Cooking tips, tricks, and advice from professional kitchens
Ingredients
Use lecithin to keep your bread fresh longer
Jan 8th
Have you found that your home made bread just doesn’t stay fresh as long as the loaves you buy from the store?
It is typical for home made bread to stale faster than the store bought stuff. Commercially produced breads have many shelf life extenders added to them to keep them nice until the end of the week. These chemicals have all kinds of chemical and trademarked product names to go into, but if your bread is still soft a week after you bought it, at least a couple of them are in there.
A home baker probably couldn’t easily get their hands on them even if they wanted to, but there is one additive you you might want to use when baking your bread.
Lecithin is an extremely common and very useful substance derived from soy and found in egg yolks. It is an emulsifier, which is a substance that allows fat and water to mix. In a chocolate bar, lecithin keeps the cocoa butter and solids together. It is also what allows oil and water to mix when making mayonnaise.
Adding it to bread will keep the fats in a stable emulsion with water and keep the moisture in the crumb of the bread, thus postponing the staling. Lecithin is also a surfactant and lubricant, so it will make the dough easier to work, allow ingredients to disperse more easily, and relaxes the gluten for a chewier loaf.
To use lecithin to improve your bread dough (rather than buying some expensive dough improver product), use about 3/4 tablespoons of lecithin granules per cup of flour, and mix it in with the dry ingredients. If you have liquid lecithin, 1/2 tablespoon per cup of flour, added with the moist ingredients should do the trick.
This and other molecular gastronomy ingredients are available at Le Sanctuaire. Lecithin can also be found at GNC, as well as other nutrition and health food shops.
If you find your newly shelf stable bread is going mouldy too fast, let it cool THOROUGHLY before packing it away in any type of airtight container. Warm bread is still giving off small amounts of moisture, which if trapped in an airtight container will settle on the bread and provide the perfect breeding ground for airborne spores.
Which type of flour has the most gluten?
Nov 27th
Q. Which type of flour has the most gluten?
A. This is sort of a mis-question as no flour actually contains gluten. They all contain various amounts of protein which when mixed with liquid and agitated, can develop into gluten. Bread flour contains the most protein (roughly 9-10%) all-purpose is next with approx 8-7%, and cake and pastry can contain as much as 6% or as little as 4%.
You can read more about flour, the types, and substitutions here in our types of flour post.
Save time and money, just freeze extras!
Sep 15th
Making larger batches of things can be very useful, especially in the pastry shop as things tend to take a long time to put together. Freezing items can be an effective way of saving time and money, so knowing at which stage to freeze them is important.
Breads and other yeast products – can be frozen at any stage, but portioned dough is better than a big lump. Be sure to wrap well or the un-baked items may crust, and the baked items may get freezer burn. Par baked items (like you can often get at grocery stores) also freeze well.
Quick breads that are made from batters rather than dough (banana bread, cakes…) – are best frozen once baked, or they will lose their leavening ability.
Items with whipped eggs (sponge cakes…) are again best frozen once baked, for the same reason as above.
Cookies - portioned dough is best.
Buttercream icings can be frozen, but they will need to be warmed and re-whipped before using.
Ganaches can also be frozen.
Types of flour and their substitutions
Jul 14th
Lately, Culinary Tips has been getting a lot of searches for types of flour, substitutions of flour types, and uses of flour, so I’ve expanded the entry here on flour. Hopefully this helps answer some questions. If not, as always, drop us a comment below or email a question.
Firstly, to understand flour, it helps to understand its source, wheat. There are several varieties of wheat, which I won’t delve into here. They vary in colour, protein content, and texture. The seed of which, has three distinct parts: the hull or bran, the endosperm, and the embryo or germ. In whole wheat flour, the husk of the wheat grain is left on and ground, hence the term whole wheat. In white flour is it removed, and only the endosperm and embryo are ground.
