Kitchen Tips & Tricks

A few kitchen tips & tricks that I've learned over the years:

Defrosting Frozen Bananas (for immediate use in Zaza's Banana Bread!)

• Take bananas out of freezer, and peel as much of the peel off as you easily can.
• Run frozen banana under warm water, pushing away peel and strings with your fingers. If difficult, I find that splitting in two (legthwise) often helps... see the video below for an example: 

 

Measuring Dry Ingredients (such as flour, baking  white sugar)

• Use a dry-ingredients measuring cup or measuring spoon
• Spoon the ingredients lightly into measuring cup/spoon, heaping it over (NEVER scoop it up with the cup!)
• Use a straight edged knife or spatula to carefully level the cup/spoon

Measuring Brown Sugar

• Use a dry-ingredients measuring cup or measuring spoon
• Spoon the brown sugar into measuring cup/spoon, packing it as you go. 
• Use a straight edged knife or spatula to carefully level the cup/spoon
• When emptied, brown sugar will keep the shape of the cup. 

Measuring Liquid Ingredients (such as water or milk)

• Use a glass or plastic measuring cup or with a spout
• Place the cup on the counter
• Crouch so that your eyes are level with the line that you are filling to (e.g. one cup)
• Carefully pour the liquid into cup until it comes to the level that you're filling to. My Chemistry teacher had a handy mnemonic here: "the bottom of the meniscus is dancing on the line" - e.g. the lowest part of your liquid (because the sides of water will slightly "pull up" on your glass container just hitting the measuring line) - that's some geek cooking right there!