Hello,
I stumbled upon these forums while trying to google some cooking information. I feel really stupid asking these questions because I know how to cook and I know how to improvise. I am just not 100% sure what everything means in an American cookbook.
So I have some yummy muffins baking right now and whilst preparing them, I found myself asking a variety of questions.
1. Does "mix ingredients" mean by hand (wooden spoon) or does it mean in a mixer? Does it depend on what you are baking? I mix pancakes by hand, most cakes by mixer. What is the correct way to mix muffin batter? Does the terminology in the recipe give me the answer?
2. Should I always sift flour unless it says not to when baking? Or should I never sift flour unless it says to? I chose to sift my flour for these muffins.
3. What the heck does it mean by this: 1/4 cup butter, cubed? Where I come from, a cube would be 1 - 2 cm cubes. Surely this is not what this means? I opted to "dice" my butter but then when the next instructions were to mix with a fork and sprinkle over muffins, I decided to rub the butter in to give it a more uniform distribution. What exactly was I supposed to do? The muffins are looking very appetizing BTW
So thank you in advance for any help you can give me.
I stumbled upon these forums while trying to google some cooking information. I feel really stupid asking these questions because I know how to cook and I know how to improvise. I am just not 100% sure what everything means in an American cookbook.
So I have some yummy muffins baking right now and whilst preparing them, I found myself asking a variety of questions.
1. Does "mix ingredients" mean by hand (wooden spoon) or does it mean in a mixer? Does it depend on what you are baking? I mix pancakes by hand, most cakes by mixer. What is the correct way to mix muffin batter? Does the terminology in the recipe give me the answer?
2. Should I always sift flour unless it says not to when baking? Or should I never sift flour unless it says to? I chose to sift my flour for these muffins.
3. What the heck does it mean by this: 1/4 cup butter, cubed? Where I come from, a cube would be 1 - 2 cm cubes. Surely this is not what this means? I opted to "dice" my butter but then when the next instructions were to mix with a fork and sprinkle over muffins, I decided to rub the butter in to give it a more uniform distribution. What exactly was I supposed to do? The muffins are looking very appetizing BTW
So thank you in advance for any help you can give me.