Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
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The very first step in cooking and baking is to read the recipe all the way through, from beginning to end. This way you will know that you have all the ingredients and tools on hand. You will also be able to look up terms you don't understand so cooking proceeds smoothly. Most good recipes start with the ingredient list, and the ingredients are listed in the order they are used. Measurements in recipes are critical. When a recipe calls for a tablespoon or teaspoon, which means for you to use...
Dennis Cowden of Tehachapi had a fascinating encounter with what we believe to be a juvenile red-tailed hawk on his property on Nov. 7, 2017. Apparently, red-tailed hawks may be the most common hawk in North America. Dennis says the hawk posed for him for several minutes. This was his favorite photo out of a few dozen. Look on page 16 of this issue to see another photo of this beautiful raptor. Dennis is the writer of The Cookie Corner, a regular column in The Loop. Find his gingerbread cookie...
The last article covered the mixing of the dry and wet cookie ingredients to make the dough, and now you would probably think it's time to ball up the batter, put it on the cookie sheet and bake them. Any cookie dough with a lot of butter, like chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal cookies, peanut butter cookies, etc. benefit with a stay in the refrigerator. Try this with dough's based on flour, sugars, butter, and egg, or ones with strong flavors. This will give the batter more body and your cookies...
In the last two articles, we developed the wet portion of our cookie dough. Now we’re going to complete the mixing by adding the dry ingredients. The dry goods like flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices will get mixed together and added to the creamed part of the dough. Flour is a delicate thing, and it needs to be measured carefully. You should stir up the flour in its container, and then spoon it from the container to a dry measuring cup. Don’t heap or pack the flour into the cup...
In the last article, we talked about the importance of creaming the butter and sugar. Now we're going to add the liquids to this essential creamed mixture. Eggs and any flavorings, such as vanilla extract, and liquids such as milk, molasses, honey, and any soft items such as cream cheese or peanut butter are added during this stage of mixing. They are the major source of moisture and protein in the cookie dough. But first, let's talk about the egg. Eggs primary function is to contribute to the...
How often have you seen a recipe begin with the words "mix the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla"? What this really means is to cream the butter and sugar, and then add the eggs and vanilla as the first and most important step in making cookies. This is the step where the butter and sugar are whipped together to form lots of air bubbles. We start by scrunching the butter against the sides of a bowl, with the mixer, where it will be folded over and over, creating little pockets of air with every...
