Tuesday's Tips, Tricks and Tid-Bits: Evenly Cooking a Piece of Meat

It's one of the most common mistakes people make when cooking a piece of meat either on the stovetop or the grill.  In an effort to make sure that the meat is cooked evenly they turn it too often.

Ideally, a piece of meat should only be turned once: you cook it on one side and then flip to the other....no more, no less.*  Reason being that every time you flip a piece of meat back over to a side that's already been cooked the outer layer of meat gets cooked yet again before the heat ever makes it towards the center.  What results is a tough, overcooked exterior.  This is especially true if you need a good crust.

*This assumes you're cooking a two-sided piece of meat such as a burger patty.  If you're working with a larger piece that needs searing on more than two sides just make sure to cook it once on each side.

Also along those same lines it's worth noting that you should never use a spatula or tongs to press down on a piece of meat.  This is quite a common practice (prior guilty party myself) that does nothing other than squeeze out the juices that keep your meat moist and flavorful.

This is one of those situations in which patience is a virtue.  Just let the meat do it's thing...it will be well worth the wait!

Tuesday's Tips, Tricks and Tid-Bits: Baking with Glass, Metal andSilicone

In this day and age one has endless options when it comes to baking dishes. You've got glass pans, metal pans and even silicone ones in every size and shape you can imagine. While this convenience is wonderful in many ways, it can leave you feeling a bit lost at the same time. Or on the other hand you may not even realize that it was the lighter aluminum pan that caused your beloved brownies to bake much slower than usual. This is why you often see various baking instructions on the back of boxed cake mixes that are based on what type of pan you use.

So what's the difference? Below is a quick overview to help you understand how each type of pan will affect your dish.

Glass: Glass pans earn points for being easy to clean, a common complaint with most metal pans. Glass dishes also tend to absorb heat more readily resulting in the ability to brown your food versus burning it.
Good for: meats, casseroles, savory dishes
Not so great for: sugary treats (they tend to burn around the perimeter before they finish cooking in the middle)

Metal: Most metal pans are typically made from aluminum. There are 3 factors that will affect how fast your food cooks: the color of the pan, how shiny the metal is and whether or not it is coated. The rule of thumb is that the darker the metal, the more heat it it will absorb and the faster the food will cook.
Good for: cakes, cookies, muffins, bread

Silicone: The new kid on the block. If sticking is a concern for you, then silicone is a great option. The only thing to consider is that silicone is a poor heat conductor and your baked good will brown very little, if at all.
Good for: anything that tends to stick, anything you don't want a crust on
Not so great for: meats you're wanting to brown

Tuesday's Tips, Tricks and Tid Bits ~ Baking vs Boiling Eggs

If you've ever been on Pinterest there's a good chance you've seen one of the many pins claiming that baking eggs instead of boiling them is the way to go.  You know those over zealous pins I'm talking that state that baking eggs "is the best thing EVER!!!" and that "once it try it this way you'll NEVER go back to boiling them".

While Pinterest has a lot of good ideas, I have found that a few claims I've tested have fallen flat.  You know that pin that says that putting baking soda and a bandaid on a splinter will pull it out?  Yeah,  Pinterest lied.  I tried that and it did not work at.all.

But since I'm weird and love eating boiled eggs whites I figured I'd give this a go.  

To bake "boiled" eggs you simply place the eggs directly on the wrack of an oven heated to 325 and bake for 25-30 minutes.  Then you plunge them in a bowl of ice water for 5 minutes before peeling them.

Don't worry if your eggs end up with little brown spots.  The eggs

sweat and then the condensation browns.

Ta-da!

While I will have to say that my eggs turned out great (they were perfectly cooked and peeled very easily), I don't think it would be worth the extra effort unless you had a lot of eggs you were wanting to cook.  For me, it seems easier to use my trusty method of putting eggs in a bowl of room temp water, gently bringing the water to a boil and then turning it off and leaving the eggs to sit in the water for 12-15 minutes before plunging them in ice water and peeling.

