January 18, 2008
Happy New Year! This post is the first in a series of posts with some hints to help you get baking. Let’s start with some ingredients. I’m not going to say which ones you need to get first. It’s probably easiest to buy a few things each week. I often buy store brands, because they are cheaper and sometimes wait until items are on sale. Over time you’ll accumulate most of the ingredients that you’ll need to bake quite a few things. I have no professional culinary training, but these ingredients are organized by how I think of them when I’m baking.
Flavorings: Vanilla extract. This is one of the most basic flavorings to keep in your cabinet. Almond, lemon, and peppermint are also common extracts, but you can keep fresh lemons, oranges, and grapefruits in the house and squeeze the juice for flavor. Depending upon how much you use, the juice can also act as a liquid to substitute for something else – like water or milk. And don’t forget liquor that you might have in the house, rum and sweet wines can add different flavors. Be creative. It all depends on your taste. Salt intensifies flavors. If you reduce the amount of salt, you may need to increase the amount of flavor.
Fats: Unsalted butter, margarine, eggs, and yogurt. These add moisture and texture to your dough or batter. They will provide moistness to what you’re baking. If you’re trying to cut down on fat, you can reduce the amount of butter and/or eggs and use yogurt instead. Applesauce and other fruit purees can also be used. But note that even though you may keep the same amount of moistness with a fruit puree or yogurt instead of butter or eggs, the texture and mouth feel may be different. It won’t feel as rich. Also by eliminating eggs and butter, you can start creating vegan friendly desserts.
Oils: Canola, olive, grapeseed, sweet almond. These are all fairly healthy oils that will also add moisture, texture, and a light flavor to whatever you’re making.
Liquids: Water, cream, whole milk, Half & Half, rice milk, soy milk, almond milk. These also add moisture, texture, and flavor. I prefer to cook with vanilla rice milk, which you can read more about here.
Flours: All-purpose is a great start, but there are many types of flours. Cake flour, whole-wheat, rice, and soy are just a few. They have different amounts of gluten, a protein, which many people cannot eat. When you bake with gluten-free flours, you need to adjust the amounts of leaveners. There is a blog and a book called Gluten-Free Girl, by Shauna James Ahern, which has a lot of good information.
Leaveners: Baking powder, baking soda, and yeast. If you don’t use enough powder or soda, cookies, cakes and cupcakes won’t rise. You can kill the yeast by overheating the liquid or not activate it by not having warm enough liquid, so your bread will not rise. Baking powder and soda are also very salty, so consider this when adjusting the amounts. I prefer cookies and pancakes that are not too fluffy, so if a recipe describes them that way, I will often reduce the amount of powder or soda.
Sweeteners: Granulated sugar, dark brown sugar, light brown sugar, confectioners or powdered sugar, Splenda. Granulated sugar is used in most recipes. In many cookie recipes, like chocolate chip, you’ll need granulated and brown sugar. Powdered sugar is usually used in frostings and glazes. If I want to reduce the amount of calories, I’ll substitute some granulated sugar with Splenda. However, I wouldn’t recommend substituting more than half with Splenda, because the texture won’t be the same. Honey, maple syrup, and molasses can also act as sweeteners and liquids. However, I’ve read that honey shouldn’t be given to babies under one year old, raw or cooked.
Spices: Ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom. These are used in many holiday desserts.
Nuts: Walnuts, cashews, pecans, almonds, peanuts, pistachios. These are used for lots of muffins and quick breads, and cookies.
Chocolate: Chocolate chip morsels (mini and regular sized). I keep the mini chips especially for World Peace Cookies and use the regular sized for chocolate chip cookies, ice cream, and muffins. Also keep on hand unsweetened cocoa powder for cakes, cookies, and brownies.
Dried fruits: Raisins, cranberries, dates, shredded coconut. These are used in many breads, muffins, quick breads, cookies, and cakes.
Hopefully this list was helpful. Please feel free to comment with your thoughts or questions.
Comments
golfergirl (anonymous) says...
Don't forget coconut milk in your list of liquids? I've made some great muffins and cakes with it.
January 18, 2008 at 5:15 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
ljohnson (ljohnson) says...
Great suggestion! I do want to start using it, but haven't bought any yet. I'll have to pick some up next shopping trip! Thanks for reminding me!
January 18, 2008 at 7:33 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Post a comment
Commenting requires registration.