Somehow, between shuttles to and from football or fall soccer practice, you’ve managed to find enough time to bake some delicious holiday treats. While it’s fun to create treats to widen the eyes of your dinner guests, it’s not fun if you run into problems in the process. Here are some tips to help you avoid common baking disasters, and, if it’s too late, some help with salvaging your creations.
- Cracked cheesecake? Top it with berries, chocolate sauce or whipped cream, and no one will be the wiser. Cracking can often be avoided by placing a pan of water below the cake while it’s baking, and by running a knife around the edge of the pan before removing the cake.
- Seized chocolate? To prevent chocolate from getting grainy when melting, be sure that no liquid accidentally gets into it. A humid day may even provide enough moisture for melted chocolate to seize, and a wet pan or utensils certainly will. If using a double boiler, heat the water until it’s just about – but not quite – boiling. If it’s too late and your chocolate has seized, add one teaspoon of solid vegetable shortening per ounce of chocolate while warming on low heat and stirring.
- Cake sticking to the pan? If you used salted butter to grease the pan, that might have caused the problem. Try using unsalted butter, and your cakes should fall out effortlessly. If your cake is already in more pieces than it should be, don’t despair. Layer pieces of cake with fruit and whipped cream in clear glasses or a large glass bowl and voila…a parfait!
- Tough pie crust? While there’s no easy fix for this predicament, you can avoid it in the first place by chilling all of the ingredients prior to mixing them, cutting the shortening into small pieces before mixing, adding water very slowly, and mixing as little as possible. Too much water or mixing makes the flour’s gluten stretchy, which makes crusts tough.
