Back in 2023, Nabisco and Mr. Christie discontinued their chocolate wafers in North America. These wafers were the chocolate cookies we all used, transforming them into crumbs to make chocolate crusts for cheesecakes.

This Oreo cookie crust is what I make since chocolate wafers are impossible to find. This cheesecake crust recipe uses whole Oreo cookies. No need to scrape out and separate the white filling!

Ingredients

It doesn't get any simpler than an Oreo cookie crust with only three ingredients. Here's what you need:

• Oreo cookies—you can use any chocolate sandwich cookies but the taste will vary. I prefer to buy name-brand Oreo cookies to make the best tasting crust
• salt—salt brings out the flavour of this crust, making it more interesting. I bake with Diamond Crystal fine Kosher salt. If using table salt, add half the amount to avoid making the crust overly salty.
• butter—I make this crust with unsalted butter, prefering to add salt myself. If you use salted butter, omit the salt in the recipe to avoid making the crust too salty.

Please see the recipe card for the exact ingredients and quantities.

Substitutions and Variations

Here are a couple of variations, depending on what you have access to.

• Chocolate wafers - if you still have access to chocolate wafers, replace the whole Oreos with 150 grams of chocolate wafer crumbs and 25 grams of granulated sugar (just like for a baked graham cracker crumb crust). You could also try chocolate Teddy Grahams or chocolate graham crackers instead.
• Speculoos or graham cracker - use speculoos or graham crackers cookies in place of Ores, but follow the graham cracker crumb crust ratios mentioned in the above bullet point).

With any variation, you may have to do some testing to get the recipe just right!

Instructions

You will use a large food processor for this recipe. A small food processor could work, though you may have to grind the Oreos to crumbs in portions to avoid overloading the machine. Here's how to make an Oreo cookie crust from scratch:

Step 1—Start by combining Oreo cookies with salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal S-blade (image 1). Process the mixture until the cookies break down into a fine, even crumb (image 2). Pour the melted butter on top (image 3) and then continue to pulse the mixture until it clumps together (image 4).

Step 2—Transfer the chocolate crumble to your prepared pan (image 5). I generally bake cheesecakes in a 9-inch springform pan lined with parchment paper. Pat out and press the mixture to form a flat, even crust from edge to edge (image 6). Bake the crust until set (image 7). Let cool before using.

Storage

Use immediately according to your recipe. For cheesecakes, I let the crust cool completely before filling them with the cheesecake batter. You can make the crust ahead of time (the day before), and store it in a cool, dry place until you are ready to use it.

FAQ

Other Cookie Crumb Crust Recipes

Looking for other crumb crust recipes like this? Try these:

• graham cracker crumb crust (used to make this perfect vanilla cheesecake)
• shortbread cookie crust (for a strawberry cream tart)
• saltine crust (used to make an orange pie that tastes like a creamsicle)
• oat cookie crust (used to make the famous Milk Bar Pie)

If you tried this recipe for baked Oreo cookie crust (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!

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Baked Oreo Cookie Crust

Learn how to make a perfect Oreo cookie crumb crust base from just three ingredients (whole Oreo cookies, butter, and a little salt). This easy recipe creates a baked chocolate cookie crust that is the perfect base for 9-inch cheesecakes baked in a springform pan, as well as pies and tarts. This is the recipe you should make since chocolate wafers have been discontinued!

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 30 minutes minutes

Servings 12

Calories 108kcal

Author Janice Lawandi

Equipment

• Food processor

Ingredients

• 190 grams Oreo cookies
• 0.625 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
• 58 grams unsalted butter melted and cooled slightly

Metric - US

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350 °F (175 °C). Line a 9-inch (23 cm) springform pan with parchment paper. Set aside.
• In the bowl of a food processor, combine the Oreo cookies and salt. Process them together into a find crumb.
• Pour the melted butter over top and stir everything together for a couple of minutes until all the ingredients are evenly moistened with butter and they begin to clump together.
• Transfer the crumbs to the prepared pan and spread them out in an even layer from edge to edge. Use a flat-bottomed glass or the palm of your hand to press them firmly into place and smooth the surface of the crust.
• Bake until the crust is set. This takes about 10–15 minutes.

Notes

• I prefer to use name brand Oreo cookies
• If you have access to chocolate wafers, replace the weight of Oreos with 150 grams of chocolate wafers and 25 grams of granulated sugar. 
• I bake with Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt. If using table salt, add half the amount or the recipe may be too salty. 
• This makes a flat, 9-inch crust, perfect for a 9-inch cheesecake baked in a springform pan. If you want the crumbs to come up the sides of the pan, you will need to double the recipe to have enough to cover the sides too (if not more!). If you have extra unbaked crust crumbs, freeze them for later.

Nutrition

Calories: 108kcal | Carbohydrates: 11g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 7g | Saturated Fat: 3g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 2g | Trans Fat: 0.2g | Cholesterol: 10mg | Sodium: 87mg | Potassium: 38mg | Fiber: 0.5g | Sugar: 6g | Vitamin A: 121IU | Calcium: 5mg | Iron: 2mg

The post Oreo Cookie Crust appeared first on The Bake School.

I am convinced that many people order specific desserts at restaurants because of the graham cracker crust. Everybody loves it!

This is the base crust I use to make my delicious baked vanilla cheesecake recipe.

Ingredients

You only need three to four ingredients to make a graham cracker crust from scratch. Here's what you need:

• graham cracker crumbs—you can process homemade graham crackers or store-bought into crumbs in a food processor or buy already made crumbs at the grocery store
• sugar—I prefer to use granulated sugar, but brown sugar would also work. I find the sugar brings more flavour to the crust
• salt—I bake with Diamond Crystal fine Kosher salt. If using table salt, add half the amount or the crust may be too salty. The salt makes the crust flavour pop, making it less bland, but it is optional and many skip it
• butter—I use unsalted butter that is melted (for ease of mixing), rather than salted because I choose to add salt. If you want to use salted butter, skip the salt!

Please see the recipe card for the exact ingredients and quantities.

Substitutions and Variations

Instructions

A graham cracker crust is one of the simplest crusts to make from scratch at home

Step 1—Stir together the dry ingredients (graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and salt) in a small bowl (image 1), then pour the melted butter over top (image 2) and stir until the crumbs are evenly moistened and beginning to clump (image 3).

