Latest Cooking Answers

Can I make up for under-proving my bread dough during the first rise by doing an extra long second rise?

Long story short, I think I overestimated how much my dough expanded during the primary fermentation (it's supposed to double in size, I'd say mine was only 1.3

Has anyone ever made margarine out of butter? [closed]

It occurred to me that since margarine can be made by emulsifying fats with a suitable level of saturation with water to simulate butter, and

how do you thicken cheese fillings so it doesnt melt when baking

i am stuffing cream cheese inside chicken. i would like to bake it off in the oven. what can i add to the cheese to make it not melt out

How to keep squid soft and fluffy?

For preparing squid , with traditonal masala type receipe , it was kept for 1 steam in pressure cooker. But squid got hardened after making the dish. Is there a

Is using commercially available yeast to create a sourdough starter effective?

Numerous starter recipes talk about capturing wild yeast from the environment. Many recipes, as well as questions and answers here, directly say or imply wild

Is it safe to use glass cooktop cleaner to clean and polish stainless steel pots?

My glass cooktop cleaner has abrasive materials and other components which are very effective when cleaning the hob: grease, burnt and solid stuff... I thought

can i put hot soup in mason jar for travel

i ran out of glass containers (people haven't returned them) and i want to give my boyfriend hot soup for work. Is it safe to put it in a mason jar and put the

Is it actually possible to send food to a lab to get the recipe?

I've seen this trope on TV shows from time to time. Well now, I know someone who actually has some bbq sauce that they want to send to a lab to find out what th

What is this yellow and white mass inside my red cabbage?

My wife cut a head of red cabbage in half and found this yellow and white organic mass inside it. We never saw anything like it before. Can anyone tell me what

How do caraway and ajwain differ in taste and use?

These two seed spices seem confusingly similar. I have never used ajwain before. A new recipe I intend to try out calls for jowan (carom seeds) which, according

I added olive oil to my cake, but I haven’t baked it yet

The taste is so strong, and I haven’t even baked it yet. How do I make it taste better? I added it as a butter substitute... now what do i do?

How long can I store a food in the pantry, refrigerator, or freezer?

How do I know if a given food or ingredient I have is still good, or if I should discard it? How can I best preserve a food or ingredient?

How long can eggs be unrefrigerated before becoming unsafe to eat?

A friend of mine accidentally left a carton of eggs on her counter, unrefrigerated, for three days. The eggs had been previously refrigerated both at the store

How long can I store a food in the pantry, refrigerator, or freezer?

How do I know if a given food or ingredient I have is still good, or if I should discard it? How can I best preserve a food or ingredient?

Baba au Rhum: Why am I not getting a good rum flavor?

I've been wanting to make these for years after having some really good ones in Paris. Now I'm finding these are hard to duplicate! I find I'm not getting enou

Curries as receptors of odor transfer in refrigirators

Odor transfer is common phenomenon that occurs in refrigerators when we place items close to each other. Since the space is less in my refrigerator,I need to k

Can you use coffee or tea instead of water in a sourdough starter?

Can I use coffee or tea instead of water when making a sourdough starter?

Bread is not rising

The problem After ten years of baking bread, I have a new problem with my bread rising—it seems to fall when baking in the oven. I've used the recipe belo

How do you know how large or small your cut pieces should be?

I was making a curry and I'm having a hard time deciding how large or small I should cut my ingredients. Advice? Particularly I'm looking for how the taste is

Making dark chocolate at home

I want to make plain dark chocolate at home. The process is tricky in my experience, not simply mixing cocoa, cocoa butter, milk powder, sugar, etc. Can you

Can I use a terracotta pot to bake a pie?

I have cooked many casseroles in a large terracotta pot with great results. Can I bake a pie in a terracota pot in an electric oven. Can the pot take the high

What are the grades of Italian pasta?

I'm a Russian student. I'm writing a report about Italian pasta. There is no information on the Russian web sites, so guys, help me, please. I need to learn mor

How does the performance of a warped pan compare to a level one when using gas?

Of course there will be hot spots when using it on anything besides gas because it won't sit flat. But are there any performance disadvantages when using a sli

Are these Bay Leaves?

I bought what I thought were bay leaves because they were very cheap. Physically speaking, they behave like bay leaves when cooked (they stay hard even when bo

Mozzarella turned out super rubbery

I recently tried making four batches of mozzarella, all of which turned out like a rubber band. The first three times around I used a one-hour recipe, but tried

Huge bubbles in pizza dough

I made some pizza dough and let the individual dough balls rise in the fridge for a day. The following day I took them out of the fridge so they could come up t

Sour dough using unbleached all purpose flour is very wet during the preshaping

My wife created her own sour dough starter. She’s been feeding it unbleached white flour. It’s doing great. When she is making her dough during the

Why is ciabatta poolish usually made with instant yeast?

So far all the "classic" ciabatta recipes I have found propose using small amounts of instant yeast. But I'm pretty sure that ciabatta predates invention of in

How to properly slow cook lamb's head?

There is a (Turkish?) specialty, boiled lamb's head. In restaurants, I've noticed it's boiled to an extent that you can pull apart skull segments easily and ac

How to get Garlic & other strong Spices' smell out of my Zojirushi Flask/ Thermos acquired via a herbal Immunity decoction?

How to get Garlic & other strong Spices' smell out of my Zojirushi Flask/ Thermos acquired via a herbal Immunity decoction? Update: After 1.5 yr of keeping