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- Hey, Health Nuts!
Welcome back to HealthNut Nutrition.
I'm Nikole, and today we are getting into hacks.
Not just any kind of hacks, baking hacks.
I have a few hacks videos on my channel,
but when I was making this new video,
like the outline and stuff,
all my ideas were things that revolved around baking.
So, I decided to compile them all.
I'm sharing 10 baking hacks
that are gonna help you so much in the kitchen.
These are things that,
they're just like problems you run into naturally,
and I'm gonna fix them for you.
I have tested all these hacks.
A lot of them are things that I've just done
over the years, and I thought I would
share them with you guys to hopefully help you
with all of your baking problems, because.
Things like wanting to make banana bread
but you have no ripe bananas, don't worry.
I got you, I got the best hack.
You're gonna be like, what?
This is amazing.
So, without further ado, let's actually,
first before we hop in,
click that red Subscribe button down below.
If you are not subscribed, do it, it's free,
I have new videos every single week.
And without further ado,
let's hop right into the video.
My first tip is making your own dairy-free buttermilk.
All you have to do is add some apple cider vinegar
into your plant based milk.
I like to use soy milk, I find it thickens up the best.
Give it a quick whisk, and then set it aside
to thicken and curdle.
While that's doing it's thing,
you can just go ahead and start mixing up
the rest of your wet ingredients.
I'm actually making my one bowl carrot cake muffins
from the HealthNut Cookbook.
So, I'm just adding in all the wet ingredients,
cracking in a couple of eggs.
I really wanted to share how I use these hacks
in my actual favorite baked recipes.
As you can see, the buttermilk has now thickened
and you can add it to your mixture.
My next hack is my one bowl wonder.
I love just using the simple hack of a sifter
to mix in my dry ingredients to my wet
without having to use two separate bowls.
It's gonna make the batter fluffier and lighter,
but it's also gonna help distribute
the dry ingredients as you sift it.
Not to mention, way less dishes to clean up
when you're done.
I'm gonna fold in the carrots,
and then the batter is ready to pop into our muffin tray.
My next hack is using a cookie scoop.
You will get picture perfect muffins every time.
Not only will all your muffins be
the exact same size, but they're also gonna rise
a little bit nicer, they're gonna have
this, like, nice dome at the top.
I've just tried it with and without a cookie scoop
and I swear there's a huge difference.
So, if you want picture perfect muffins,
use this tip.
I'm just finishing them off with some crushed walnuts
and coconut sugar, and then these are ready
to pop into the oven and bake up.
I also love to use this tip
for cookies or energy bites to make sure
they're all the same size.
Once the muffins are done baking,
as you can see, they look perfectly rounded on top,
and you're ready just to dig in.
I love eating one fresh out of the oven
when it's still nice and warm.
Just look at that fluff.
My next hack is how to measure butter perfectly.
I actually got this tip from my younger sister
who, she learned from baking class in high school.
All you have to do is fill up a measuring cup
with the amount of butter that you need.
So, in this case, I needed half a cup.
And then, just drop in your butter
until you have double that.
So, until it reaches one cup,
and then I know I have half a cup of butter.
This trick works really good
if you have like odds and ends of butter
hanging around in your fridge and they don't have
that little measuring guide on them.
Use this hack, it will work perfectly.
Speaking of butter, my next hack is
to grate your butter in order to soften it quickly.
I don't know about you guys,
but every time I need softened butter
I never have it just hanging around
on my counter like my grandma does.
So, instead I just like to grate my butter,
and as you can see, it just softens instantly
and it's gonna work perfectly into my
new fashioned chocolate chip cookies,
also from the HealthNut Cookbook.
The actual recipe calls for softened coconut oil,
but I like to personally add in butter
when I'm feeling like a little bit more of a treat.
Once again, I'm using my one bowl wonder trick.
I'm gonna sift in all of my dry ingredients.
Less time, it's like the best tip.
I've used this for years and I swear
it works every time.
I just love it.
Folding everything in, now it's time for the best part,
the chocolate chips.
And your dough is ready to scoop.
My next tip is using a grease-less cookie sheet.
So, if you actually just use a non-stick
silicone mat, like this one from the HealthNut shop
that actually has our branded logo
in the bottom right hand corner, which I love.
But it's gonna help reduce the amount of extra oil
or butter that you need to use
so that your cookies don't stick to the bottom.
I use this in so much of my baking
and it's so easy to clean up at the end,
and, as you can see, I'm also using
that cookie scoop hack.
I swear, I use all of these hacks
in so many of my recipes, all the time,
which is why I'm finally sharing them
with you guys.