If you're going to bake the eggs I would suggest placing them in muffin tins because I got very small light brown marks where the eggs had been laying on the wrack.  That should take care of the problem.

Have you ever tried baking eggs instead of boiling them?  I'm interested to see how this turned out for others...

Tuesday's Tips, Tricks and Tid-Bits ~ Fun Food Facts

Happy Tuesday!  You know what that means....only 3 more days (excluding today) until the weekend, right?

I decided to take a different route with today's post after stumbling upon a few fun food facts over the past few days.  The list below is compiled from a few different sites and, quite frankly, some of them are just crazy.  I won't spoil any of them, but I'm willing to bet a few of them will come as a surprise.


1. Americans eat 900% more broccoli today than they did 20 years ago.
2. Each egg has approximately 17,000 tiny pores covering its shell.  These pores can absorb flavors and odors which is why it's best to store them in their carton.
3. There are over 500 different types of bananas in the world.  That's bananas!
4. Apples are members of the rose family.
5. Americans eat 350 slices of pizza every second.  That totals 100 acres of pizza each day.
6. The FDA allows approximately 30 insect fragments and one rodent hair per 100 grams of peanut butter.  Still craving that PB&J?
7. Refried beans are actually only fried once.  A translation error resulted in this mishap when the original name of the dish means "well fried beans".
8. Worcestershire sauce is made by completely dissolving anchovies in vinegar.  The sauce contains the entire fish, bones and all.
9. It takes 12 honeybees to produce 1 tablespoon of honey.
10. Pumpkins are actually a fruit, not a vegetable.
11. The first carrots originally brought to the US from Europe they were purple.
12. American spend more than $2 billion dollars each year on Halloween candy.
13. Forest Mars (son of Mars candy founder) and his business partner Bruce Murrie (son of Hershey founder) created M&M's.  The candy got it's name from the first letters of their last names.
14. The creamy filling in Twinkies actually isn't cream at all, but is mostly Crisco, a vegetable shortening.
15. Corn dextrin, a common thickener used in junk food, is also used as glue on postage stamps and envelopes.
16. In 1950 McDonald's largest value meal option included a hamburger, fries and coke and totaled 600 calories.  Today's same value meal clocks in at 1550 calories because of large increases in portion size.
17. There is more real lemon juice in Pledge Lemon Furniture Polish than Country Time Lemonade.
18. The powder on chewing gum is finely ground marble.
19. During your lifetime you'll eat approximately 60,000 pounds of food.  That is the weight of about 6 elephants.  Hopefully most of that food will come from recipes you found here :)


Not sure why I decided to stop one short of 20, but maybe I'll continue these fun facts in another post down the road.  Until then, make sure to watch out for that grasshopper leg in your peanut butter!

Sources:

Ag Day

List Verse

Cook with John

Random History

Tuesday's Tips, Tricks and Tid-Bits ~ How to Identify a Bad Egg

You've got a bad egg there.  No, literally.  How often have you wondered whether or not the eggs you have on hand are fresh?  You can't exactly smell them (unless they're rotten, that is), but luckily there are a few dead giveaways that you need to toss them ASAP.

from This Week for Dinner

First you need to.....

1. Fill a fairly deep bowl almost to the top with cool water.
2. Gently place an egg into the bowl, being careful not to break it.  If the egg floats, it's a bad egg.  If it sinks, proceed to step #3.
3. If the egg lays flat along the bottom of the bowl it is fresh.  If it stands on one end, it's still fresh, but less so than if it laid flat.  Both of these would be safe to eat, but you should eat the egg that stands on one end first.
4. If you're even the least bit hesitant about a carton of eggs, test each one just to be on the safe side. 

Last one to do so is a rotten egg!  Sorry, had to do it :)

Tuesday's Tips, Tricks and Tid-Bits ~ Chocolate

Today's post is short and sweet (literally...the topic is chocolate), but it's still something I found incredibly helpful.  Think of it more of a tid-bit than a tip.
There are so many different terms for the various kinds of chocolate out there that I always end up having to google them to find out which is which.  There's bittersweet chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate, milk chocolate, german chocolate....I'll stop here, lest I end up snatching up a Hershey's Dark Chocolate with Almonds mini for breakfast.

