Kitchen Hints and Tips #5 … How to Bake without Sifting your Ingredients …

Kitchen Hints and Tips #5 … How to Bake without Sifting your Ingredients

 

I love to bake and, over the years, I’ve made a huge variety of beautiful biscuits, slices, muffins, cakes, etc. They’re all tried and true recipes that give me confidence they’ll turn out perfectly every time.

 

I also love finding new recipes but any new recipe must pass the test and meet the following criteria, it must:

 

  • be simple … I don’t like recipes that are complex and much prefer recipes where the instructions are clear, logical and easy to follow with the ingredients listed in the order in which they’re needed.

 

  • be quick … I’m busy … show me a Mum who isn’t! I like recipes that don’t take a long time to create so I can get dinner on the table in a hurry or baked goods completed fast.

 

  • use common and familiar ingredients … I like to be able to open the pantry and fridge knowing that I’ve got a good supply of basic, staple ingredients that I can use to create the majority of my recipes. I hate having to fly out to the shop to buy an unusual ingredient that I rarely use.

 

  • be reliable … when I cook or bake, I want to be assured that the recipe will be successful each and every time. I get really frustrated when I find a recipe, follow the instructions to the letter and end up with a dish that’s not even remotely close to the photo in the cookbook or the recipe fails in terms of taste or texture.

 

  • be family-friendly …. cooking for a family involves finding a balance between everyone’s likes and dislikes. I, therefore, love recipes that are delicious but that will appeal to most people.

 

But most of all, I’m a huge fan of shortcuts … I love finding or creating ways to do things quicker and easier than usual methods. So today I’m going to share with you a simple trick that will eliminate the need to sift your dry ingredients when you bake.

 

Most recipes will call for flour, cocoa, baking powder and other similar ingredients to be sifted. The main reason is to remove any lumps but also to mix together your dry ingredients so they combine smoothly and evenly.   Having to sift not only adds an extra step to the process but it also means you have an extra utensil that needs to be washed up. Instead of sifting, I simply use my whisk. I use it for a lot of recipes to combine the wet and the dry ingredients anyway, so using it to remove lumps and combine the dry ingredients makes sense. It will also do a reasonable job in terms of aerating the flour so that cakes and baked goods are light and fluffy. The only kind of recipe I use my sifter for now is a sponge cake, for everything else I just use a whisk.

 

So if you want to save some time, use fewer utensils and still achieve a good result with your baking, try using a whisk.

 

So tell me, do you enjoy baking and what’s your favourite cake or muffin recipe?

 

 

If you enjoyed this kitchen tip, you might also enjoy these:

 

Kitchen Hints and Tips #1 ... How to Soften Butter in a Hurry 001

 

 

Kitchen Hints and Tips #2 … Simple Tips to Help you Open Stubborn Jars

 

 

Kitchen Hints and Tips #3 ... Tips for Making the Most of your Slow Cooker

 

 

Kitchen Hints and Tips #4 … How to Freeze Bananas 001

 

 

 

 

Comments

  1. Using a whisk is a great idea. I tend to look for quick and easy recipes too and things that aren’t ridiculously complicated xx