Step 2—Transfer the graham cracker crumb mixture to your prepared pan (image 4), in this case I am using a parchment paper-lined springform pan. Use a flat bottomed glass to smooth out and press the crumbs in place from edge-to-edge (image 5).

Note: For some press-in crust recipes, you may stop here, without baking the crust. It all depends on the recipe and application.

Step 3—Once the crust is perfectly smooth and even (image 6), bake it until the edges begin to colour ever so slightly (image 7).

Hint: Use this method to make the crust for these easy s'more bars. For this recipe, the crust is pressed out in a square pan.

Recipes With Graham Cracker Crust

If you love graham crackers, here are a few recipes that incorporate graham cracker crumbs and crust in them:

• s'more bars with a graham cracker crumb crust, a milk chocolate filling, and toasted marshmallow topping
• compost cookies, kind of like kitchen sink cookies made with salty and sweet add-ins, including bits of graham cracker crumb crust
• compost pound cake which incorporates graham cracker crumbs in the cake batter for flavour
• Earl Grey chocolate tart made with a graham cracker crust, a chocolate ganache filling, and whipped cream on top
• milk chocolate pots de crème are topped with a graham cracker crust crumble
• graham cracker crumbs feature prominantly in the classic Nanaimo bar crust and this white chocolate Nanaimo bars variation (which I love even more than the original)

If you tried this recipe for baked graham cracker crumb crust (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!

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Baked Graham Cracker Crust

Learn how to make a perfect graham cracker crumb crust base from just 4 ingredients (graham cracker crumbs, butter, sugar, and a little salt). This easy recipe creates a baked graham cracker crust that is the perfect base for 9-inch cheesecakes baked in a springform pan, as well as pies and tarts.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 30 minutes minutes

Servings 12

Calories 91kcal

Author Janice Lawandi

Ingredients

• 150 grams graham cracker crumbs
• 26 grams granulated sugar
• 0.625 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt optional
• 58 grams unsalted butter melted and cooled slightly

Metric - US

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350 °F (175 °C). Line a 9-inch (23 cm) springform pan with parchment paper. Set aside.
• In a small bowl, combine the graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and salt. Stir them together with a fork.
• Pour the melted butter over top and stir everything together for a couple of minutes until all the ingredients are evenly moistened with butter and they begin to clump together.
• Transfer the crumbs to the prepared pan and spread them out in an even layer from edge to edge. Use a flat-bottomed glass to press them firmly into place and smooth the surface of the crust.
• Bake until the edges begin to turn light-golden brown and just start to pull about from the sides of the pan (this takes about 10–15 minutes).

Notes

• you can use store-bought graham cracker crumbs or process graham crackers to fine crumbs in a food processor.
• you can replace the graham cracker crumbs with finely ground social tea biscuits or chocolate wafer crumbs. You can also use Teddy Grahams (the bear-shaped kids cookies) in place of graham crackers if you don't have any!
• I bake with Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt. If using table salt, add half the amount. 
• This makes a flat, 9-inch crust, perfect for a 9-inch cheesecake baked in a springform pan. If you want the crumbs to come up the sides of the pan, you will need to double the recipe to have enough to cover the sides too (if not more!). If you have extra unbaked graham cracker crust crumbs, just freeze them for later.

Nutrition

Calories: 91kcal | Carbohydrates: 11g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 5g | Saturated Fat: 3g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 1g | Trans Fat: 0.2g | Cholesterol: 10mg | Sodium: 100mg | Potassium: 21mg | Fiber: 0.4g | Sugar: 5g | Vitamin A: 121IU | Calcium: 10mg | Iron: 0.5mg

The post How To Make A Baked Graham Cracker Crust appeared first on The Bake School.

What It Is

Brown butter (also called browned butter) is a higher-fat version of butter, made by browning the milk solids in butter in a process that lends it a nutty flavour.

Brown butter is prized for its complex flavour. French pastry chefs use it to make financiers and madeleines, among other things. You can even make these chocolate chip cookies with pecans with brown butter instead of regular butter.

The Science of Brown Butter

Butter is roughly 80% fat, so there's still 20% to account for. The rest is made up of water and milk solids (proteins and sugars). While we know that oils and water don't mix, butter is actually an emulsion of animal fat and water. They are mixed together to form a very smooth texture and an even mixture.

If you melt butter in a pan on the stove, the emulsion will break. The milk solids will separate from the fat. They tend to settle on the bottom of the pan (though they also form a foam on the surface too). As you continue to heat the mixture, the butter will sizzle as you approach the boiling point of water.

As you heat the melted butter, the water will boil off. The temperature will rise above the boiling point of water, high enough that the milk solids (proteins and sugars) will brown. The browning process, known as Maillard browning, creates flavour compounds that have a complex, nutty flavour. This is why the French call it "beurre noisette." The word noisette means hazelnut, referring to both the aroma and the colour that forms when you brown butter.

Brown butter has a higher fat content per gram than regular butter. Brown butter solidifies just like regular butter when cooled, though the texture is more granular and less supple, probably due to the lack of water.

How To Make It

Step 1—Place the butter you want to brown in a small saucepan (image 1) and heat it up on medium–high heat until it melts (image 2).

Step 2—Continue heating the melted butter until it boils and sizzles (image 3). This is the stage when the water is boiling off. Continue cooking the butter until the sizzling subsides and the milk solids begin to brown (image 4). Make sure to swirl/stir the pan to ensure even cooking and so that the milk solids don't stick to the bottom of the pan and burn.

Note: Some bakers prefer to strain off the browned milk solids, leaving behind the clear, golden butter without any brown or black specks.

Enhancing The Nutty Flavour

Pastry chefs add a secret ingredient to the pan when they brown butter to enhance the flavour: fat-free milk powder (also called powdered milk or dehydrated milk). Adding milk powder to melted butter before browning it increases the concentration of milk solids, thereby increasing the amount of flavourful compounds that develop as the sugars caramelize.

If you are baking a recipe that calls for brown butter, consider adding milk powder to your butter before browning it to give it a stronger flavour that can stand up to the other ingredients in baked goods.

Here's how to do enhance brown butter with milk powder:

Step 1—Start by placing butter in a small saucepan (image 1) and cooking it on the stove until the milk solids begin to brown (image 2).

Step 2—Add powdered milk (image 3) and continue cooking, stirring continuously, until the additional milk powder begins to brown (image 4).

Rule of thumb: I like to add 25 grams of milk powder for every 115 grams (½ cup) of butter.

