How to Bake Foam Cakes

Feeling like baking and indulge yourself with your own creation but held back by your diet restrictions? Foam cakes are just right for the people who are concern with their food intake because it contains very little fat compared to shortened butter cakes. Foam cakes can be divided into 3 categories, angel food cakes, chiffon cakes and sponge cakes. The recipes require more eggs than butter cakes and in different cakes; eggs are used in different ways. The cakes are very airy because they are leaven by the air that is beaten into the eggs.

The batter is baked in tube pans and the hollow centre allows the heat to circulate in the middle and shorten the baking time. The pans are made by aluminized steel or stainless non-stick steel. Recently, they found out that silicon moulds and paper tube pans make better pans compared to the traditional ones. The paper tube pans come in various sizes and with a matching lid – convenient for those who intent to bake and give out as gifts. Silicon pans are heat resistant and durable, but people do get turned off by the price tag. Continue reading “How to Bake Foam Cakes”

Soul Food Seasonings Dictionary

What gives food it’s soul? Many opinions have been noted over the years. Some say it’s the food, others say it’s the cooking techniques, still others say it’s the history behind the food. But everyone agrees, what really gives soul food its soul is the seasonings.

Learning how and what to season your food with is a major key to preparing tasty soul food that will make you want to kiss yourself.

Allspice – Used to flavor desserts such as pies and cobblers, cookies and cakes.

Anise – Sweet and fruity to the taste. Can be used to flavor cookies, cakes, and sweet rolls. Can also be used to add interest to soup, chicken or duck when used in moderation.

Annatto – Can be used to add flavor to beans, rice, fish or poultry. Continue reading “Soul Food Seasonings Dictionary”

Super Yummy Dutch Oven Campfire Desserts To Try

Do you remember the saying that goes “There’s always room for dessert..”. It’s true, whether you’re at a restaurant, at home or camping outdoors. Campfire desserts are what most people look forward to when they’re camping because who doesn’t want to enjoy a delicious sweet treat while enjoying the fresh air and a night under the stars?

So light up your fire, get your dutch oven out and try these super yummy dutch oven campfire desserts!

Easy Campfire Fruity Cobbler

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5 Tips for Summer Wedding Cakes

The cake is the showpiece of the wedding reception. Every bride wants her cake to be beautiful, delicious, and memorable. In the summer, there are a few special considerations that will help make sure your wedding cake is as perfect as you dream it will be. These are 5 tips for summer wedding cakes that every bride should know.

One: Choose Your Frosting Wisely. For an outdoor wedding, it pays to be sensible in your frosting selection. Fondant is the best choice for a cake on a hot summer day, because buttercream and whipped cream will melt and ruin the appearance of your wedding cake. To improve the flavor of fondant icing, ask your baker to apply a layer of buttercream frosting underneath. If you simply can’t see yourself with a fondant wedding cake, have the caterer keep your cake refrigerated until about 30 minutes before the cake cutting ceremony. It can be rolled out on a decorated table for a grand presentation, and your frosting will be intact.

Two: Protect Your Cake From Heat and Sun. Even a fondant wedding cake should not be exposed to direct sunlight. Always place the cake table in a sheltered location under a tent. Many people do not think about protecting the cake from sun for an indoor wedding, but the summer sun can come blazing in through big picture windows. Request that your cake be displayed away from direct sunlight for any summer wedding, indoors or out. Continue reading “5 Tips for Summer Wedding Cakes”

Different Types of Cake Pans and Their Uses

There are many types of pans that can be used in cake recipes and it is important to use pans appropriate to the recipe, baking time and occasion. There are different basic types of pans with specific uses.

Springform is a type of pan without a non-stick coating and has a side and bottom parts that can be detached. This pan is ideal for cake recipes like cheesecakes and frequently used in molding mousse cakes and layered cakes. The pan is commonly made of shiny tin. However, new products in the market also feature assorted color of exteriors.

Angel food is a type of tube pan with detachable side and cone, and has no bottom part. These are made specifically for angel food cakes. The pan requires no grease in baking angel food cake. One of the characteristics of these cakes is that they need to stick or have close contact to the sides of the pan. After baking, they need to be cooled in reversed position. A knife then is used to run between the cake and the sides of the pan to let loose the cake without damaging the form. Continue reading “Different Types of Cake Pans and Their Uses”

Using Cream Chargers To Make Whipped Cream Is A Cheaper And More Convenient Option

Cream chargers also called Nitrous oxide cartridges or Whippits are a cornerstone in the food industry due to their indispensable use for creating high-quality whipped cream. The popularity of cream chargers is increasing fast worldwide and features in nearly all social segments.

