Читать книгу The Clueless Baker - Evelyn Raab - Страница 7

Baking — The Eleven-Step Program

1 First, decide what you want to make. This is the easy part. Do you feel like brownies, or are you having a focaccia kind of day? Do you want to throw something together really fast, or do you feel like taking your time and wallowing in the experience? Make up your mind, would you, please?

2 Choose a recipe. This book is full of them.

3 Read through the recipe. Do you have all the ingredients you’ll need? Are you sure? Do you have the right size baking pan? Will you need an electric mixer? Blender? Baking parchment? Does the dough have to chill before baking? Rise? Meditate? How long does it have to bake? Will whatever-it-is be ready to eat right away, or will you have to let it cool? It’s all there in the recipe — just take the time to read it.

4 Preheat the oven. Now. Before you do anything else. Go.

5 Assemble the ingredients. Take every single ingredient out and arrange it in a tasteful and attractive manner on your kitchen counter. If you are an obsessive type, you might even measure the ingredients into individual bowls and set them out in the order you`ll use them. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.

6 Prepare your baking pan. Grease it, flour it, line it with parchment paper if the recipe calls for it. Have some bowls ready; get out your mixer (find the beater thingies!); grab the measuring cups and a spoon. You don’t want to be groping around your junk drawer for a spatula when you’re up to your elbows in batter.

7 Okay, now you can start. Begin at the beginning and follow the instructions exactly. This is no time to be creative. At least, not the first time. If you decide to bake the same thing again, you can be more adventurous — substitute ingredients, take liberties and go rogue. But follow the directions at least once — you may even learn something.

8 Keep your eye on the oven. Set a timer and make sure you can hear it ring from wherever you’ll be. If necessary, buy yourself a dollar-store timer that you can take with you out to the yard or down to the basement. You think you’ll remember to take the muffins out of the oven, but honestly, you won’t. Not until you smell smoke. At which point it will be, alas, too late.

9 Do the toothpick test; tap the top of the loaf; stick a knife in the pie. Do whatever the recipe tells you, to make sure your whatchamacallit is baked to perfection.

10 Ta-da! Done. Remove your delicious baked item(s) from the oven, carefully remove from the baking pan(s) and let cool on a rack for as long as you can stand.

11 Enjoy. You earned it.