Cutting Cheesecake Neatly
I always wondered what the best way to cut a cheesecake was.—You know, the thick, delicious kind that sticks to the roof of your mouth when you take a bite—I would always make a mess of it with a knife. No matter how carefully and slowly I would cut, the cheesecake pieces ended up with jagged edges after the first few cuts. But then I came across this tip in a magazine, and it works wonders.
Take a string of dental floss (about 18 inches for a 10-inch cheesecake), wrap the ends firmly around your fingers and press the string through the cake and into the crust. Let go of one end of the floss and pull it through the cake at the bottom. Repeat for all cuts. Voila. A cleanly cut cake. (Note: This only works for a cake that has been baked or set and then released from a spring-form pan. It doesn't work while your cake is still in a pie pan.)
Another trick to cutting cheesecake neatly, and this works with the cake still in the pan, is keeping the knife (a very sharp knife) clean and smooth between each cut. To do this, fill a tall container with hot water, deep enough to cover the blade of your knife. If no container is available, hold the knife under hot water.
Dip the knife into the hot water, then wipe it on a clean towel before making every cut. The constant dipping and cleaning will prevent chunks of cake from the previous slice from depositing on top of the next slice.
Crumb Coat
This trick takes a few extra minutes, but the results are worth the time and effort. When decorating a cake, put on a "crumb coat" of icing first before applying the final layer of icing. To apply the crumb coat, put on a very thin layer of icing. (It can be messy and show lots of crumbs!) Put the cake in the freezer for 15-30 minutes, so the icing firms up, before applying the top coat of icing. This thin crumb coat catches all of the crumbs of the cake, so you don't have to worry about crumbs showing in the final product, and gives you a firmer base to work from. The crumb coat can also serve to protect the cake overnight from drying out in the fridge, if you're doing the final icing and decorating the next day.
Getting Butter Out of the Measuring Cup
Before measuring the butter in your recipe, rinse your measuring cup with clean water and shake it out. Then after you measure the butter in the cup, and are ready to add it to your ingredients, the butter will usually slide right out of the cup cleanly, without any scraping needed.
Easy Inverting
Web excerpt
For one hundred percent assurance your cake won't stick to the pan when you try to invert it, line the bottom of the pan with waxed or parchment paper. For a round cake pan, lay the paper out on a flat surface, place the bottom of the cake pan on top of it, and trace around the pan with a pen. Cut out the waxed paper, lightly coat the pan with oil, and put the paper in place. Prepare and bake cake as directed. Once the cake is baked and cooled for 10 minutes, loosen the edges with a knife and invert onto a cake rack to cool. The paper should peel off the cake easily.
Chocolate Chip Cookie Tricks
Web excerpt
The number one problem with chocolate chip cookies I hear about is: "My cookies come out flat! What can I do?" This is such a common problem. Here are the first few things you should check:
* Make sure your cookie dough is cold when you put it on the cookie sheet. If you have to chill it in between batches, that's what you should do.
* Make sure your cookie sheet is cooled to room temperature between batches. I usually rinse mine under the tap to clean off the crumbs and cool it down.
* Mix the dough thoroughly, but don't over-mix it.
* Try adding a tablespoon up to an additional ¼ cup of flour to the recipe if your cookies are still coming out too flat.
* Don't over bake. Remove cookies when they're just turning golden, but are still a bit soft in the center, and let them cool on a plate, rack, or countertop. They'll continue cooking for a few minutes after coming out of the oven.
"This recipe is certainly silly. It says to separate the eggs, but it doesn't say how far to separate them."—Gracie Allen, comedienne
(Cortesia: Vita Magazine)