Don't Burn It

There's a fine line between brown butter and burn butter. If you continue to heat butter after the milk solids have browned, they will burn. This will completely change the flavour. If you are unsure of how far to take brown butter, pull the pan off the stove and, using a spoon, push away any foam on the surface of the melted fat. This way, you can see what's happening on the bottom of the pan. The flecks should be brown, like mahogany, not black. If they are black, you have cooked it too long. The nutty flavour is gone in burnt butter. You will have to start over because it may have bitter notes.

Brown butter still has milk solids and, therefore, is not appropriate for high-temperature cooking because it can burn.

Difference Between Clarified And Brown Butter

Clarified butter is not the same as brown butter. To clarify butter, you heat it to remove water and strain it to remove milk solids. It isn't browned and so doesn't have the same nutty flavour. Clarified butter has a more prominent milk flavour.

Vocabulary: Don't confuse beurre noisette (brown butter) with beurre de noisette (hazelnut butter)! Beurre de noisette is made just like peanut butter, from ground hazelnuts that are processed into a creamy, spreadable paste. Beurre noisette is made from melted butter that has cooked until the milk solids brown.

The Difference Between Ghee And Brown Butter

Ghee is a strained version of brown butter. After boiling off the water and browning the milk solids, you strain the mixture. Line a strainer with layers of cheesecloth to obtain a clear, golden butter free of milk solids. This increases the shelf-life of ghee. Ghee is more stable than brown butter and you can store it at room temperature without it spoiling.

Because brown butter still has milk solids, it's not appropriate for high-temperature cooking because it can burn easily. For high-temperature cooking, use ghee.

What To Make With Brown Butter

Brown butter has a unique flavour, akin to toasted nuts, but even better. It's really a great way of adding a nutty flavour to cookies and cakes without adding any nuts. You can use brown butter to make a quick caramel sauce like this whiskey caramel sauce served over baked apples.

The nutty flavour of brown butter also makes it great for recipes made with nuts. It complements and accentuates their flavour. You can use brown butter to make your bars and cookies. These white chocolate and raspberry blondies and these toffee blondies are both made with brown butter.

Once cooled to room temperature, you can use brown butter to make frosting, like this brown butter cream cheese frosting. It's the perfect complement to a pumpkin loaf cake or eggless carrot cake.

How To Replace Butter With Brown Butter

If you want to replace butter with brown butter in any recipe, ensure you use brown butter at the same temperature as the butter in your recipe (room temperature/softened, melted, or cold). If a recipe calls for melted butter, you can replace it with melted brown butter. If a recipe calls for cold butter, replace it with cold brown butter.

In some cases, it may be pertinent to add back a little water along with the brown butter to replace the water lost during the browning process. Use your judgment and remember there's only a small amount of water in regular butter (less than 20 %) so add back a quantity of water similar to what you think was lost.

Brown Butter FAQs

If you tried this recipe for brown butter (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!

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Brown Butter

Learn how to brown butter with this recipe starting from regular unsalted butter to create a nutty "beurre noisette" to bake with.

Course pantry staple

Cuisine French

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time 18 minutes minutes

Total Time 23 minutes minutes

Servings 15

Calories 110kcal

Author Janice Lawandi

Ingredients

• 230 grams unsalted butter

Optional enhancement

• 50 grams nonfat dry milk powder

Metric - US

Instructions

• Place the butter in a small saucepan. Heat the butter on medium or medium–high until it is melted.
• Once it's melted, continue heating the butter, swirling the pan occasionally. The butter may begin to sizzle/boil. This is because the fat has reached the boiling point of water and so the water will begin to evaporate. That's what we want!
• Continue cooking the butter until the milk solids settled at the bottom of the pan turn a deep golden brown. Keep an eye on it so they don't burn!

Optional enhancement

• Once your butter has browned, you can further enhance the flavour by stirring in nonfat dry milk powder and continue cooking the butter, stirring constantly, until the powdered milk browns. Do this on medium–low or even low heat to avoid burning it and stir continuously.
• Store brown butter in an airtight container in the fridge.

Notes

• 230 grams of butter should leave you with about 200 grams of brown butter, which is less than 1 cup (closer to ¾ cup).
• You can store brown butter in the fridge since it still has the milk solids. Otherwise, it may spoil!
• If you want to replace butter with brown butter in any recipe, ensure you use brown butter at the same temperature as the butter in your recipe (room temperature/softened, melted, or cold). If a recipe calls for melted butter, you can replace it with melted brown butter. If a recipe calls for cold butter, replace it with cold brown butter.
• You may have to add water along with brown butter. If a recipe calls for 115 grams (½ cup) of unsalted butter, that's actually about 92 grams of fat and the rest is water, proteins, and sugars. Brown butter contains no water. You may need to adjust your recipe to compensate for the lack of water in brown butter.

Nutrition

Calories: 110kcal | Carbohydrates: 1g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 12g | Saturated Fat: 8g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 3g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 33mg | Sodium: 2mg | Potassium: 4mg | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 383IU | Calcium: 4mg | Iron: 1mg

The post How To Make Brown Butter appeared first on The Bake School.

What It Is

Baking powder is a chemical leavening agent that combines sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and an acid (or even two acids!) in one single dry, white powder. It's sold in grocery stores and bulk food stores.

It's an easy way to get your cakes to rise without having to whip egg whites, fiddle with yeast, or worry about adjusting pH because everything you need to make your baked goods rise is in the powder.

🧪 How Baking Powder Works

When you add baking soda to a cake recipe, you'll notice that you also have to add an acidic ingredient (like vinegar, sour cream, buttermilk, etc). On the other hand, when you bake with baking powder, the acid is already present in the commercial powder. All you have to do is whisk (or sift) it with the rest of your dry ingredients. Easy peasy! This classic vanilla cake with milk chocolate frosting is a great example of a cake made with just baking powder.

For baking powder to react and for your cakes to rise, it has to first come into contact with water. As a dry powder, this raising agent is quite stable: the acid and the sodium bicarbonate don't react in the dry powder. It doesn't react until it comes into contact with liquids in your cake batter or cookie dough.

Some baking powders won't react until the mixture is hydrated and heated. This is especially true of double-acting formulas which first react at room temperature when mixed into cake batters and cookie doughs, but they react a second time when the batter or dough is placed in the oven to bake.