Inside flour are two important proteins that make baking possible – glutenin and gliadin. When these are kneaded together in the presence of water, they interlink and form a network called gluten. Gluten gives baked goods a chewy/firm texture, and captures the gases released from yeast during fermentation, and the carbon dioxide released from chemical leaveners in baking.
For many baking projects the right type of flour can make all the difference, but how do you know what the right type is? First lets discuss the types of flour, and what they are used for. The four basic types of wheat flour on the market are:
- All Purpose
- Cake and Pastry
- Bread
- and Self-Raising
Apart from self-raising, which has a chemical leavener (baking powder) already added, the others differ from each other in respect to how much protein is left in during the milling process.
Though there are many different proteins found in flour, the ones that are of concern to bakers are gliadin and glutenin. These proteins form gluten. Gluten is what makes dough elastic. When making bread you want maximum gluten formation, so the CO2 from the yeast will have a place to stay, but when you’re making say, scones or pie dough, the less gluten the better so the product will not be chewy.
Strong / Hard / Bread Flour
Bread flour has the highest protein content of them all, and though it varies from brand to brand and place to place, the protein content is 12-14%. It is often made using a type of wheat called Durum. Due to the high protein content, when worked with water, the most gluten is formed resulting in a chewier product. Strong flour is typically used for making pasta, bread, and other yeast leavened baked goods. Strong flour is also the type that should be used when dusting a workbench because of the large particle size. Unless you are using yeast in your product, or making pasta, consider another type of flour.
All Purpose Flour
Next in strength comes all purpose, which has an 8-10% protein content, putting it basically in the middle of the road when it comes to gluten forming potential. It is a blend of hard and soft flours. If you are going to be making a variety of products, but only want to buy one type of flour, this is the one for you.
Cake Flour / Pasty Flour
At the grocery store, you will often see a single product called Cake and Pastry Flour, with generally the lowest protein content of around 7-10%. Cake and pastry flour has the lowest protein content of all common types of flour, and should be used in making products with a light texture as gluten development is to be avoided. For example, using a high protein flour will make your cake tough, causing it to not rise when baked.
If you only have bread flour and you want some scones tonight, by all means use it, but be extra aware that the potential for chewy scones is higher with bread flour than cake flour. If you are making bread, and you only have cake flour, you may be in for a little more trouble. Soft bread depends on proper gluten development to trap the gases from the yeast, creating leavening, and therefore a nice soft crumb. With cake flour, there is only about half the protein in bread flour, so the potential for gluten development is lesser. To get fully developed dough, you may have to knead for so long that the heat from the friction in the bowl kills the yeast, leaving you with a big sticky pile of mess.
Quite a few British recipes call for self-raising flour because in the UK, self raising flour is roughly the same price as regular flour. For each cup of unleavened flour, add 1 1/2 tsp baking powder. If you only have self-raising flour, and your recipe calls for regular, omit the baking powder and/or salt (if your flour already has it mixed in).
How to freeze egg yolks or egg whites
Jul 7th
Wondering what to do with those left over egg yolks or whites? If your recipe didn’t call for an equal number of egg whites and yolks, you might find yourself with some left on your hands. There’s always the possibility of turning the whites into an egg white omelette, but that’s pretty bland and what if you want to use them in the future?
- Separated eggs freeze well, but there are a few things you should know.
- They don’t keep forever. After 6 months, they can start to go a little weird, especially if your freezer isn’t impossibly cold.
- Keep them tightly sealed as they can pick up some nasty freezer smells and make meringues taste off.
- If you’re freezing yolks, add 10% sugar, mix until homogeneous but not light, and freezer as usual. Adding the sugar keeps them from solidifying to the point of becoming jellylike. Defrost overnight in the fridge. When using the frozen yolks keep in mind the extra 10% sugar when scaling out recipes.
- Frozen whites will still aerate, but may not whip up to the usual volume of fresh egg whites, so keep that in mind.
Make your own vanilla vodka or vanilla extract
Jun 8th
The Organic Vanilla Bean Company has very reasonably priced beans, so you can make the best vanilla vodka vodka or extract you’ve tasted. 
