Never believe those who say that you cannot learn the tricks about pastries without working in professional kitchens.
There is a very famous saying
If cooking is an art, making pastry is a science. Because, unlike dishes, especially in pot dishes, pastries are not open to compensation. However, you can easily reduce these errors to zero, especially with the tips given by professionals. We have listed very critical tricks for you in many respects from recipe to ingredient. You can find these subtleties in our content that you cannot learn without working in professional kitchens and ovens …
Start at the end
Be sure to read your recipe before getting up and running. In fact, read the recipe back and forth. This way, you can prepare everything from scratch and when you start working, you don’t have to leave your work interrupted and go to buy materials or pots and pans. You can start heating your oven at the right time, measure the products you will use beforehand and remove the unnecessary ones.
Don’t be afraid of eggs
Don’t be hesitant when breaking your eggs. Otherwise, the eggshell will break into small pieces and mix into your dough. Instead, try to break the egg with one move and determination. If you do the crushing process by hitting the counter, not by hitting the edge of the bowl, you will prevent the problem of crust leakage. However, if you miss a few tiny pieces of shell, you can easily wet your finger and pick it up from the bowl.
Benefit from the power of olive oil
Measuring sticky materials like honey and molasses is a bit difficult and confusing. They stay at the bottom of the container, do not flow easily and cause you to miss the size. The easiest thing you can do before measuring such materials is to grease the measuring cup with olive oil. It will be sufficient to pre-grease a paper towel and wipe the spoon or container. Thus, sticky materials slide easily.
Use unsalted butter
Be sure to check whether the butter you use is salt-free, especially if you are making a cake. Because a salty butter can turn your cake into a disaster. However, we are not talking about the salty cake here. The main problem is that the chemistry of the dough changes due to salt and the texture and taste of the cake dough are deteriorated.
Bring the eggs to room temperature
This is one of the most basic rules. Let the eggs reach room temperature before breaking them into dough. The amount of air bubbles in the cakes made with eggs at room temperature is higher, which means that the cake rises better. Eggs need to stand outside the refrigerator for half an hour to reach the desired temperature.
Sprinkle salt on the cookie tray
You may have heard that the cookies are sprinkled with salt before putting them in the oven, especially for the chocolate cookies to reveal their taste better. Our recommendation is to use salt at the bottom, not the top. Before putting the cookies on the tray, sprinkle the base lightly with salt and you will ensure that the salt particles stick to the base of the cookie instead of splashing and spreading left and right. What’s more, while eating the Cookie, salt is first on your tongue, which helps you to switch from sweet to savory.
Take advantage of damp towels
Instead of cutting your cakes to the same thickness after baking, try to balance them before putting them in the oven. For this, after wetting and wringing the kitchen towels, wrap the cakes around the trays you bake. If you do this, all sides of your cake will rise at the same height. If you are worried about the towel catching fire in the oven, you can also use the reusable cake bands produced specifically for this job.
Use towels for other jobs
If you are complaining that the bowl is unstable on the counter while whipping your dough, use your kitchen towel. Moisten the towel and roll it up, then form a bagel on the counter. When you fit your bowl into the space in the middle, you can whisk firmly.
Use the power of ice
If you complain of sticking when you open the dough on the counter, fill the sealed refrigerator bags with ice cubes. Place these bags on the counter and create a cold dough zone. Thus, the dough will not stick to your counter.
Store the cookie dough in the freezer
Pre-make the sweet cookie dough and put it in the freezer. Because it is much easier to work with frozen cookie dough. By preparing this dough in large quantities and storing it in the freezer in pieces, you can make your job much easier when you are making cookies. After you put the cookie dough on the tray, you can cool it in the fridge for half an hour.
Use a thermometer for cheesecake
It is very difficult to understand whether the cheesecakes are fully cooked by just looking. You can use a kitchen thermometer instead and easily measure the internal temperature of the cheesecake. Internal temperature should be around 65-66 degrees. At this point, the cheesecake you take out of the oven continues to cook a little more at its own temperature and reaches a perfect creamy consistency.
Sprinkle bread crumbs on cake pans
If your cakes stick to the base of the molds, use breadcrumbs. Apply butter to the base of the mold and then sprinkle with breadcrumbs. Toasted breadcrumbs perform better than flour that smells raw when sprinkled at the bottom of the mold. Moreover, it helps to separate the edges of the cake easily.
Be safe as you measure
When measuring your ingredients, use reliable measuring cups instead of fancy-shaped measuring cups or glasses and spoons of unknown weight. This can be a graduated measuring cup or a water glass you are sure of its weight. However, it is always best to use measuring cups and scales.
Prepare your balance sheet well
Mizanplas is the process of preparing all materials before serving in professional kitchens. Use the mise-en-place expression in French, which means “everything is in its place”, also in your kitchen. Measure all the ingredients, chop what needs to be chopped, and place them on your counter in order of use. So nothing is missing.
Get an oven thermometer
It is true that there is a temperature setting on the ovens, but almost no oven’s internal temperature is at the level indicated by the pointer. Therefore, do not forget to buy a thermometer suitable for entering the oven. Thus, you can easily follow whether you have cooked your product at the degree specified in the recipe.
Use oils cold
Make sure that the oil you add to butter pastries is as cold as possible. Thus, the dough will easily reach that consistency that the old people called “mince”. The best way to fuse flour with butter while preparing dough is to use your hands instead of spoons or whiskers.
Never add water in one go
Adding too much water to the dough can lead to disaster. For this reason, be very careful about the consistency of the dough while adding water and other liquids to your dough. Never add the water specified in the recipe all at once, add it little by little and watch the consistency of the dough. Also, be careful not to mix your ingredients too much. For example, when the dough made with wheat flour is kneaded too much, it becomes hard and has a consistency like leather.
Chill your dough before opening it.
The oil in the dough must be cooled before it enters the oven. Do not open your dough immediately after mixing to get a perfect consistency and taste. Make sure to refrigerate. Thus, if there are oils that melt during the mixing process, they will cool and harden again.
Don’t use too much flour when rolling out the dough.
If you flour the counter or the dough board too much during the opening process, you will cause your dough to harden. Instead, you can use non-stick silicone coatings called “silpat”. Thus, your dough will not stick to the counter and it will not harden due to too much flour.
You can cook the dough a little too much while making a tart
When making a tart, you should bake the dough until it turns golden-brown. This can sometimes be longer than the time stated in the recipe. If necessary, you can make a tent with aluminum foil over the base of the pie to prevent burning. Otherwise, your tart dough may not be strong enough.
Rub eggs on the base of the tart
The ingredients in the scale can sometimes dampen the base and cause it to soften. This leaves you alone with a sponge-like and soft sole. To prevent this, you can cover the base with egg yolk before baking it and seal it. Another reason for the soft sole is that there is too much fat in the dough.
Do not lay the egg alone
If you want to smear eggs on pastries, add 1 tablespoon of milk or water to 1 egg and use it after whisking. This will make the consistency fluid as well as make the egg easier to spread.
Let it cool before slicing
When you weigh it, let it cool completely before slicing. Because the slices of the tart that you slice while it is hot are not uniform. The most important reason for this is that some thickeners such as tapioca starch only harden completely when cooled. To speed up the cooling process, you can place it on a wire and place it high, so that the gold dries.