The Role of Cornstarch

The ingredients in baking powder are essential for controlling when it reacts. Think about it: if it were to react as a dry powder in the container it's sold in, by the time you add it to your cake batters and cookie doughs, it would be spent. There wouldn't be much left behind but salts.

While the general formula of baking powder can be summarized as baking soda plus an acid, there's more to it than just this. Commercial powders also contain cornstarch to keep it dry and free of lumps. This way it won't react before you use it. Cornstarch prevents the product from reacting prematurely and acts as a sort of "buffer" between the two reagents.

🆚 Double-Acting Versus Single-Acting

The acid in baking powder varies depending on the brand and whether or not the product is single-acting or double-acting.

Single-acting baking powder

Single-acting baking powder is made with one acid, which reacts right away at room temperature when hydrated. Because single-acting powders are so fast-acting, they aren't sold commercially anymore.

An example of single-acting baking powder would be homemade baking powder made with cream of tartar. It reacts quickly at room temperature and over 70 % of it reacts within minutes of mixing into cake batters. When you bake with homemade baking powder, you have to work quickly so that the batter is mixed and baked immediately.

Double-acting baking powder

I bake with Magic baking powder, produced by Kraft (like Rumford baking powder sold in the US). It's made of cornstarch, monocalcium phosphate, and sodium bicarbonate. Monocalcium phosphate is the acid that reacts with sodium bicarbonate to produce the gas carbon dioxide, which makes your cakes rise.

Though it seems as though Magic baking powder would be single-acting because it contains only one acid, it's actually double-acting because it reacts in two stages: a portion reacts at room temperature when your batters are first mixed (under 60 % reacts at room temperature), then the rest reacts once heated when you place your cakes and cookies in the oven. So Magic and Rumford react in two separate stages, which is why they are labelled as double-acting.

In the US, other double-acting baking powders include Davis, Kraft Calumet, and Clabber Girl. All these contain the same ingredients as Magic and Rumford, so cornstarch, monocalcium phosphate, and sodium bicarbonate, but Davis, Calumet, and Clabber Girl also contain a second acid, sodium aluminum sulfate. This second acid is slow-acting and only reacts with sodium bicarbonate when the mixture is hydrated and heated.

The baking powder at Bulk Barn is labelled as double-acting, as is Fleischmann's. Both contain sodium acid pyrophosphate, as well as sodium bicarbonate, cornstarch and monocalcium phosphate. Note that sodium acid pyrophosphate is very slow-acting, but the downside to using it is that sodium acid pyrophosphate can impart a bitter aftertaste, which is why it's usually combined with other acids and used sparingly.

The Importance of Double-Acting Baking Powder

Bakeries may depend on double-acting baking powder in their baked goods to ensure that cake batters (or muffin batters) that are made ahead of time can be stored in the refrigerator, but will still rise when the product is baked. The second acid ensures that if your batter waits around a little, your cakes will still have enough chemical leavener leftover to rise in the oven.

Determining It's Double-Acting

Most baking powders sold in stores are double-acting. Many brands will include this information on the label, but some don't. To be sure, you will have to analyze the ingredient label, specifically the acid(s). The ingredient list will inevitably mention cornstarch and sodium bicarbonate. The other ingredients might be

• monocalcium phosphate, in which case the chemical leavener is double-acting.
• both monocalcium phosphate and sodium aluminum sulfate, in which case, it's double-acting.

🥄 How Much to Use—Rule of Thumb

If you've ever debated on how much baking powder to use in a cake recipe, start with this rule of thumb to avoid adding too much to your cakes:

Baking powder to flour ratio: add 5 mL to 6.25 mL (1 teaspoon to 1+¼ teaspoon) baking powder for every 125 grams (1 cup or 250 mL) of all-purpose flour.

In this classic vanilla cake with milk chocolate frosting, I use 2 teaspoons of baking powder for 2 cups of flour (250 g). I use the same ratio for this Earl Grey cake and this sesame raspberry cake, which are all variations of the same basic vanilla cake recipe.

Of course, the amount you need to use will vary depending on the other ingredients in the recipe, which contribute to the total volume of the cake batter, its density, its moisture content, etc, which could mean you may need more or less than what the rule suggests.

Still, this rule of thumb is a good place to start if you are debating the ratio of how much baking powder to flour to add to your cake recipe. If you are making cookies, you might add little to none and instead, add a little baking soda. And don't forget to test your baking powder to check if it's still good.

🫙 Storage And Expiration Dates

Chemical leaveners are fairly shelf-stable under perfect conditions (in a dry, cool place), but can lose potency over time and expire if it's not properly stored.

Storage conditions impact shelf-life

Unlike baking soda, baking powder is a leavening agent that does lose potency over time, especially if it's not stored under perfect conditions (in a sealed container in a cool, dry place):

• if you live in a hot, humid climate, it is more likely to come into contact with humidity
• if you don't have air conditioning, leading to excess heat and humidity in the kitchen

Recall that baking powder is a mixture of sodium bicarbonate, an acid (or several acids), and cornstarch. The cornstarch in the formula is there to help keep the powder as dry and clump-free as possible.

Though baking powder is pretty stable as a dry mix of powders, there's a risk that as you open and shut the container, it will come into contact with tiny amounts of humidity. And when it's wet, it will begin to react.

Expiry dates on packaging

If you read the label carefully, you will notice an expiry date somewhere on the packaging. That doesn't mean your baking powder can't expire before that date. If you've opened the container, you should check to make sure your baking powder is still good, regardless of what the date on the package says. And this goes for baking powders that are expired according to the expiry date on the package. The only way to know for sure is to test the baking powder before baking with it.

Testing If It's Still Good

To test if baking powder is still active, combine 1 teaspoon (5 mL) of baking powder with ⅓ cup (80 mL) of hot water. If the mixture fizzes, your leavening agent is still reactive. Make sure that the water is HOT, not lukewarm or cold since the acid requires some heat to react fully.

Some may suggest even using boiling water and if you see nothing with hot water, I'd repeat the test once more but with boiling water. At that point, if you don't see any fizzing or bubbling, your baking powder is expired and you should replace it with a fresh container.

A positive result doesn't indicate the potency

Unfortunately, though you can check to make sure it's still active and reactive, we don't have an easy way at home to measure how potent the leavening agent is. The fact is you can check to make sure baking powder is still reactive, but the test is QUALITATIVE, not QUANTITATIVE. We don't know how potent the powder is with the above test.

