Quarantine Baking HACKSing Up a Lung
Am I sorry for all of the TERRIBLE jokes I’m making???
Yes. Yes I am. But I’m making them anyways because, as I’ve stated before, this is how I cope with stress. I also cope with stress by baking because something about having to be super precise and exact with recipes makes me feel as calm as if I’ve been chilling in a boat in the middle of a calm lake on a warm (but not hot) day. But what do I do if I want to do some baking and get that sweet sweet calm feeling (that only xanax can compete with), but I’m missing one of the ingredients….And then I go to the store and they’re also missing it because everyone else is baking right now???
Well, I’m here to help with a couple of the problems with a few things you can do to create at least a couple of those missing things with stuff you’ve pretty much already got in your pantry, or will be more likely to find at your store! So get your Math brain on because we’re going to be doing quite a bit of that.
Ok so let’s start with a basic ingredient that I use ALL THE TIME…..
Brown Sugar!
So brown sugar is literally just white sugar...with molasses...that’s it. So, if you don’t have any brown sugar and you want that warm sweet goodness for one of your recipes, all you’ve got to do is use a 1:16 ratio of molasses to sugar (that’s 1 part molasses to 16 parts sugar). If you want a super dark molasses-y brown sugar, go for a 1:8 ratio. More molasses = darker sugar. For example….
Grab your trusty food processor (or you can do it by hand as well just be ready to get your hands dirty, or wear gloves). Throw 1 cup (which is 16 Tablespoons) of white sugar into the food processor and add your 1 Tablespoon dark molasses. Turn that processor on, and let it mix away! Soon you’ll have brown sugar for all of your delicious dessert needs.
It’s really that easy.
OK next, another baking staple….
Baking Powder!!!
Quick science lesson...Baking Soda (BS) and Baking Powder (BP) come from the same BASE ingredient (see what I did there?? Because it’s a base….as in the science term for it like basic vs. acidic)
ANWAYS, BS and BP are both made from Sodium Bicarbonate….The difference between the two is that BS is pure sodium bicarbonate, and BP is sodium bicarbonate with added acid (like cream of tartar)....I think you know where this is about to go….SOOOO it pretty much stands to reason that if you don’t have baking powder, you could just add some acid to baking soda.
NOW, how do we do this? Simple, add some cream of tartar, and corn starch (to help keep it from clumping) to your baking soda in a 1:1:2 ratio….
SO for example you’d do: 1 Tbsp. Baking Soda, 1Tbsp. Corn Starch (can leave out but it helps with clumping), and 2 Tbsp. Cream of Tartar. Throw those in a bowl and whisk them together well, then put them into an AIR-TIGHT container so it doesn’t get clumpy and sad.
NOW here’s another hack but you have to do this one like WHILE you’re actually making your recipe. You can’t make it ahead of time. You can also just use baking soda and add in something acidic like white vinegar or lemon juice. You’ll want to put the baking soda in with your dry ingredients and the acid in with the wet ingredients. Don’t combine them together or it’ll activate the baking soda before you want it to activate. It won't be QUITE the same but it’ll give the baking soda more lifting power than on it’s own.
Alright the last baking hack that I have for you today is….
Cake Flour!!
Ok so generally you can totally just use regular all purpose flour when a recipe calls for cake flour. Really, the only reason that you would use cake flour instead of AP would be if you want to really limit the amount of gluten formed while making your treats. If you want your treat to be soft and fluffy like a cake instead of sturdy like a bread, then you’d want to limit the amount of gluten that is formed.
I know gluten is a big bad word nowadays, and yes flour has gluten in it, but what is gluten? It’s a protein that occurs naturally in flour and is sort of like “activated” when it gets in contact with water, and it forms more and more bonds the more the water is worked into the batter/dough. So when you make your dough or batter, the more you mix it, the more gluten that’s formed, and the more gluten that’s formed, the tougher the dough will be.
That’s not a trait you’d want associated with your cake right? So there are two ways of going about limiting the amount of gluten formed while mixing/making your cake batter. Either you’re really careful about how long and much you’re mixing everything together once the flour is added, OR you can use cake flour which is basically AP flour cut with some corn starch which will help hinder the amount of gluten proteins that are formed.
SO basically if you want to make your own cake flour all you have to do is take AP flour and mix it with corn starch in a 7:1 ratio…so for example:
If your recipe calls for 1 cup of Cake Flour all you have to do is measure our 1 cup of AP flour (which is 16 Tbsp) and then take out 2 Tbsp (now 14 Tbsp of AP). THEN add in 2 Tbsp of Cornstarch. So that ratio looks like 14 AP : 2 Cornstarch. Sift the two ingredients together so that they’re combined well, then use it in your recipe like you would if you just had cake flour laying around already.
ANOTHER EXAMPLE (for good measure...lol pun OBVIOUSLY intended)…. if your recipe calls for say...3 Cups of cake flour…. Measure out 3 cups AP, then remove 6 Tbsp, and sub in 6 Tbsp Cornstarch giving you 42 AP : 6 Cornstarch.
I know that seems complicated but just remember for every 1 cup of flour, you take 2 Tbsp out and sub in 2Tbsp cornstarch...and just go up from there. I could probably do a whole post just on like conversions between cups to tablespoons to teaspoons etc. but I’ll do that another day. I’ll do a whole post that’ll have all kinds of conversions as well as weight to cups etc. I’ve got a whole list of like…..1 cup AP Flour = 125 g. = 4.4 oz that’ll help convert recipes and things. YAY MATH.
Anyways those are my little baking hacks for today! I hope that you find them semi-helpful or at least interesting!