Baking Soda Search Results

How To: Ditch the Extract & Get Serious About Baking with Vanilla Beans

Most home bakers rely on vanilla extract as a flavor component to their cakes and cookies, but little do they know what they are missing until they trade in their extract for whole vanilla beans. The rich complexity and different notes of flavor of a true vanilla bean are often washed out and distilled into a one-note sweetness, especially if the extract is cheap or imitation. If you want to get more serious about baking, you need to get serious about using vanilla beans.

How To: Ripen Bananas Faster with These 3 Simple Tricks

A trip to any grocery store's produce section will quickly reveal that bananas are often picked from the tree well before their prime—which is necessary for them to arrive at our local store without going bad. In fact, bananas are refrigerated en route to our supermarkets in order to stave off the ripening process... which makes sense, since they travel quite the distance (from the Tropics around South America or Africa to our proverbial doorstep).

Monkey Bread: Savory or Sweet, Always a Treat

Regardless of your culture or your age, eating with your hands is fun. Flouting social convention and just digging in with your fingers provides a whole other level of epicurean enjoyment. And one of the most entertaining hands-on foods is monkey bread. Food historian Tori Avey provides a comprehensive history of the origins of this pull-apart treat, including the important detail that no actual monkeys are involved in the making of monkey bread. Originally a savory culinary creation from Sou...

How To: Make Blueberry Cheesecake

Cheesecake is pretty awesome. It's super versatile, allowing you to change crust bases and toppings quite dramatically and still end up with something that's elegant and delicious. Which is why it's a great dish to add to your dessert repertoire! There are a number of approaches to making a cheesecake base: classic, new york style and no-bake. Today we're going to go down the more classic route.

How To: Lasagna Soup, Plus Other Yummy Ways to Use Lasagna Noodles

Lasagna, that layered, creamy baked pasta dish, is a lovely comfort food that's great for a crowd. But if you've ever made it, then you know you're usually left with some leftover lasagna noodles. (Although that's always better than the frustration of running out of the noodles while you're still making a traditional lasagna.) Still, what do you do when you're still left with a bowlful of the wide ribbons?

How To: Mix a poison ivy cocktail

Malibu rum, Malibu mango rum, Midori melon liqueur, pineapple juice, and soda water make up the posion ivy cocktail. Follow along with bartender Isaac as he gives step by step directions for how to mix up this sweet and fruity specialty drink (bottle twirling and Boston accent not necessary). Watch this video beverage making tutorial and learn how to mix the poison ivy cocktail.

How To: Prepare ciabatta bread for baking

You mastered the art of baking simple bread, now try baking ciabatta bread. This how to video show you how to prepare this bread delicacy. Rather than forming it into the traditional loaf shape, form them into baguettes. Watch and learn how to simple it is to work your ciabatta dough for baking.

How To: Bake salmon in foil

Want a healthy salmon dish that is easy to prepare? Watch this video to learn how to make salmon baked in foil. You will need salmon, salt, pepper, olive oil, lemon, and some spices.

How To: 16 Tips for Staying Awake When You're Tired

While there's an art to surviving the all-nighter, there's also an art to staying awake throughout the day when you're operating on little to no sleep. In 1964, the record for sleep deprivation was set by 17-year-old Randy Gardner, who stayed awake for an incredible 264 hours and 12 minutes. Now while we're not out to challenge Randy for his title, we can certainly look to him for inspiration in beating back our own fatigue.

How To: Cook salmon with simple seasoning

Salmon is full of protein and omega 3 fatty acid which helps you’re brain function and is a healthy fat. Add this delicious and healthy fish to your dinner with simple seasoning and cooking method that will really show off the flavor.

How To: Make tiny Italian potato dumplings or gnocchi

Gnocchi is a tasty alternative to traditional Italian pasta. Gnocchi is actually teeny tiny potato dumplings and tastes fantastic draped with your favorite olive oil or tomato sauce. Check out this video for advice on how to make your own gnocchi from scratch at home.

How To: No-Stress Thanksgiving Desserts That Don't Require an Oven

Oven space is scarce on that fated fourth Thursday of November. Even if you can find a spare space for pumpkin pie on the bottom shelf, you risk turkey drippings overflowing from above and ruining your beautiful dessert — not to mention a burnt crust from different temperature requirements. The bottom line is: oven real estate is valuable, and it's tough to multitask cooking for Thanksgiving when every dish requires baking or roasting.

How To: 12 Tofu Hacks That Even Tofu-Haters Can Appreciate

Tofu has been a staple food in Asia for over 2,000 years, but due to the health craze of recent years, it's enjoyed a surge of popularity in the Western world. Derived from the milk of soy beans and typically coagulated by calcium or magnesium salts, tofu can be found in consistencies ranging from extra-soft or silken to extra-firm. Based on which firmness you prefer, there are a myriad of ways to prepare your tofu for consumption.

How To: Make HUGE Soap Bubbles

Learning to make giant bubbles for this video has been the most fun I've had with a project in a long time. It's addicting to try to get them to grow bigger and bigger than the ones before. Since filming this video, my skill has improved tremendously and the bubbles you're about to see, though spectacularly big, are dwarfed by what I've made since. Everyone loves to watch. This is definitely one project that will draw a crowd!

How To: Turn a Pint of Ice Cream into a Freakin' Loaf of Sweet Bread

Cooking may be an art, but baking is a science. It requires precise measurements since the outcome is based on chemical reactions. Using too much or too little of one ingredient can be the difference between perfect, crunchy-yet-chewy cookies and the dreaded "one big cookie." That's why frozen cookie dough and pre-made bread and cake mixes are so popular. They're easy to throw together, and pretty much guarantee success every time. But what if you're feeling so lazy that you don't even want t...

How To: Use aspirin in unusual ways

Don’t wait for your next headache to pull out that bottle of aspirin. Aspirin can be used as a topical home remedy for some medical problems, and as a handy fix to remove stain, keep your flowers fresh and even start a car battery.

How To: Mix a blue passion tequila martini

Tequila, triple sec, blue curacao, and soda water make up the blue passion martini cocktail. Follow along with bartender Eddie as he gives step by step directions for how to mix up this specialty drink. Watch this video beverage making tutorial and learn how to mix the blue passion tequila martini cocktail.