If your container is expired according to the date on the label, if it's been open for more than a year, or if you didn't store it properly, you are better off replacing it with a new container if you are unsure.

Homemade Baking Powder Formula

This homemade baking powder recipe comes in handy when you're out of commercial powder or need a quick solution. It’s simple to make and can save you a trip to the store in a pinch. Just remember, homemade baking powder has a shorter shelf life than store-bought versions, so use it quickly.

Remember that baking powder is baking soda plus an acid. You can make baking powder from the ingredients you have in your pantry.

While commercial formulas contain the acids monocalcium phosphate, sodium aluminum sulfate, and/or sodium acid pyrophosphate, you probably don't have any of these acid salts in your pantry. The main dry acid that you most likely have at home if you bake and that you could use to make baking powder is cream of tartar (i.e. tartaric acid, which is also known as potassium bitartrate).

Cream of tartar is a white powder that you probably have used when making meringues for an Italian meringue buttercream, or in egg-white-based desserts like these chocolate pavlovas. And combined with baking soda and a little cornstarch, you have yourself some homemade baking powder. Here's the recipe.

Note: you probably won't save much money by making baking powder at home because cream of tartar tends to be quite expensive.

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Homemade Baking Powder

Here's a recipe for a batch of homemade baking powder that you can make and store in your pantry.

Course pantry staple

Cuisine American

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Total Time 5 minutes minutes

Servings 45

Calories 5kcal

Author Janice Lawandi

Ingredients

• 30 grams baking soda
• 70 grams cream of tartar
• 15 grams cornstarch

Instructions

• Whisk the ingredients in a bowl.
• Transfer the homemade baking powder to a Mason jar and store with a tight-fitting lid.

Notes

This recipe makes about 45 teaspoons of baking powder so you will want to store it in a glass jar with a tight-fitting lid with a good seal in a cool, dry place. Don't forget to label the jar and the lid so you don't forget what is in it! Include the date you made it so that you can keep track of how long it's been sitting in your pantry.

• Variations on homemade baking powder recipe:
  • the above homemade baking powder recipe comes from Paula Figoni's How Baking Works (available for purchase from Amazon) and I have done the math to make sure that the amount of cream of tartar and baking soda will balance out correctly.
  • Shirley Corriher, in the book Bakewise, recommends a different ratio, specifically: 14 grams baking soda + 18 grams cream of tartar + 15 grams cornstarch. Her book is also available on Amazon. Chemistry-wise, I don't think this ratio adds up. I wouldn't follow Corriher's recipe for baking powder.
  • Alton Brown suggests a ratio for homemade baking powder in his book on baking called "I'm Just Here For More Food," but he doesn't mention if the ratio is by weight or by volume (so use it with caution). After more research, I found the same recipe in the textbook "On Baking" which mentions the recipe is by volume: 2 parts cream of tartar, 1 part baking soda, 1 part cornstarch. Alton Brown's baking book can be purchased from Amazon. The textbook On Baking is also from Amazon. To me, this ratio is also flawed. I would still stick with the recipe from Figoni's How Baking Works. 
• Storage: Given how fast-acting homemade baking powder is and given that baking powder will lose potency if exposed to moisture, it's important to store it in a cool, dry place, in a closed container that has a good seal to make sure moisture doesn't get in. Commercial baking powder is slower to react than homemade baking powder, so the baking powder you buy at the store is more stable and will stay potent for longer than homemade baking powder.
• While it's good to know how to make baking powder at home if you run out of it at the last minute, I wouldn't depend on this recipe long term. You can check to ensure your baking powder is still good, but these tests aren't a measure of potency, so take the results with a grain of salt.

Nutrition

Serving: 5grams | Calories: 5kcal | Carbohydrates: 1g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 1g | Sodium: 183mg | Potassium: 257mg | Iron: 1mg

Substitutions

The obvious substitute is to replace baking powder in a recipe with baking soda and an acid. The acid source you choose will depend on the recipe.

Rule of thumb: Replace 5 mL (1 teaspoon) baking powder with 1.25 mL (¼ teaspoon) of baking soda plus an acid for every 125 grams (1 cup or 250 mL) of flour.

As a general rule, if the recipe includes a liquid ingredient like milk or water, you can use a liquid acid like vinegar or lemon juice. If the recipe is dry, like for cookies, opt for a dry acid such as cream of tartar. So:

• in recipes like cookies where you don't want to introduce a liquid, use a dry acid (powder) like cream of tartar (potassium bitartrate) or citric acid
• in recipes like cakes and muffins where you can introduce a liquid, use
  • an aqueous acid (liquid) like vinegar or lemon juice (note that aqueous means that the acid is dissolved in water)
  • acidic dairy (liquid) like buttermilk, acidified milk, yogurt, crème fraîche, or sour cream

The easiest place to use the combination of baking soda and an aqueous acid or acidic dairy would be in a cake recipe. For example, this eggless chocolate cake recipe relies on baking soda and vinegar to rise!

Any time you want to incorporate an acidic liquid ingredient, ideally, you should replace another liquid ingredient in your recipe. For example, you could do the following combination to ensure your cakes will rise well:

• replace the milk in a cake recipe with buttermilk (cup for cup)
• replace the baking powder with baking soda: 5 mL (1 teaspoon) baking powder with 1.25 mL (¼ teaspoon baking soda).

Using a liquid acid will not work in most cookie recipes. For example, if you are replacing baking powder in this chocolate crackle cookies, you will quickly realize there isn't a liquid like milk in the recipe that you can easily replace with buttermilk or yogurt. A liquid acidic ingredient will not work in this recipe, and you are much better off replacing the baking powder with a combination of baking soda and cream of tartar.

Baking powder substitutions are possible but choose the acid you work with carefully. Got a question? Use the comment box below to ask your questions about baking powder and baking powder substitutions.

⁉️ Baking Powder FAQs

📚 Further Reading

• How Baking Works, 3rd edition. Paula Figoni.  Buy it on Amazon
• Bakewise. Shirley Corriher available on Amazon
• On Baking: a textbook of baking & pastry fundamentals. Third edition update. Sarah R. Labensky, Priscilla A. Martel, Eddy Van Damme. Available on Amazon.
• I'm Just Here for More Food. Alton Brown's baking book can be purchased from Amazon 

The post What is Baking Powder appeared first on The Bake School.