There are plenty of specifics on this topic (percentages of milk solids and cocoa), but I'm just giving you the nitty gritty basics so you'll know what means what when you're on aisle 3 at Publix :)

Source

Semisweet Chocolate: Dark Chocolate

Bittersweet Chocolate: Extra Dark Chocolate; also known as Unsweetened Chocolate or Baking Chocolate

Milk Chocolate:  It's lighter in color, is much sweeter and is the most popular kind of chocolate found in candies.

White Chocolate:  This isn't technically a type of chocolate, but rather only contains cocoa butter.  It doesn't really taste like chocolate, but of vanilla or other added flavors.

Tuesday's Tips, Tricks and Tid-Bits ~ The Joys of Oil and Boiling Water

I'm not sure about you, but my days are still all screwy from last week.  Getting the 4th off was just fabulous, but I keep thinking that today should be Friday for some reason.  Too bad it's not.  Fridays are full of good things:  usually a trip to Longstreet Cafe for a bacon and egg biscuit, sushi date nights with the hubs, maybe ice cream afterwards.  Then Friday means Saturday is next, which means I sleep in late and then cook a scrumptious breakfast that probably takes quite a bit more effort than my weekday breakfasts.

Hhhmm all of these things seem to revolve around food.  Oddly enough I did not realize that until I typed it all out.

But alas today is not Friday.  It's only Tuesday.  Which means another edition of tips, tricks and tid-bits.    Aren't you excited???  Hopefully these posts are helpful to you....if they aren't PLEASE feel free to leave me a comment suggesting other topics.  Do you always have trouble with layer cakes?  Can't ever get your dough to rise properly?  Whatever it is, if I'm not covering it, just shout it out.  Or type it, rather I should say.  And if I don't have an answer to your question I'll find it.

Alright, back to today's tip:  Adding a bit of oil to your pot of boiling water.  Did you know that by adding just a bit of oil (just a drizzle) to your pot of boiling water you will prevent it from foaming over?  You know, you run to the other room for just a sec and come back to your pot boiling over with tons of foamy bubbles.  And then you have the resulting stain from the spillover to clean off your stovetop range.  Can you tell I've had quite my fair share of experiences with this?

Good news:  the oil will put a quick stop to that.  Yes, you can get your water up to a roaring bubble, but it won't ever foam up and over the side if there's oil in there.

I usually use olive oil, but canola or vegetable oil will work too.

Daily Green

Bonus Pro:  If it's pasta you're making in that pot of boiling water the oil will also keep your noodles from sticking together.  Two birds with one stone :)

PS: Please for the love of Pete add the oil to the water BEFORE heating it.  If 3rd grade science taught us anything it's that oil and water don't mix.  So you add some oil to that already boiling water and it's going to pop right back at you.  And by "pop" I mean explode.

Tuesday's Tips, Tricks and Tid-Bits ~ Cookie Troubleshooting

It's so incredibly easy for things to go wrong in the kitchen.  You measure in an extra 1/4 C flour because you don't properly level it off, you use baking powder instead of baking soda, you correctly use baking soda but it's not fresh, you didn't let your butter come to room temp.....the list could literally go on and on and on.

Baking really is nothing but a chemical reaction amongst ingredients to form your final product.  And I didn't exactly do too well in Chemistry 101 at UGA.  Let's just say it singlehandedly changed my mind about becoming a Pre-Pharmacy major.

You usually think of cookies as an easy option when it comes to desserts.  Or at least I do.  I mean, Pillsbury sells these things as break and bake and slice and bake and you always see 5 years olds baking them in the commercials.  So it can't be that hard to do these things from scratch, can it?  Well, usually not.  But even the most miniscule of common mistakes can result in a panicked trip to the local bakery for those cookies you promised to bring to the get together tonight because yours flat out flopped.