By submerging a few beans in a bottle of reaonsable quality vodka (at home, we’ve used about 10/750ml bottle) for between 1 and 6 months, you will have an amazing vanilla vodka (you can also use other alcohol such as tequila or rum). Just keep your bottle in a fairly dark and cool area to keep it fresh.
After 6 months, the liquid will be quite dark and can now be used as vanilla extract. With a large number of beans such as we use, you can re-fill the bottle when it’s getting low and not lose very much flavour. I think we’ve probably refilled at least twice over and it’s still almost black and just as tasty as ever.
Play around, if you can. Citrus peels, cinnamon, and green cardamoms can all be added for a more exotic infusion.
Use all of that expensive vanilla bean
Jun 7th
Lets face it – while vanilla beans add an unparalleled flavour to desserts (and some savoury items), they are more often than not outrageously priced. I’ve seen then as high as $16 each, so it’s helpful to squeeze every last drop of flavour out of them.
Most recipes call for the scraped seeds. For things like ice creams, creme anglaise and other wet items, it’s possible to add the scraped bean to the same liquid as the seeds, which will free any seeds left in the pod after scraping.
Side tip: Whenever you scrape a vanilla bean and add the seeds to a liquid, it’s helpful to strain the liquid where possible to remove any brown fibrous threads that line the inside of the bean, which no matter how carefully you scrape, inevitably end up in the mix. After heating with the liquid, or if you’re making cookies, or something else not involving infused liquid, the bean can be rinsed if it’s dirty, dried and kept for garnishing (Crepe sacs are often tied with strands of vanilla beans). The bean can also be added to a container of sugar (brown or white), or coffee, and will infuse a slight flavour. But make sure the bean is dry first, or all you’ll get is a sticky mess.
(If your recipe isn’t particularly wet, and you still want to infuse it with a vanilla bean pod, you can poach the scraped pod in any butter or oil you will be using over low heat for 15 or so minutes – Chris)
(If you do infuse your butter, be sure to return it to the consistancy the recipe calls for as butter at different temperatures and in different forms can have different properties – Victoria)
Try rinsing your glace fruit
Jun 6th
Glace fruit can be a great ingredient in fruit cakes and other items, but they can be tough to work with and can be way too sweet in an item.
The solution to both problems is the same, rinse the fruit before adding it. When I make English fruit cake, my recipe calls for both candied citrus peel and glacee cherries, which I rinse until the water runs clean. The cherries in the recipe are cut in 4, and since the pit is removed, there is a cavity which can hold the syrup even after a thorough rinse before chopping, I also rinse them after chopping to get them really clean.
Sticky Corn Syrup Tips
May 21st
Corn Syrup can be a pain to weigh or measure. It gets whatever it touches ridiculously sticky, but there are a couple of ways to avoid this.
One is to spray whatever you’re weighing or measuring into with a cooking spray (Pam), but I haven’t found this one too helpful (though it does work well with other things like cake batter (but not sponge cakes, or fat-free cakes as this will cause the batter to fall and the cake not to rise).
The second option is if you’re scaling out to be weighed, then scale out another ingredient (such as sugar) into the bowl on the sale, tare that (zero the scale), make a well and pour the corn syrup into that well. If done right, the corn syrup shouldn’t touch the bowl and therefore will only stick to the sugar, which will be poured out anyway. If you’re measuring a cup for example, then you can try the spray, or you can use a scale if you have one. 1 cup of Corn Syrup will weigh approx. 12oz (340g).
Soaking Gelatine
Mar 29th
Just a quick gelatine tip for today. When working with leaf gelatine, before melting to use in a recipe, you must first soak the leaves in water. The colder your water the less your gelatine will break apart as it soaks leaving you with many little bits of gelatine to wring dry. I put the sheets in a bowl and cover then with the coldest tap water I can get and then even add a few ice cubes. Since I started this, I have never had a sheet break apart during blooming.
