Julie Van Rosendaal gives her holiday baking tips
December is baking season, which means even those who might not break out the baking pans during the rest of the year might dig up some treasured family recipes and give it a go.
- Have any holiday baking tips of your own? Share them in the comment section below.
Whether you’re just a beginner or have mastered the art of pastry and shortbread years ago, here are some tips that might help you hone your holiday craft.
Get to know your ingredients
Most baked goods begin with butter. Many recipes call for unsalted and the reason for this, according to most recipe writers, is so that you can control the amount of salt in your recipe.
Bottom line is you need some salt in your baked goods anyway to keep them from tasting flat, so use salted butter if you want rather than make a special trip to the grocery store but decrease the amount of salt you add to your recipe. If you need to soften some quickly, dice it and pop it in the microwave or grate it with the coarse side of a box grater and leave at room temperature for a few minutes.
Brown sugar is often dried out when you go to use it but it can be kept soft with a scrap of bread or a marshmallow. In case of baking emergencies you can make your own by blending one tablespoon of molasses into one cup of white sugar. The more molasses you use, the darker the brown sugar.
All-purpose flour is fine for most baking, I generally don’t use cake and pastry flour because it’s not what most people have in their kitchens. Cake and pastry flour is lower in gluten, which can make for a more tender crumb. Bread flour is higher in gluten, which contributes more elasticity and structure as you knead your dough. Whatever kind of flour you use, make sure you measure it properly — stir it around a bit in its bin or bag to aerate it if you scoop it out, then level it off with a knife or your finger. Adding too much flour can make your dough tough and dry.
Measuring ingredients by weight is the most accurate way to bake. If you have recipes that call for weight measures, a baking scale is inexpensive and well worth the investment.
Mix it, roll it, beat it
Many batters and doughs begin by beating butter and sugar together, which incorporates air into the mixture making it pale and fluffy as the shards of sugar cut through the fat. If you’re adding citrus zest to what you’re baking, adding it now will release more of the flavourful oils and distribute it more efficiently through the batter.
Once flour comes into contact with the liquid in a recipe, it begins to develop gluten — those long, stretchy strands you get when you knead yeast doughs. In order to keep cakes, pastries and cookies tender, be gentle when combining the two. This is why muffins and quickbreads often have you mix the wet and dry ingredients separately and then stir the two together. Unless a recipe says otherwise, use as few strokes as possible.
Let your dough rest before you roll it out, even yeast doughs will be easier to knead if you let it rest for half an hour as soon as it comes together. If you like, dust your work surface with a combination of flour and sugar to prevent your dough from absorbing too much flour, or use flour and cocoa to prevent dark gingerbread from turning dusty white. Roll it out between two sheets of parchment, then cut cookies out right on the parchment and transfer it to a baking sheet when you’re ready to bake.
Know when it’s done
Oven temperatures can vary. If you’re not confident yours is accurate, pick up an oven thermometer for a few dollars at most department stores.
The toothpick test is popular but not always effective when so many baked goods should have moist crumbs in the middle. The easiest way to tell if muffins, cakes and loaves are done is to touch the domed top with your finger — if it’s springy to the touch, it’s done. If it leaves a dent, it needs to go back in the oven for a few minutes.
In general rolled cookies and shortbreads should come out when they’re pale golden around the edges — the darker they become, the crisper and snappier they’ll be. If you’re going for chewy cookies, they should be golden around the edges but still soft in the middle. Keep in mind that they’ll firm up as they cool, so if you want soft and chewy it's best that they not be over-baked.
Dark molasses and chocolate cookies can be tough to gauge — if they’re too soft too remove from the pan, they’re likely underdone, but better to err on the side of under-baking if you want chewy, over-baking if you want crisp.
Store cookies properly
When storing baked cookies, keep crisp and cakey-chewy cookies separate, otherwise the dry cookies will absorb moisture from the soft ones and vice versa. They’ll also take on each others' flavours while sharing a tin, so avoid stashing your gingerbread with your lemon crinkles. Most cookies and squares freeze well, wrapped tightly, for about four months.