Type of pumpkin

Pure pumpkin sold in cans at the grocery store is made with Dickinson pumpkins. Both E.D. Smith and Libby's use 100 % Dickinson pumpkins to make their canned pure pumpkin products. The fact that the Dickinson pumpkin doesn't look like what we in North America picture as a pumpkin tends to shock people, as many assume that the canned pumpkin would come from a carving pumpkin.

Let's not forget that all pumpkins are squashes, from the family of cucurbitaceae. But not all squashes are pumpkins because pumpkins are specifically cucurbitaceae pepo, while a butternut squash is a cucurbitaceae moschata. 

Fun fact: the French term for butternut squash is "courge musquée" so you can see where the word musquée in French would come from the moschata latin variety name. 

At home, you can make pumpkin purée from many types of pumpkin and squashes. The most common pumpkins and squashes for baking and making purées are:

1. the Sugar pumpkin, a.k.a. Sugar Pie pumpkin or Pie pumpkin, which is a small orange pumpkin that looks a lot like the "typical" pumpkin, but much smaller than the jack-o-lantern carving pumpkins. The flesh of this variety is quite sweet, though it can be a little watery. The flesh cooks into a light yellowy-orange
2. Kabocha squash (or Japanese pumpkin), which is a flatter squash, either green or a deep orange verging on red. The Kabocha squash has a dryer flesh so the purée is less watery than Sugar Pie pumpkins. Kabocha is very sweet and flavourful. The flesh cooks into a bright orange.

If you are looking to make a homemade pumpkin purée, but you don't have access to either the Sugar pie pumpkin or Kabocha, consider trying to make a purée from other types of squash, but choose wisely:

• choose a squash that bakes/cooks into a dry purée that isn't too wet. Hubbard squash make a very dry purée, as do Buttercup.
• use a squash that is flavourful and not too fibrous. Red Kuri squash, which is similar in colour to the red Kabocha, but the Red Kuri has a pointy top and a more bulbous shape. Butternut squash is a great option but they have a little more water than other types, so you may want to strain the purée to remove that water or cook down the purée to evaporate the water and concentrate the purée.

Colour may vary

Canned pumpkin can be quite a deep, dark orange colour and you'll notice that homemade pumpkin isn't the same colour (see photo). Homemade pumpkin is MUCH lighter in colour, verging on yellow, sometimes depending on which variety you use. And if you bake with homemade pumpkin purée or squash, you'll notice the colour of your baked goods will be quite different. In some cases, you might see little to no orange colour in the cakes you bake with homemade pumpkin. That's normal! 

If you make a pumpkin pie with homemade pumpkin or squash purées, you'll also notice that the colour of the pie filling will be lighter and more brown/beige than orange. This is also very normal. It will still taste great, so don't judge based on the colour!

Ways to make pumpkin purée at home

There are many ways to cook pumpkin or squash and you should pick the method that works best for you.

1. Roasting: Slice the pumpkin in half, remove the seeds, and roast the fruit. You want to roast until the halves are soft and collapse on themselves a little.
2. Boiling: Peel the pumpkin, remove the seeds, and cut it into big pieces, then boil until tender. Drain well and pat until perfectly dry before blending in a food processor until smooth
3. Microwaving: Pierce the flesh through the skin to make air holes in the fruit, then place it in the microwave. Microwave it on high for several minutes, pausing to check on it every so often. If the pumpkin has a big wooden stem, snap it off before microwaving it. Microwave until soft, testing with a fork or the tip of a sharp knife.

Once your pumpkin (or squash) is cooked, all you have to do is transfer the soft flesh to a food processor and blend it until smooth. Alternatively, if you don't have a food processor, you can also try using a blender, or even just a potato masher by hand. Your pumpkin mash may be a little less smooth than if you had prepared it in the food processor, but it'll be good enough for baking! If you have a food mill, that would work great too to make a purée. 

If you find the pumpkin purée or mash seems very watery, you should either:

• strain the purée through a cheesecloth to remove some of the excess moisture
• cook down the purée in a saucepan or a fry pan to evaporate the excess water and concentrate the purée

Now that you know how to make pumpkin purée, order your copy of the e-book All About Pumpkin so you can celebrate this star ingredient and bake all sorts of delicious recipes with it!

Storing pumpkin purée

Pumpkin is considered a low acid fruit, with a pH above 4.6. Though technically, pumpkin is still acidic compared to a neutral pH of 7, pumpkin is not acidic enough for home canning processes. For this reason, when you make a batch of homemade pumpkin purée, you have to store it in the fridge for short periods, and for longer periods, in the freezer.

Freezing pumpkin

When you store pumpkin purée, whether canned pure pumpkin or homemade purée from roasted pumpkins, you will notice that the purée will slowly release water. That's normal. The same may happen when you freeze and thaw it.

You can freeze pumpkin purée, and when you defrost it to bake with, if you notice a lot of water has separated out, you can strain it out and cook it down, just like you do with frozen bananas for banana bread! This way you won't risk ending up with a soggy bottom or a gummy layer if you bake cakes with it, especially pumpkin bread or pumpkin cranberry bread. For these two recipes, you bake the cake batter in a loaf pan, which is much deeper than a regular round or square cake pan. This means, it's much more difficult to achieve the perfect bake and to get the cake to bake properly, especially at the bottom.

To freeze pumpkin, here are two tips for you to get started:

1. freeze it in portion sizes according the recipes that you are most likely to make. So for the pumpkin bread and pumpkin cranberry bread, I'd freeze it in 1.5 cup portions in an airtight container, choosing a container that is not too big for this amount, nor too small that there is too much air. I also recommend placing a round of parchment paper directly on the surface of the pumpkin to be frozen to protect it from freezer burn on the surface. You can also top it with a layer of plastic wrap fitted to the surface. Then close the lid tightly to freeze.
2. freeze the pumpkin in an ice cube tray, if you plan on making pumpkin pie shakes or pumpkin smoothies! All you have to do is transfer the canned pumpkin or pumpkin purée to an ice cube tray and place it in the freezer. Once frozen solid, transfer the cubes of pumpkin to a freezer bag to store for longer. Make sure to remove as much air from the bag as possible and to pack the cubes tightly. Then when you are ready to make a smoothie, take out a few cubes of frozen pumpkin.