It is hard to imagine a world without whipped-cream, this is an essential ingredient used in a wide variety of dishes, which include your favourite coffee or hot chocolate at Starbucks. If you want to fluff cream into soft peaks yourself, this is now possible, you can decorate your own desserts and beverages at home in the same way. Such amazing recipes can create a revolution in your kitchen.

Since the invention of the cream whipper, the process of making whipped cream has become a whole lot easier. Prior to using these new tools, it was a very laborious task to mix heavy cream, sugar and flavourings etc together to make whipped cream. Cream chargers have become an important fixture in the modern kitchen and are like a magic wand to a novice home chef or baker. Continue reading “Using Cream Chargers To Make Whipped Cream Is A Cheaper And More Convenient Option”

Seven Mistakes to Avoid When Melting Chocolate

If you haven’t had it happen to you at least once, consider yourself lucky. You’re standing there at the stove, melting some of those little blocks of chocolate that come in boxes. You anticipate with glee those chocolate-dipped strawberries that will be tonight’s dinner finale. You look up to check the time or talk to the kids, and when you look back at the stove, your chocolate is not becoming silky smooth, but gloppy and weird. And to add insult to (culinary) injury, the more you heat and stir, the lumpier it gets.

Your chocolate has seized. The good news is that you can still use that chocolate mess in other recipes if you haven’t scorched it. The bad news is that you won’t be having chocolate dipped strawberries tonight. Read on to discover the seven most common ways to ruin chocolate when melting it and what you can do to avoid disaster.

Mistake #1. Letting water make contact with the chocolate – A block of chocolate doesn’t look like it, but it has no water in it at all. It’s made of small, dry particles of cocoa and sugar and of cocoa butter. A drop of water that gets into the melting chocolate causes the particles to clump up around the water. This is seizing. You can avoid this by keeping any moisture away from the chocolate. If you melt your chocolate in a double boiler, don’t use too much water in the bottom and do not let the water boil. Continue reading “Seven Mistakes to Avoid When Melting Chocolate”

How To Make Burger With A Grinder

Thinking about making your own beef, venison, pork, turkey, or chicken burger? One way that you can do it is with a meat grinder. The process of making your own burger with a grinder is actually pretty simple. Here are the steps:

Prepare The Meat

The first step involved in the process of making burger with a grinder is preparing the meat. In most cases you’ll start out with a large chunk of whatever type of meat it is that you are grinding. You need to cut this large piece of meat into small 1 inch by 1inch cubes. If you prefer, you can make the cubes a bit larger to save time since this step can be quite time consuming.

Large pieces of meat have to be cut into smaller chunks so that they can be fed through the grinder without causing it to back up. Not only does doing so help keep your grinder running smoothly, but it also helps speed up the process by not causing you to stop intermittently.

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3 Fast Slow Cooker Recipes That Are Amazingly Good

Most slow cooker recipes require 8 hours or more to cook. But if you don’t have the luxury of time but still want to use your crock pot to prepare a delicious dish, don’t worry – there are plenty of fast slow cooker recipes to choose from! They require less hours of cooking but still give the same delicious result – perfect for when you have unexpected guests coming over for dinner!

Try these amazingly good fast slow cooker recipes:

Amazing Crock Pot Turkey Chili

What you need:
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Not Your Grandparent’s Coffeemaker

Coffee makers have come a long way over the last few decades. Now we’re well into the 21st century and coffee is just as popular as it’s ever been. Coffee may be more popular now than at any time in the recent past. Technology has advanced beyond anything many people could imagine as little as 60 years ago. And, for all our advancements, coffee itself has not changed too terribly much. However, the contraptions we use to make it have evolved light-years beyond the wood burning stove and copper kettle our grandparents would have used. That is the way life goes, constantly moving forward; why would coffee makers be any different?

Some models today have their own water filtration systems built-in, like the Cuisinart DCC 1200. The 1200 comes with its own charcoal water filter to remove any impurities from the water and provide the best tasting coffee possible. Many manufacturers design models with permanent gold coffee filters for the coffee grinds. They help the buyer save money on filters and help protect the environment by cutting back on waste because they’re reusable. Coffee makers today can heat water instantly and be programmed 24 hours in advance. The units sold at your local big box store can make iced coffee, espresso, and they have multiple brewing options. Today’s modern coffee drinker is advanced and use to using highly sophisticated gadgets in their daily life. Just look at the computing power of the phones we carry. It makes sense that our coffee makers would be just as advanced as the rest of the technology we use. Continue reading “Not Your Grandparent’s Coffeemaker”