Below is a quick chart to help you with the trouble shooting.  The bad news is that by the time your cookies turn out like some of the ones below, you've already wasted part or all of a batch.  But the good news is that this handy dandy chart will help you know how to fix any issues you have in the future.

*The chart below is geared more towards chocolate chip cookies that call for the dough to be chilled, but I've still found it incredibly helpful when troubleshooting issues with other types of cookies.

Make sure to hop over to The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie for more details regarding that perfect cookie.  It's a phenomenal resource!

from The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie

1.  This cookie is your default cookie by which to compare the rest.  It is the one that is considered to be the most "perfect".
2.  This dough was not chilled properly in the fridge and therefore spread more than it should.  You can tell that it's a little flatter than the rest.
3.  This dough contained too much flour.  The dough probably looked identical to the "right" dough, but the cookie turned out drier and denser and did not spread properly.
4.  This dough didn't have enough flour.  As opposed to cookie #3 it spread too much and cooked faster around the perimeter than it did in the middle.
5.  This dough was over-mixed, which is such a common mistake with cookies.  The texture and the color are off as a result.
6.  This dough was formed into too-small portions and therefore overcooked based on the recommended bake time.  Smaller portions are always fine, but just make sure you adjust the baking time accordingly.  Keep an eye on them! 
7.  Alternately, this dough was formed larger than the suggested portion size and therefore did not bake completely in the middle.  Again, make sure to adjust your baking times accordingly.
8.  This dough was baked in an oven with the temperature 25 degrees above where it should have been.  As a result the cookie baked too fast and turned out dry and overdone.
9.  On the other end of the spectrum, this dough was baked in an oven 25 degrees too cool. The cookie turned out flat and didn't set up properly.
10.  This dough was still frozen when baked.  Freezing baked goods is always fine, but make sure you let them sit at room temperature for 15-25 minutes before sticking them in the oven.  This allows them to thaw just a bit while still remaining chilled.


BONUS TIP FROM YOURS TRULY:  A cookie that is done in the oven will end up being overdone in the end.  The cookies are still so hot when you take them out of the oven that they continue to bake just a bit afterwards.  You want them slightly underdone when you take them out so that they are perfect by the time they set up and cool.

Tuesday's Tips, Tricks and Tid-Bits ~ Correctly Measuring Ingredients

It's happened to all of us.  You follow a recipe to a T and it still somehow flops.  Did you use baking powder instead of baking soda?  Nope.  Did you use self rising flour instead of all purpose?  Nope.  Hhhhmmm maybe you forgot to add the salt or vanilla?  Nope.  [Bangs head with rolling pin]  WHAT HAPPENED?!

A lot of things can go wrong along the way, but one mistake that is commonly made is the incorrect measuring of ingredients.  This applies to both the tools and the methods used to measure them.  It sounds kind of dumb because, I mean, how hard can it be to measure???  But add in an extra 1/4 cup of flour and 1/4 C less oil all by accident and your recipe is sure to turn out slightly different than intended.

Below is a quick and easy outline to guide you through the measuring process.....

Dry Ingredients

Graduated measuring cups are used for larger amounts of dry ingredients.  Measuring
spoons should be used to smaller amounts of ingredients.

My fave graduated measuring cups that I received as

a wedding gift.

Tuesday's Tips, Trick and Tid-Bits ~ Farm Fresh Eggs

Most of these themed Tuesday posts revolve around how to do something better or in fewer steps, but this one is more or less my two cents.  I think I had mentioned in a previous post that I had read The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.  I'll save my 10 page long review of that book for another day, but one thing I took away from it was the importance of supporting local farms.  By buying from smaller local farms you support farming sustainability and get a much better product (that will also come at a much better price).  This is true for virtually every food (meat and produce) out there, but today I want to focus on eggs.

