4 Simple Cooking and Baking Hacks You Must Know

I’ve been blessed to grow up in a family where both of my grandmas can cook and or bake extremely well.  As a result, I’ve learned a lot of my baking and cooking knowledge from them.  I greatly enjoy cooking, and I love baking – especially when there are going to be guests present 🙂

Over the last ten years, I have acquired a few tips and “hacks” to enhance your cooking/baking experience.

DISCLAIMER:

Some of these I learned on my own, but most of the credit goes to my Grandma (Rita Wenzel) for teaching me the baking tips, and my Meema (Colleen Szymanski) for teaching me the cooking tips.  And also my dad (Terry Szymanski), because he taught me how to clean up after myself 🙂  One of my dreams is to have a maid that cleans my kitchen for me after I cook something every time.  That would be AWESOME!

Okay, back on track!

The first thing to remember when you’re cooking and or baking is to “clean as you go,” as Terry puts it.  If you don’t, there will be a HUGE pile of mess to clean up after you’re done.  Trust me, you don’t want to have to do all that work after cooking something.  You’ll be way too tired.  Well, at least I am.

Okay, here they are!

Baking Hacks

Hack 1:  Add the RIGHT Amount of Salt

ALWAYS add salt to ANYTHING you are baking!  I don’t care what it is.  Bread, cake, muffins, pancakes, waffles, cookies, anything with a cake-like or bread-like consistency.

Why?

Because salt brings out the flavor!  It will make everything you bake taste just that much better.  

HOWEVER, NEVER add the amount of salt that the recipe calls for!  I did this once and it was disgusting.  No matter what the recipe calls for (but only if it’s a baking recipe), always add a vigorous shake of salt (depending on how efficient your salt shaker is).  Only a few shakes!  Shake it for about 3-5 seconds (again, depending on your salt shaker), and then STOP.

Hack 2:  For Cookies:  They are Done a Little Before You THINK They Are

That’s always the hard part, isn’t it?  When are the cookies “done”?

My strategy is this:

1. Cook the cookies for five minutes and then check them.
2. Turn the cookie pan 180 degrees and cook for 1-3 more minutes depending on how brown they look.
3. When the cookies look firm and semi (Not all the way!) done, THEY ARE DONE.
4. Put the cookie pan on a cooling rack, but DO NOT take the cookies themselves off of the rack!
5. Wait until the cookies are semi cooled, and THEN take them off the rack and put them on their own separate cooling rack.

This works.  I know the cookies may seem like they aren’t even done, but they will continue to cook on the hot pan even AFTER you take them out of the oven, so they will get done!  What this method does is make sure you don’t lose track of the cookies in the oven and burn them, and they get to keep cooking while also cooling down which most of the time cooks them to perfection.

Cooking Hacks

Hack 3:  Always Add Salt and Olive Oil to Your Pasta Water

My Meema always says that’s the only chance you get to season your noodles.  Adding salt to your pasta water helps to flavor the pasta, and adding olive oil helps the noodles to not stick together as much after you rinse them.

I would recommend bringing the water to a boil FIRST, and then adding a teaspoon of salt and a dash of olive oil.  If you add the oil and salt first, your water might take longer to boil.

Also make sure you rinse your noodles after draining them!  That helps with the sticking problems as well 🙂

Hack 4:  When Using Sauces From a Can, Add Spices

Sauces and other things that come in cans can taste, well, like they came out of a can.  In other words, they taste generic.  If you want your food to taste better, add spices!

Which spices?

Well that depends on what came out of the can, and what it’s meant for.  

For example, if I were making spaghetti sauce and I used some canned tomatoes, then I would add Italian spices because spaghetti is considered (by most) to be Italian food.  If I were making Mexican food, I would add Mexican spices.  If you don’t know which spices go with which foods, make sure you look that up first so you don’t add something you can’t undo! BE CAREFUL THOUGH!!!  Don’t add TOO much spice!  That will make your food really spicy and over seasoned.

Doing this makes your food taste better – and less like it came out of a can 😉

 

Well, there you have it!  4 cooking and baking hacks.  These aren’t ALL the hacks I know, but these are the ones I could think of right now, and these are also the ones that seem the most important to me.

If you think of some, let me know!  I’m always on the lookout 🙂

Special thanks to my Grandma and my Meema!  Love you guys!

 

Until next time,

Hope Frances