Pumpkin substitutes

Pure pumpkin versus pumpkin filling

Pumpkin filling or pumpkin pie mix in the can is not a good baking substitution for pure pumpkin without making some adjustments to your recipe. Canned pure pumpkin is 100 % pure Dickinson pumpkin. Nothing else is added to this product. It is canned plain and it is not to be confused with pumpkin filling or pumpkin pie mix, which contains more ingredients than just pumpkin. Pumpkin pie filling or mix is used to simplify pumpkin pie-making because the spices are already in it. All you do is add eggs and milk, cream, or evaporated milk.

• Libby's canned pumpkin pie mix contains water, sugar, spices, dextrose, and natural flavours.
• E.D. Smith canned pumpkin filling is made with pumpkin, sugar, water, spices (contain wheat flour), salt, vegetable oil, caramel colour

For this reason, if you want to replace pure pumpkin with pumpkin filling, you will have to adjust the spices in your recipe, as well as the salt, and possibly the sugar. There's no direct equation for replacing one with the other. Sorry!

Other pumpkin substitutes that aren't pumpkin-based

If you can't find canned pure pumpkin and you can't find a sugar pumpkin, consider exploring other squashes which you can easily turn into purée and use interchangeably to replace canned pure pumpkin. Follow the recipe below and make sure to take the time to strain the purée for an hour through a cheesecloth to remove the excess moisture if you find your purée is very wet.

Otherwise, replace pure pumpkin with mashed sweet potato, cup-for-cup!

When you are baking and cooking with squash and pumpkin, don't forget to save the seeds so that you can make toasted pumpkin seeds (or squash seeds) to snack on!

If you tried this recipe for the homemade pumpkin purée (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!

📖 Recipe

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Homemade Pumpkin Purée

Learn how to make homemade pumpkin purée from a fresh pumpkin with this easy recipe!

Course pantry staple

Cuisine American

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

1 hour hour

Total Time 1 hour hour 10 minutes minutes

Servings 375 mL

Calories 1kcal

Author Janice Lawandi

Equipment

• Sheet pan
• Food processor

Ingredients

• 1 kg Sugar pumpkin also called Pie pumpkin

Metric - US

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 400 ºF (200 °C). Line a sheet pan with parchment paper (preferably a rimmed sheet pan to catch any juices).
• Cut the pumpkin in half, lengthwise.
• Scrape out the seeds and save them to make toasted pumpkin seeds.
• Place the pumpkin halves, cut-side down on the prepared sheet pan.
• Roast for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until very tender.
• Let cool, then scrape out the flesh of the pumpkin and place it in the food processor.
• Process the pumpkin to form a smooth purée.
• If the pumpkin purée seems a little loose or watery, strain it through a cheesecloth for 1 hour or cook it down on the stove to concentrate it.
• Store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week or freeze it.

Notes

If you can't find a Sugar pumpkin to make homemade pumpkin purée, you can use a Kabocha or a Red Kuri squash instead. You can also try butternut, but it may release more water, so make sure to take the time to strain the mash before baking with it, especially because that moisture could lead to a soggy bottom on cakes and pies.

Nutrition

Calories: 1kcal | Carbohydrates: 1g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 1g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Sodium: 1mg | Potassium: 9mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 227IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 1mg | Iron: 1mg

Now that you know how to make pumpkin purée at home, you can bake with it and make

• pumpkin bread
• pumpkin bread with cranberries
• pumpkin pie without evaporated milk
• pumpkin muffins
• pumpkin pie tarts
• baked pumpkin donuts

And if you have a little leftover, you can easily use it up in this recipe for a super easy pumpkin spice shake

The post How to make homemade pumpkin purée for baking appeared first on The Bake School.

Whipped cream makes a great topping for baked goods, like this fallen chocolate cake or this Earl Grey chocolate tart. You can even use it to make layer cakes, like this Black Forest cake. You can also use it as a garnish for beverages like hot chocolate and hot cocoa.

Ingredients

The beauty of whipped cream is that it takes just a few ingredients to make and yet it is so versatile! Here's what you need to make homemade whipped cream:

• cream—use cream with a higher fat content, around 35–40 % fat.
• sugar—you can technically use either granulated sugar or icing sugar. Granulated sugar will give the whipped cream a slightly grainy texture.
• vanilla—both vanilla extract and vanilla bean paste will work here. Use the same amount of either. Alternatively, you can scrape a vanilla bean and add the seeds, but the flavour may be more subtle without extracting it.

Please see the recipe card for the exact ingredients and quantities.

Substitutions and Variations

Instructions

You can use a stand mixer, an electric hand mixer, or just a balloon whisk to whip the cream by hand. If using an electric mixer, be careful because it's very easy to overwhip the cream. It can happen in seconds!

Step 1: Place the cold whipping cream in a cold bowl (image 1) and whip it until soft peaks form (image 2). Soft peaks means that the cream will not hold its shape at this point and will be very supple and soft.

Tip: Make sure you start the process with cold whipping cream, taken directly from the fridge. If the cream is warm or has sat out for a period, it will not do a good job of trapping air and you will have a difficult time trying to incorporate air into the foam, which will be less stable. Use cold cream to make whipped cream!

Step 2: Add the vanilla and the icing sugar to the soft whipped cream (image 3) then continue to whip the cream until it is firm but still supple (image 4).

Hint: if you are making mousse, it's actually better to leave the whipped cream quite soft to make incorporating the other ingredients easier. If the cream is too firm, it will take more effort to incorporate mousse ingredients together and you will deflate it.

Recipes with Whipped Cream

If you tried this recipe for whipped cream (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!

📖 Recipe

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Whipped Cream

Learn how to make perfect whipped cream with this easy recipe. This vanilla whipped cream is sweetened with icing sugar and flavoured with vanilla bean paste for a lovely topping that can also be used as a filling or frosting for cakes.

Course Dessert

Cuisine French

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Total Time 10 minutes minutes

Servings 8

Calories 122kcal

Author Janice Lawandi

Ingredients

• 250 mL whipping cream (35 % fat)
• 25 grams icing sugar
• 5 mL vanilla bean paste

Metric - US

Instructions

• In a bowl, using either an electric hand mixer or a balloon whisk, whip the cream to soft peaks.
• Add the icing sugar and vanilla, and continue whipping until the whipping cream is thick, but supple. Use immediately. Do not overwhip.

