When it comes to baking, a lot of us have adapted our processes from our moms or grandmothers, but we never stopped to ask why they did things the way they did! Do you ever remember your Mom/Grandmother frowning at you for doing things a certain way! Well their are rules to the art of baking, so lets get to the 3 most broken rules to date and break those pesky habits.
* Rule #1 The BEST ingredients make the BEST products! Yes, it is true, using subpar or cheap ingredients will definitely have an impact on how your baked goods turn out. Many bakers will not waver when choosing premium butters and top-shelf chocolate, however they will go cheap when purchasing flour. Please if this is you, let go of this bad habit and grab a quality brand of flour! There is definitely a difference in flour, just like there is in any other ingredient. The variations are in protein content, ash content, bleaching (which affects the gluten in flour) etc.
*Rule #2 STOP greasing (or greasing AND flouring) your entire pan! We all grew up spraying our pans (bottoms and sides) with the cooking spray or rubbing it with shortening and flouring it. Well my friends I am here to tell you to STOP THAT NOW! Stop also using the oil flour combination sprays all over the pan. It is efficient enough to ONLY spray the bottom of the pan or use a piece of parchment {which is actually the best option}. Why you ask..well cakes need friction to rise or climb up the sides of the pan. If you have greased it then that makes it difficult for the cake to rise and the batter keeps slipping back down. Now as far as the grease and flour combination spray, that is fine for the sides of the pan, but terrible for the bottom. If you are baking cookies then you should not be greasing the pans at all! Remember the base of most cookies is BUTTER or SHORTENING!
*Rule #3 Use FRESH ingredients. Stale or old ingredients can cause a recipe to all out fail. Old leavening agents like baking soda or powder will not have the same potency and won't produce the rise that you need, the same with using old yeast too. Yeast is a microorganism and it reacts with sugar to form a gas. If your yeast is old, then that means that organisms are dead and will not react with the sugar producing the gas needed for it to rise, therefore, IT WON'T RISE! Now as far as old spices are concerned, they may still work, but just won't be as potent, due to the essential oils in them will have dissipated over time, causing them to be less potent and losse aroma and flavor, but they will still work.
