Joy the Baker

Let’s take a quick minute to talk about buttermilk.  

What is buttermilk?  Buttermilk is a slightly sour milk.   The sourness of buttermilk comes acids in the milk, most notably, lactic acids.  Because the proteins in buttermilk are slightly curdled, buttermilk is slightly thicker than regular milk, but not quite as thick as cream.  Buttermilk is also usually much lower in fat than regular milk and cream.  

Say you wanted to make some butter and buttermilk waaaaay back in the day.  First you’d take your fresh milk from the cow, let’s say a big old bucket full… and you’d leave it out at room temperature for a few days.  After a few days the rich cream would separated and formed a thick layer on top of the milk.  During these few days, the milk would fermented a bit from the lactic acid forming bacterias in the milk.  Gross?  Not at all!  The bacteria produced would help lower the pH of the milk and protect with milk from icky microorganisms, making the butter easier to churn.  Once the butter is churned the residual liquid that’s produced…. that’s buttermilk!  

Nowadays, buttermilk is a whole other production.  Cultured buttermilk, as it is called in the United States these days, is a pasteurized milk product.  Instead of letting the milk ferment naturally, most dairies now add a culture of lactic acid bacteria to produce the same thickening and curdling of the milk.  Many dairies also add tiny yellow colored flecks of butter to simulate the old fashioned product.

Buttermilk is an important part of baking.  The acidic milk combined with baking soda in a recipe is a baker’s dream.  See… when baking soda is combined with the lactic acids of buttermilk, the soda releases carbon dioxide that when heated, released tiny bubbles that expand and lift and lighten whatever you’re baking.  

But what if you’re plum out of buttermilk?  There are solutions…. let’s talk. 

Read more »

Cake flour.  Let’s face facts:  I never have cake flour on hand when I need it.  Luckily, there’s a super easy way to turn good old all-purpose flour into cake flour, lightening your cake crumb, making it super soft and delicious.    Maybe you already know this trick.  It’s a good one.  

Here’s a step by step.  From me to you!

Read more »

Preheat. Why? Because it says so! If a recipe asks you to preheat the oven to a certain temperature. Well… you should. What the recipe is trying to tell you is that your cupcakes, or loaf of zucchini bread, or blackberry muffins need to combine with a certain temperature to do their thing. And we all know, we want out baked goods to do their thing. Even if they don’t, we’ll probably still nibble on them on their way from the oven to the trash bin. But everything seems to work out like sunshine and roses if our baked goods do their thing. Right?

You Don’t Need Gadgets. You might want them… but you don’t need them. Is it just me or has baking become kind of trendy lately? I’ve noticed all sorts of intricate, multi layered whisks, and scrapers, and bumper stickers for your Kitchen Aid mixer. It turns out that you don’t really need any of that stuff to produce some killer cupcakes. You’ll need some stainless steel bowls and a fantastic candy thermometer but really, stick with the basics.

Yeast- You Can do It! I know, yeast is a little intimidating. But really- you can do it! There are a few things yeast needs to get going- warm water and sugar. Simple as that. You have live yeast. These cinnamon rolls were some of the first yeasted breads I mastered. They were more approachable to me because the dough has creamed butter, sugar and eggs. It starts off like and cake and finishes as a bread. If you’re scared of yeast, please give this recipe a go!

Read more »