Welcome to How To Cook That, I'm Ann Reardon and today we are going to put
some kitchen hacks to the test to see if they are a Hit or a Myth.
Make sure you subscribe to my channel and press that bell so you get notified of new
uploads.
Hack Number 1: Says if you need a squeeze of lemon don't
cut your lemon in half and juice it, instead roll the lemon on the bench pushing down to
burst all those little juice vesicles inside the lemon,
Then take a skewer and poke it in the end of your lemon.
Now you can squeeze your lemon and out comes some juice.
This seems to work pretty well, we've got about a tablespoon of juice but now no matter
how hard I squeeze it, I can't seem to get any more than that out of it, we're about
to split the lemon if I keep squeezing it any harder.
But the lemon is still contained so the theory is that it will stay fresh and then you can
cut that open later and get the rest of the juice out of it.
So if you just want one squeeze or a tablespoon of juice or less this hack is a HIT.
HACK number 2: when you're making a cake and you add the flour do not over mix it, you
want to fold it until it is just combined and you can't see any more flour.
So let's experiment with that and tip half of our cake mixture into one tray.
And then with the other half we are going to put that with an electric mixer and whip
it on high speed for 2 minutes to mix it really well.
And then pour that into the exact same sized cake tin as the one that we just folded in.
Look at that it looks heaps lighter.
It is the exact same cake mixture made at the same time, this one is just lighter because
of all the air that has been whipped into it.
Now let's bake them side by side so the oven temperature is the same, the position in the
oven is the same.
And they look pretty similar while they're baking, they're both rising well.
They look good so far.
Once they are cooled, I've just leveled off the tops so that we can take a look inside
the cake.
This is the one that was just folded in and it has a nice soft springy texture and it
is very even throughout the whole cake.
Now the same cake that was whipped for an extra 2 minutes is looking completely different
it is quite dense in some parts and it doesn't have as many little air bubbles through the
cake.
Now most people won't study the look of your cake, so what difference does it actually
make when you eat it?
Let's taste the dense one, and now the airy one.
Well they taste exactly the same in terms of flavour but the texture is quite different
as you'd expect.
One is quite dense and a bit stodgy in your mouth and the other one is fluffy and so much
better.
So not over stirring your cake batter is a HIT.
Kitchen hack number 3: if you add too much liquid to your buttercream it will split - so
instead of it looking smooth it has this weird lumpy appearance and it doesn't pipe well
at all.
The hack to fix split buttercream says to add an extra cup of icing sugar and whip it
on high speed for at least a minute.
Well would you look at that, it looks better than it did before when it was split.
That's pretty good, I don't think most people would notice.
It might be a bit sweeter so you could add a little bit of salt to the icing to overcome
that.
So don't throw it out if you split your buttercream, add more icing sugar.
That hack is a HIT!
Kitchen hack number 4 says if you make a cake and you cover that in a layer of buttercream
then what you want to do next is take a hair dryer and with it set to warm just blow on
the cake and it will make your cake look shiny and smooth like fondant.
Well let's test that out.
Blowing on it doesn't seem to be making it shiny, we are getting some butter splitting
from the icing and pooling at the bottom but that is making it look worse not better.
Let's keep going maybe we just need a little bit more...
uh oh now the frosting is starting to come off, it's peeling off the top layer back to
that crumb coat underneath.
That is kind of cool if you're going for a zombie look!
But not other than that.
Let's try the other side, you can see that butter melting out of the icing there.
Imagine if this was a wedding cake and you've just ruined it!
This hack is definitely a MYTH.
Baking hack number 5: says when you make icing instead of putting it straight into the piping
bag put it onto some plastic wrap first so you can reuse the piping bag and save money.
So put the frosting onto some wrap and then bring the two sides over into the middle.
Hold each end and give it a spin to twist up the ends there.
Take one end and tie it in a knot so the icing doesn't escape back out of the top there when
you squeeze on it.
And then take the other end and cut it off fairly close to the icing.
Place that into the piping bag, shake it down and pipe.
Well it certainly works for piping but does it keep the piping bag clean?
Let's try and pull out the rest of the frosting and the piping tip and yes that looks pretty
good to me, there are a couple of tiny bits of frosting on the bag that you could wipe
off.
But how about costs?
I bought these piping bags in bulk on eBay for 12c each.
And this length of plastic wrap costs just 2c.
So if you're using a lot of colours especially and you need lots of piping bags for the one
cake or if you have more time than money then this hack is a HIT.
Hit that subscribe button and let me know what other hacks you'd like tested.
Make it a great week and I'll see you on Friday.