If you've never had farm fresh eggs you're seriously missing out.  The color of the yolks is a much deeper yellow (almost an orange) and they just taste phenomenal.  They have a very rich taste...if that makes any sense.  You're also assured that the hens that laid these eggs were running around outside perching and flapping their wings and doing innate birds things like eating bugs and poop and grass.  They're doing things that birds should be doing.

Look at all those gorgeous colors...blue, green, tan...

Tuesday's Tips, Tricks and Tid-Bits ~ Crumb Coating Your Cake

If you regularly read my blog you'll know that one of my favorite things to bake is a cake.  Layer cakes to be exact.  Layer cakes used to intimidate me, but once I got used to them they have become the confection I get most excited about.  And this is mainly because I so enjoy eating them.  And tasting the batter and frosting along the way :)

One of the problems I encountered the most when I first started out was that of getting a good coat of frosting free of crumbs.  And the further along in the frosting process I got, the more the issue snowballed.  Crumbs got back into the bowl and were then just redistributed all over the cake each time I applied more frosting.  It would quickly became one, huge crumb-y mess.

The easy fix for this is to do what is known as  crumb coat.  You lightly coat the cake with a thin layer of frosting, not worrying about any crumbs that might get in the frosting at this point.  Then you stick the cake in the fridge so that the frosting will set.  When you put the final coat of frosting on the cake after it's nap in the fridge you don't have the worry about the crumbs because they are sealed in under the crumb coat.

Substituting Butter with Spreads

In an attempt to create a healthier dish, one might be tempted to reach for a spread (aka a butter substitute) in place of the actual butter.  While this may seem like a good idea at the time, the resulting effects can be less than desirable depending on the dish.

If the recipe calls for butter solely as a flavor additive (using butter to flavor a piece of meat), then you might be okay.  But if the butter is used as the "token fat" in a dish such as a cake and will affect the texture, a spread simply won't cut it.  This is because spreads are more water and less fat when compared to butter.

Smart Balance is one option that comes to mind.  If you read the label of this product you might be surprised at what you'll find.  Smart Balance is actually an oil blend rather than a dairy based product.  So if you were to use Smart Balance in place of regular unsalted butter in a cake recipe, the result would be quite detrimental.

Let's take a look at the ingredients list for Smart Balance, shall we?

Tuesday's Tips, Tricks and Tid-Bits ~ Measuring Gooey Ingredients

I got the idea for today's post as I was baking my peanut butter oatmeal muffins I posted about yesterday.  You know when you have to measure something sticky or gooey (such as shortening or peanut butter or honey) and you can NEVER get it all scraped out of the cup??  And then everything else you measure sticks to the gooey mess as well?  I know, so incredibly frustrating.

And then on top of that mess you can never seem to wash it out of the measuring cup either.  It just sticks to your sponge and smears around everywhere.

Tuesday's Tips, Tricks and Tid-Bits ~ What to Store Where in Your Fridge

Last week I did a post on what to NOT store in your fridge.  I even surprised myself at some of the things I found doing research for that post.  Who knew potatoes shouldn't be store in the fridge??

This week I'd like to focus on what to store where in your fridge.  What should go in the door of your fridge?  What should go in the top or the bottom of the fridge?   Keep reading for a few tips that will keep all your goods fresh as long as possible.

Tuesday's Tips, Tricks and Tid-Bits ~ What NOT to Store in Your Fridge

I'm sorry for being MIA yesterday, but I woke up with a gnarly migraine and ended up in bed all day.  Not fun.  At all.  I try to post something every day, but yesterday it just wasn't going to happen.  I'm sure you missed me dearly and had no idea how you were going to make it through your day without a CCK post :)

But the good news is that there are four more weekdays left for me to post before this weekend.  And today brings some (probably surprising) info on which foods you DON'T want to store in your fridge.  I was actually very shocked when I began researching this topic and have certainly made some changes in my storage habits since.

The majority of the time, if an item is perishable, it will go in the fridge.  Milk?  In the fridge.  Chopped pineapple?  In the fridge.  Strawberries?  Yes, you guessed it: in the fridge.

