When Baking with Butter:
Room temperature butter in the cake batter is one of the biggest cake baking mistakes. In fact, butter must be below 68° to trap air molecules and build structure. Otherwise, the fat will liquefy and the cake will be flat. To get “cool” butter, cut the chilled butter into chunks and let it sit in a bowl for 5 minutes before beating.
When Mixing Cake Batter:
You cannot over beat the eggs, sugar and butter, but you can over beat the flour. If you do, gluten will form and you will be making a quick bread instead of layer cake. Beat the flour just until there are no visible signs of dry flour, but not until the batter is completely smooth.
Cake Flour:
Cake flour is milled from soft wheat that has a lower gluten content and higher starch content than all-purpose flour. It helps to ensure a fluffy texture in cakes and pastries. A substitute for cake flour is to use all-purpose flour, but reduce the amount by 2 tablespoons per cup.
Green Food:
The food choices that we make every day have a profound effect on the environment. From farm to spoon, growing our food, processing it and transporting it all use tremendous amounts of energy, water and chemicals. By making just a few small changes in our eating and buying habits, we can greatly reduce this impact. When we eat green, we help the environment by reducing global warming pollution and help ourselves by eating fresh and healthy food. Eat local from farmers in your own neighborhood!
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