Welcome to How To Cook That, I'm Ann Reardon.
I've been seeing a lot of baking hacks online lately so today we are going to put them to
the test and see if they are a hit or a myth.
Baking Hack number 1 says if you are baking muffins or anything with fruit or choc chips
in it, you should coat them in flour first to stop them from sinking to the bottom.
If you coat them with flour before you mix them in, they will apparently stay at the
top.
To test that let's make choc-chip and raspberry muffins.
And for one batch we'll put the chocolate chips and the raspberries into the flour and
mix them through thoroughly to coat them.
For the other batch, we'll put everything into the wet ingredients and mix it around
in there instead.
Now add the wet to the dry just like you normally would when you're making muffins and mix together
until it is just combined.
The dotty cases were the ones that were coated in flour first and the pink cases went straight
into the wet ingredients.
Now they're baking in the oven on the same tray so that the oven is the exact temperature,
the exact same cooking time, we are not changing anything else about it, it's the same for
both of them.
You've got to love that smell of freshly baked muffins.
I'll put the recipe for these on the website.
Now let's see inside ... Pink is no flour, and Dotty was flour first.
What do you think?
There is actually more at the top on the flour one.
But for the sake of science - let's cut another one because that could just be the way it
was scooped into the cupcake case.
They both do look yummy to me but most of the goodies are in the bottom half of the
pink one so it's not the end of the world if you forget but this hack is actually a
HIT.
Baking hack number 2.
Says eggs must be at room temperature when you're baking, especially if you are whipping
egg whites ... you'll get more volume and a better result if your egg is NOT cold straight
from the fridge.
If you've let it sit and come to room temperature and then use it.
Let's test that theory.
Separate your eggs and whip them up.
This one is our room temperature egg white.
And this one is our cold egg white.
Now I weighed both of these before I started to check they were exactly the same size.
Now if we take a look the cold egg white has actually whipped up to have a better volume.
But wait, I actually tricked you.
See if we look at the Use By dates, the room temperature egg was older than the cold one.
The fresher the egg, the better it whips up.
So let's test that again with 2 eggs with the same Use By date.
It's very important when you're experimenting to only have 1 variable or you may come to
the wrong conclusion ... which is how I think this theory must have started.
If you think about it, if you have chickens and you have older eggs sitting in the fridge
and then you get a fresh one from outside that's at room temperature ... the one at
room temperature is going to whip up better.
Not because of the temperature but because it's a fresher egg.
See these two, the cold and the warm with the same Use By date, whipped up exactly the
same.
So that hack is a MYTH.
Hack number 3.
If you need to soften butter you can fill a tall cup up to the top with boiling water
and let it sit for a minute until the cup is hot.
Then tip out the water and place the upside down cup over the butter and WAIT for a couple
of minutes...
Remove the cup... and your butter should be nicely softened
but not melted.
That hack actually worked, so that one is a HIT!
Hack number 4 When you are making macarons, make your mixture
as normal and pipe it onto lined trays.
Then before baking them you need to leave them on the trays for about 20 minutes or
until it a 'skin' forms on top and you can gently touch them.
The skin stops the air escaping from the top forcing it down so the macaron rises giving
it a foot and a perfect macaron.
If you don't let it sit the air will go out the top, causing it to crack and there will
be no foot.
Well that's what the hack says but let's actually test it.
Make one batch of macaron mixture and pipe it onto two trays - and all these recipes
are on the howtocookthat.net website for you and I'll link to that below.
Bang the trays on the bench just like you normally would and now place one tray straight
into the oven.
Then leave the others on the counter.
At 10 minutes they are still a bit sticky on top, but after another 10 they have formed
a skin and we can finally put them in the oven.
The others are already cooked and cooled but let's watch what they both looked liked baking
at the same time.
So which tray is better?
Well, you tell me can you even see a clear difference?
They both have a foot and there are no cracks on top.
This one was left to form a skin and this one was baked immediately.
So this hack is a MYTH.
Hack number 5.
When whipping egg whites, wipe out the bowl using vinegar because if there is any oil
at all, even a tiny bit in the bowl, the egg whites will not whip up properly.
To test this theory I am going to add a teaspoon of oil to our whites and then attempt to whip
them up.
Having vinegar on the side of the bowl is actually adding acid, which helps stabilize
the egg whites, but you can also do that by adding lemon juice or a bit of cream of tartar
and you can just add it into the egg whites.
But the question here is does the oil stop the egg whites from whipping?
The answer to that is no it does not stop the egg whites whipping even when we added
a whole teaspoon.
So the reason given for this hack is wrong.
Adding acid is good but the oil wasn't the issue so this hack is a myth.
If there are any more home hacks you'd like to see tested click the thumbs up and write
the hack in the comments below.
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Make it a great week and I'll see you on Friday :)