The cold temperature setting in a fridge can keep bacteria from forming and will also slow down the ripening process for many fruits, thus making them keep for longer periods of time.

But certain foods actually do better if you don't refrigerate them.  Below is a list of such foods with a short explanation...

Note the tomatoes in the fridge...which should *not* be there!

Tuesday's Tips, Tricks and Tid-Bits ~ Buying Organic

If you read my post this past Friday, you had a chance to get a glimpse into my thoughts regarding supporting your local produce industry.  Today's topic is somewhat similar in nature, in that it involves the decisions we make about which organic foods give you the biggest bang for you buck.

In an ideal world we would all have limitless budgets to purchase fresh, organic produce.

*Let me interject here and just say that in an ideal world I would also have a nicely styled and adorable hen house in my backyard with a hen (named Miss Prissy from Fog Horn Leg Horn) that would lay me fresh eggs every morning.  I'm still working on Trey with this one....

Okay, back to my point.  Ideally this would be possible.  But let's get real: organic food is expensive.  And a lot of times I find that it goes bad even faster than non-organic food because it doesn't have things like the wax that coats most apples.  Yum!

Because of this, each year the Environmental Working Group publishes a list of the foods containing the highest levels of pesticide residues, and also those foods containing the lowest levels.  This way you can make an informed decision about which foods you want to purchase in either category (organic or non-organic).

Disclaimer:  I did not come up with the phrases "Dirty Dozen" and "Clean Fifteen".  These embarrassingly witty terms were coined by the EWG.

Enjoy!


The Dirty Dozen
*Listed in Order of "Dirtiest" to "Least Dirty, but Still Dirty"
Apples
Celery
Strawberries
Peaches
Spinach
Nectarines
Grapes
Sweet Bell Peppers
Potatoes
Blueberries
Lettuce
Kale/Collard Greens (it was a tie)


The Clean Fifteen
Onions
Sweet Corn
Pineapple
Avocado
Asparagus
Sweet Peas
Mango
Eggplant
Cantaloupe
Kiwi
Cabbage
Water Melon
Sweet Potatoes
Grapefruit
Mushrooms

One thing I'd also like to add to this is the fact that you can consider whether you are going to eat the skin of a particular fruit or vegetable.  i.e. If you are baking a potato and won't eat the skin, it isn't quite as important to buy organic.

Tuesday's Tips, Tricks and Tid Bits ~ Cutting Butter Into Biscuits

Today's post is an incredibly short and simple one, but it's one that is very near and dear to my heart.  Okay, maybe that's a little dramatic.  But I do truly find this tip I'm about to mention to be one of the best ones I've discovered during my few short years of baking.

If you've ever tried to cut butter into a flour mixture for biscuits or a pastry you know how cumbersome this process can be.  Even if you have a pastry cutter it can still be quite frustrating.  If the butter gets too warm (FYI you're always supposed to use chilled butter with biscuits) then it begins to clump together instead of separating into pea sized bits like it's supposed to.

After one (okay, several) frustrating goes with this very scenario I decided that it might be a good idea to come up with a better solution.  You can also use a food processor to cut the butter into a flour mixture, but I really didn't want to drag mine out and then have to wash it.  I know that sounds so incredibly lazy, but the last thing I want to do after cooking a scrumptious meal and sitting down to enjoy it is tote myself right back into the kitchen to wash 10+ dishes.

Tuesday's Tips, Tricks and Tid-Bits ~ Sharing Your Baked Goods

Today's post isn't really a trick or tip per se, but rather a fun and creative idea.  So often baked goods are given to friends and family.  They can be given as a fun surprise or given to someone going through a rough time.  While these yummy goodies are certainly always appreciated and are usually gobbled up within a short amount of time, sometimes there is so much food that it can't be consumed before it spoils.  And then it just ends up in the trash.

One quick and easy fix for this is to freeze the food you take to someone.  That way they can pop it in the oven whenever they need and/or want to.  I know it's probably not quite as excited as taking something fresh out of the oven, but this method might allow your loved one to enjoy even more of the tasty treat.