Cookies are out of the oven and, as you can see,
they're all the exact same size
because we used the cookie scoop,
and I'm just gonna take a spatula
to easily lift them off.
And, as you can see, no sticking
and we didn't grease anything.
Next up, we have one of my favorite hacks
that I've been doing now for over a year.
It is using chickpea water to make an egg replacement.
I know it sounds crazy, but when you're draining
your chickpeas from the can,
save that chickpea water because it is gonna make
the most amazing egg replacement
that is fluffy and really does look like
fluffed up egg whites.
You add it to a bowl and you're gonna whisk it
with a hand blender for about three minutes
until it resembles egg whites.
A lot of vegans use this in meringues
and other recipes that you need egg whites for,
but I just love using it in my baked goods,
like banana bread, which I'm going to be
showing you how to incorporate it into.
The next problem I often run into
when I wanna make banana bread
is not having super ripe bananas.
What you're gonna do to fix this
is just lay out your green bananas
on a cookie sheet, pop it into the oven
at 300 fahrenheit, and you're gonna allow that to bake.
The amount of baking time depends
on how large your bananas are,
so I will have the full instructions
on the blog post linked down below.
While that's cooking up, I'm gonna share with you
the next hack, which is non-stick measuring.
So, I don't know about you guys,
but when I measure anything super sticky
like honey, brown rice syrup, or maple syrup,
a bunch of it sticks to the measuring cup,
and then it's extra cleanup
and it just is kind of a sticky mess.
Instead, measure your oil first.
So, I had half a cup of avocado oil
that I needed for this recipe,
and then measure the sticky ingredient
and it's gonna slide right out.
My next hack is properly measuring out
dry versus wet ingredients.
Did you know there's a difference?
There actually is, and it makes a difference
in your baking.
So, there is a liquid measuring cup
and a dry measuring cup.
So, these ones are for dry and the proper way
to do it is actually to scoop on a bunch of flour,
and then scrape off the top with
either a knife or I'm just using my scooper.
And then, these measuring cups
with the little lip on them are for wet ingredients.
So, it's gonna give you a more accurate read
of the actual measurement, because you can see it
on the side and it's also just gonna be easier
to pour out because it has that spout.
So, once your bananas are done baking,
they should really have a dark, shiny black skin to them.
I could've actually baked mine longer.
I ended up trying out this for the second time,
and longer is definitely better
if you want them to be extra soft and sweet.
It's because I was using much larger bananas
than I'm used to.
They're gonna be super sweet, super soft,
and they mash up just like super ripe bananas,
it's perfect.
Add in the rest of the ingredients.
As you can see, the honey comes out perfectly
because we oiled it first.
Whisk in that aquafaba, which is the technical name
for whipped chickpea water,
sift in your dry ingredients.
This flour blend I'm using is actually
my HealthNut gluten-free blend.
It is one of the best gluten-free blends
I have ever tried, so I'll have that linked
in the blog post, as well, for you guys to grab.
Adding in my chocolate chips,
and then just folding those in
so we can transfer them to our loaf pan.
Now, this is an extra hack.
I love to just grease my pan
with a little bit of oil, I'm using coconut oil,
before I place any parchment paper in.
It's gonna help it stick, otherwise you're like
fumbling around and it's just a pain in the butt
to actually keep the parchment paper into the mold.
Transfer the batter into the pan,
and then just smooth at the top
and pop it into the oven to bake.
So, this recipe ends up being
both egg-free and gluten-free,
which is great for my niece and nephew
who can't really have either one,
so that's why I make this all the time for them.
There you have it, 10 baking hacks
that I know are gonna just make your life
so much easier.
I feel like we're in full blown baking mode.
I mean, I do a lot of baking around the holidays,
but I especially do baking right now,
because I just like cozy baked goods
to keep me warm during the winter months.
And especially now that we're in February,
the month of love and self-care,
I feel like you should go and bake yourself
some cupcakes or banana bread and treat yourself,
because you deserve it.
And I would love to know if you guys
have any of your own baking tips.
I feel like everyone has some
from their grandparents or parents or something.
So, leave me a comment down below.
Let me know your best baking hack or tip
that you swear by, even if it's a family secret.
Give me all the secrets, I need them in my life.
And, as always, I'm gonna have a full blog post
with all the instructions to the 10 hacks
in today's video with any recipe links
or product links that would be linked down below.
And, that's gonna be it for today, guys.
I hope you guys enjoyed this video.
It was so much fun to just kind of compile
all of my favorite baking hacks,
and if you like these videos,
be sure to give it a big thumbs up so I know,
and I will definitely do more of them for you.
Thank you so much for watching.
Subscribe and I will see you guys
in my next video.
Bye, guys!
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