sprinklefingers

i’m sitting in my office surrounded by flats of empty canning jars, twenty pounds of apples and a list of posts for this here blog too long to count.

sure i could have finished up my apple butter experiment and made use of the jars and apples - then i could have buckled down and put fingers to keyboard to record my findings for you…but instead: i baked.

i found a tiny treasure trove of chester blackberries today and i immediately turned them into an over-the-top delicious blackberry cobbler. then i drove that cobbler right over to a dear friend who’s having a birthday tomorrow.

i feel overwhelmed with busy, yes. but the look on the birthday boy’s face makes it all better. seeing food make people happy makes me happy. or something like that.

oh! and! speaking of lists - here’s what’s coming up soon at sprinklefingers!

- an extra special peach jam recipe
- adventures in canning homemade apple pie filling
- apple butter gone wild
- blackberry cobbler - ideal for end of summer blowouts!

so much to look forward to…i know!

my kid loves bars. i have stash of them that i use when i reaaaally, reaaaaally need him to do something - translation: i bribe my kid with them.

kid bars are one of the last frontiers of ‘making everything myself.’ up until now, i’ve just simply ignored the fact that i really should be making them myself. it just seemed too hard. both in making them AND in coming up with a recipe the kid would deem an acceptable substitute for something clif was doing pretty well to begin with.

until last weekend when i had a few empty hours, a pound of blueberries and a surplus of whole grain flours. i tweaked, i tasted, i tweaked, i tasted…and i came up with a bar that works. the only criticism i got from the kid: where’s the wrapper?

blueberry kid bars

for the base layer and the topping you need:

a few posts ago i talked about freezing brownie batter.

today (and the past week, actually) was peppered with just enough stress to make me want to eat an entire pan of brownies tonight. thankfully, all of my frozen brownie batter is portioned into individual servings. alas, no pan of brownies for me.

this is good news, actually. in the last two weeks i have eaten. and eaten.  and eaten. i have done no snacking, but my meals have been real belly busters. the last thing i need right now is a 9x13 pan of brownies, no matter how delicious and fun that might sound.

so, i’ll bake two brownies tonight. i’ll be nice and give one to the mister (after the kid is in bed, of course.)

i’m fighting stress with baked goods, as usual. pow! boom!

both are leaveners. meaning, they cause your baked goods to rise.

both are white-ish powders.

and that’s where their similarities end.

these two white powders cannot be substituted for one another in a recipe. both work in completely different ways and rely on something else in the recipe in order to cause the reaction that releases gas (which forms bubbles, which causes baked goods to rise.)

let’s break it down, shall we?

baking soda

baking soda is baking soda. it should be used when your recipe also calls for something acidic (lemon juice, buttermilk, vinegar.) why? because in order to do rising at all, baking soda needs to be mixed with an acid. mixed with, say, vinegar, baking soda releases carbon dioxide gas which creates bubbles which - wait for it - causes your baked goods to rise. magic!

baking powder

baking powder is baking powder. it is entirely different than baking soda. it needs no acid. it only needs liquid. which is also quite magical. the thing about baking powder is that if you add it to your recipe and you’re using a fast-acting version, you need to get your batter (or whatever) into the oven or onto the griddle immediately. thankfully, science has helped out with baking powder and slow-acting baking powder has also been developed…this makes it so that the baking powder doesn’t start its reaction with the liquid until it’s reached a certain temperature in the oven.

and, of course, we can’t leave out double acting baking powder - it basically works in two phases: one immediate reaction at room temperature, and another reaction after the baked good has reached a certain temperature in the oven.

together at last: baking soda + baking powder

now, what about recipes using both baking soda and baking powder?

let’s take, for example, buttermilk biscuits. part of the allure of buttermilk biscuits is the tang left behind by the buttermilk, right? if you relied only on baking soda for the rise, you’d have to add so much of it that all of the tangy buttermilk goodness would turn into gas and float right out of your biscuits (please, please use your imagination. thank you.) with the addition of baking powder, you get enough lift - AND you get the tangy taste you’re after. in this situation, baking soda and baking powder work as a team delivering fluffy biscuits that actually taste like buttermilk. now, that IS magic.

now, prepare yourselves because i’m about to blow your minds:

you can actually make your own baking powder. no, really, you can.

here’s how you do it:

mix 2 tablespoons of cream of tartar with 1 tablespoon of baking soda and 1 tablespoon of cornstarch. mix and mix and mix. store in a cool, dry place.

why would you make your own? freshness, of course! and, it’s fun! and you can tell all your friends that you make your own baking powder. in these times of people being all foodie-this and foodie-that, you’ll certainly impress!

tomorrow i plan to explain how you can test the freshness of the baking soda and baking powder that has been sitting in your cupboard for three years. it’s going to be magic. AND fun. magical, impressive fun.

lots of recipes request that you use specific items at specific temperatures.

i’m bringing this up because i know quite a few people these days who really wing it when it comes to specific baking directions- and i’m here to tell you that winging it and baking sometimes really don’t mix.

take butter, for example. if you’re working with a recipe that calls for room temperature butter, make sure your butter is room temp. odds are you’ll be creaming that butter together with sugar - and if that’s the case, you want it to blend together so that it reaches a light & fluffy stage. this creaming causes air bubbles and the air bubbles will help convince your cake to rise. cold butter won’t mix with sugar well which will result in a less than desirable rise. not good for cakes. unless you roll like that.

moving on to eggs - room temp eggs are easier to crack than cold eggs. room temp eggs will blend better with the aforementioned room temp, creamed butter and sugar. a cold egg added to the beautifully light & fluffy butter and sugar would just cause bits of butter to re-harden. not optimum. because then it would no longer be light & fluffy.

so, next time you set out to bake a cake and you only have cold butter on hand, do the following:

• put the butter on a microwave-safe plate
• put the plate inside the microwave
• set the microwave timer for 15 seconds
• turn on the microwave for 5 seconds, then stop it
• touch your butter. can you press your finger into it with a bit of resistance? if so, stop now. if not, repeat the 5 second spin and touch your butter again.
  
  you basically just want your butter soft. not melty, not oozy, but soft enough so you can press your finger into it without a ton of effort.

as for eggs:

• turn on your kitchen tap - get the water medium warm
• put your eggs in some kind of vessel
• carefully pour the medium warm water over the eggs
• swish them around for a few seconds, then pour the water out into the sink
• refill the vessel of eggs with medium warmish water then let it sit for several minutes
  
  you’ll have room temp eggs in no time.

no more excuses. it’s not hard to follow directions…especially when following directions can mean the difference between a great cake and, well, a pancake.