For example: this past weekend I whipped up some almond sugar cookies.  The recipe made several dozen, and I knew that it was just too many cookies to take to one small family get together.  I mean, we COULD have even them all (smile), but we really didn't need to.

Tuesday's Tips, Tricks and Tid-Bits ~ Room Temperature Ingredients for a Cake

This week's "Triple T" (tips, tricks and tid-bits...get it?)  post is about the importance of bringing cake ingredients to room temperature.  Now of course there's always the exception, say, if a recipe calls specifically for chilled butter.  But the vast majority of the time you'll want for your eggs, milk and butter to be at room temp when you incorporate them into your cake batter.

Why you ask?  Because when butter is at room temperature you can cream it properly with sugar so that it will hold more air.  If you try to cream cold butter with sugar you will end up with a clumpy, lumpy mess.  When eggs are at room temp they will act as an emulsifier because they can be fully incorporated into the batter.

In layman's terms:  when all of your ingredients are at room temperature they will produce a cake with a more tender crumb, and the cake will also rise to it's highest level and bake more evenly.   And that (to borrow Martha Stewart's famous words) is a good thing.

You can achieve this by setting your eggs, milk and butter out 60-90 minutes prior to baking.  *Make sure you don't set your butter out too soon or it will be too soft.  When you press the butter you should be able to see your finger print indention.  If you press it and the butter won't give it's too cold....if you press it and it completely squashes back it's too warm.*

But what happens when you decide spur of the moment that you want to bake a cake?  Or what about when you need to start baking immediately upon arriving home from a long day's work?  Luckily there are a few ways to speed up this process and cut down on your wait time.

Most people just put a stick of butter in the microwave for a bit to soften it up, but unfortunately this causes different parts of your butter to melt at different rates: the outside will be completely melted and the inside will still be solid.  The best solution is to cut your butter into thin slices (the thinner the better).  More surface area=faster warming time.

Tuesday's Tips, Tricks and Tid-Bits ~ Maximizing Store Bought Frosting

While most of the cakes and cupcakes I feature on the blog are frosted with homemade frosting, I do use canned frosting from time to time.  Sometimes life gets busy and it's easier to swing by Kroger and pick up the can of Duncan Hines.  And sometimes, let's just be honest here, I don't feel like pulling out the Kitchenaid mixer and all of the ingredients that go into a homemade frosting.  And if that's how I feel now, I can't image how pressed for time I'll be once I add kids into the mix one day!

Let me interject here though and say that I still like the taste of homemade frosting better.  The store bought stuff is made with shortening to extend it's shelf life, while the homemade stuff is usually made with butter or cream cheese.  That's why there's such a taste difference.

Okay...back to my point.  So how do you go about dressing up your store bought can?  First off, whip it for a few minutes.  You can do this with a Kitchenaid mixer or you can put it in a bowl and use a hand held mixer.  Whipping it for a few minutes will incorporate enough air to actually double it in size.  The result is a lighter, fluffier frosting that is easier to spread.  And since there's more air in the frosting it will also have fewer calories per serving than it did straight out of the can.  It's a win, win.

Another thing you can do is add a few elements of your own.  Add a few softened tablespoons of butter or some cream cheese.  To punch up the flavor a bit, add a teaspoon or two of vanilla, almond, lemon or mint extract.  And of course you can always dress it up by stirring in chocolate chips, sprinkles and other bits of candy.

One last thing I'd like to share in this post is the addition of two new pages to the blog: one is a Recipe Index which will make it easier to navigate this site, while the other is a FAQ page that covers the questions I most commonly receive.

I'm constantly working to better both the blog in general, and also the material I bring to the readers each day.  It's definitely a process (some of my earlier posts make me cringe), but it's getting there.  Thanks for hanging in there with me!

Have a suggestion?  Leave a comment!  I'd love to hear from you :)

Happy Tuesday everyone!