 |
Tips and tricks - Learn and improve your cooking skills.. |
 |
Know all about spices - use spices and herbs in cooking, marinades and seasonings. |
Quantities, metric cup conversion, liquids, mass (weight) and cup conversions for metric and imperial.
Dessert is many people's favourite part of a meal and whether treating the family or rounding off a dinner party, or fulfilling a need for comfort food. Dessert can be a satisfying indulgence. Relive old memories with traditional favourites such as cookies and bars and couffle, and master classics such as chocolate recipes. The easy recipes for desserts with pictures ensure that you'll find something to tantalize the taste buds every time.
Flour: Essential for making cakes, crepes, pastries.. It is important to use a quality flour, suitable for pastry work. Often it is worth buying directly from the bakeries or pastry shops. Buy always baker type. It is not more expensive but is the turning point for a success-ful or a failure cake. The good flour is slightly yellow and pressing between our fingers is a bit sticky.
Eggs: Are essential for creams, custards, pastries ... Currently you can buy pasteurized egg yolks or whites in special containers with less risk of bacteriological contamination.
Yeast: Essential for bread or cakes baking. There are two main types: fresh yeast and the chemical or powder yeast. The first is made up of microscopic fungi and produces a slow loosening. The second is a mixture of an acid and bicarbonate to produce an instant loosening. In pastry is usually prefer the fresh because it gives better taste, although is more difficult to work and needs time to be effective. In both types the aim is the same : fill the air dough that contains it.
Plates must be hot if you're serving a warm dessert. So you know there'll be enough to go around, cut large desserts such as cheesecakes, pies, tarts, and roulades into wedges or slices. Place them on a flat platter or cake stand the pieces can be difficult to remove from a bowl and reassemble them so they look whole. If you're offering a selection of desserts on one plate, keep the portions small and arrange them in an attractive way. Take containers of ice cream out of the freezer and leave at room temperature for an hour or until beginning to thaw at the edges. Scoop balls of the ice cream on to a cold tray, cover with plastic wrap, and return to the freezer until required. Serve piled into a mound.
Milk: Part of many recipes and essential for making yogurt, custard etc. You can use whole, semi or skimmed milk and in case of intolerance replace by soja milk.
Salt: Required to produce dough, mousse, bread etc. Even sweetest doughs use to require a tiny pinch of salt.
Butter: Saturated fat that is used to give flexibility, taste and texture. It is not interchangeable with margarine.
Cornflour: Cornstarch or corn flour is an excellent thickener used in the pastry cream, amongst many other recipes.
Sugar: One of the main ingredients of desserts. It can be changed by other sweeteners but carefully. For example honey can make the work of sugar but since it is much more sweet you need only half quantity.
Chocolate: Used in hedges or fillers. Always prefer to use tablets at least 70% and melt or grate according your needs.
Cream: Liquid in brick containers or pressurized already sweetened.
Oil: For frying use always olive oil extra virgin while for doughs and other purposes sunflower or corn oils are better.
Various types of Pasta: Puff pastry, phyllo etc. Better to have them frozen cause to make them at home is little "gratifying".
Fruits in syrup: To be part of salads or fruit salads if we have no fresh fruit. The cherries in syrup are used as ornaments, cakes and pastries.
Fresh fruit: The cheapest and best desserts ever invented. Also widely used in other desserts we find apples, pears, pineapple, peaches, oranges and strawberries.
Nuts: Pine nuts, almonds, macadamia nuts, hazelnuts, walnuts etc.
Candied fruit: mainly used in decorating cakes.
Natural flavors: The most common are cinnamon (powder and branch), vanilla and lemon peel, orange blossom water or rose, among many others.
Yogurt: Greek type or normal.
Gelatin: Granular compound or in leaves.
