.

 Once the cake has baked at 350F for 60-70 minutes and a tester has come out clean, you're almost done. Move the cake to a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes. After loosening the cake with a knife, carefully turn it out onto a baking sheet and reinvert it onto you wire cooling rack. Cool completely.

There is only one more things to do.

[Photo by Nicole Weston]