Notes

• Temperature is key when you whip cream. Make sure your cream is fridge-cold because cold cream will do a better job of trapping air in a foam than warm cream. 
• You can add a few ingredients to stabilize whipped cream. Your best bet is to add gelatin, either powdered gelatin or gelatin sheets, which will trap the water, preventing it from separating out upon storage. To do this, for ever cup of whipping cream, use ⅛ + ¼ teaspoon powdered gelatin or ½ sheet of leaf gelatin (~1.7 grams). For powdered gelatin, bloom it in cold milk, then heat it gently to melt the gelatin. For leaf gelatin, soften it in cold water, then squeeze the excess water and melt it in a small amount of cold milk (or cream) on low heat. Remember the melting temperature of gelatin is around 32 °C (90 °C). If you overheat the gelatin, you will damage the proteins, and it won't stabilize the cream properly. Let it cool slightly before incorporating with your whipped cream.
• Althernative stabilizers are cream cheese or mascarpone. These will alter the flavour of the whipped cream slightly but they stabilize quite well! Start with 56 grams (2 ounces) of cream cheese or mascarpone, whipping until smooth before adding the cream.
• To flavour whipped cream:
  • Vanilla - use vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste interchangeably
  • Coffee - add a shot of cold espresso or use espresso powder
  • Chocolate - fold in cooled melted chocolate (watch how thick it will become as it sets! This is chocolate mousse!)
  • Lemon - fold in lemon curd
  • Tea - add finely chopped Earl Grey tea leaves (the taste will be subtle but the look is very pretty like on this Earl Grey chocolate tart!)
  • Alcohol - add a liqueur like Kahluà or Amaretto, or even brandy or cognac

Nutrition

Calories: 122kcal | Carbohydrates: 4g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 11g | Saturated Fat: 7g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.5g | Monounsaturated Fat: 3g | Cholesterol: 36mg | Sodium: 9mg | Potassium: 30mg | Sugar: 4g | Vitamin A: 462IU | Vitamin C: 0.2mg | Calcium: 21mg | Iron: 0.03mg

The post How to Make Whipped Cream appeared first on The Bake School.

How do you make it

Lemon sugar is so easy to make. All you have to do is rub together granulated sugar with the zest of a lemon (or two). Use your finger tips to rub the two ingredients together to damage the cells of the lemon zest, releasing their natural citrus oils and infusing the sugar.

You can also do this with any other citrus fruit, whether that's orange, lime, grapefruit, or even bergamot!

Regardless of the citrus fruit you choose, make sure to:

• wash and dry the citrus fruit well, removing any stickers or dirt, before using
• use a microplane to remove only the outer layer of the zest, leaving behind the light coloured, white pith that is very bitter and not tasty

What to do with it

The beauty of lemon sugar is that it allows you to add tons of lemon flavour to recipes without adding excess moisture. Replace granulated sugar in any cake or cookie recipe with lemon sugar, and you will add lemon flavour without throwing off the ratio of liquid-to-dry ingredients and without throwing off the pH of the recipe. I used lemon sugar to flavour these cranberry lemon muffins.

Another great use for lemon sugar is as a finishing ingredient. For example, you can sprinkle them on crêpes before folding them up to serve them. This is a much simpler presentation than the strawberry crêpes served with vanilla bean pastry cream. Garnishing crêpes with lemon sugar is the traditional way of serving crêpes in France and parts of Europe, actually. This adds a ton of flavour, but still leaves room for serving with maple syrup, honey, or even crème anglaise or a caramel sauce.

One thing to note is that lemon sugar won't add that tart acidity that many expect from lemon-flavoured baked goods. Neither will lemon oil or lemon extract for that matter.

If you are looking to bring a bright acidic note to your dessert, whether that's a cookie, a cake, or even a muffin, it's best to top the dessert with a lemon sauce or a lemon glaze made from fresh lemon juice, which allows you to finish with a bright, tart icing that will provide a punch of flavour.

📖 Recipe

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Lemon Sugar

Lemon sugar is so easy to make with this recipe and you can use it to flavour baked goods, like cakes, cookies, and muffins, but also as a filling for crêpes!

Course pantry staple

Cuisine French

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Total Time 10 minutes minutes

Servings 16

Calories 49kcal

Author Janice Lawandi

Equipment

• Microplane zester

Ingredients

For the muffin batter

• 200 grams granulated sugar
• 30 mL finely grated lemon zest

Metric - US

Instructions

• In a large bowl, combine the granulated sugar and lemon zest. Using your fingertips, rub the ingredients together. This will help bring out the oils in the zest, adding more flavour.
• Store lemon sugar in an airtight container in a cool, dry place.

Nutrition

Calories: 49kcal | Carbohydrates: 13g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 1g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Sodium: 1mg | Potassium: 3mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 13g | Vitamin A: 1IU | Vitamin C: 2mg | Calcium: 3mg | Iron: 1mg

The post How to Make Lemon Sugar appeared first on The Bake School.

Sugar is an essential building block for life. It's a source of energy for most living organisms through glycolysis of glucose and it's a way of storing energy through gluconeogenesis, from glucose to glycogen. Sugar is even a building block for DNA nucleotides and RNA ribonucleotides. Basic biology aside, sugar is also essential in baking and sugar does more than just make your baked goods taste sweet. Here's everything you need to know about sugar in baking.

What sugar is

When we talk about sugar in baking, usually we are referring to sucrose. Other sugars you may hear about and use in baking include glucose, fructose, maltose, and lactose, among many others.

All sugars are carbohydrates, also called saccharides, and they can be simple or complex. Simple carbohydrates include monosaccharides and disaccharides or simple chains of sugars bound together.

Here's a rundown of the simple sugars you will often hear about and/or use in baking:

• Glucose, a monosaccharide with the formula C₆H₁₂O₆
• Fructose, a monosaccharide with the formula C₆H₁₂O₆
• Sucrose, a disaccharide of glucose and fructose bound together—this is what we commonly refer to as "sugar" when we bake, usually in the form of granulated white sugar
• Maltose, a disaccharide of two glucose molecules bound together—this is the sugar in corn syrup, along with glucose
• Lactose, a disaccharide of glucose and galactose bound together—this is the sugar in milk and dairy products that many people have trouble digesting because they lack the lactase enzyme.

Sucrose, maltose, and lactose are all examples of small oligosaccharides (made up of two sugars). Oligosaccharides can have anywhere from 2 to 10 sugars bound together in a simple chain.

Complex carbohydrates are longer chains of sugars that have a more branched or intricate structure. Complex carbohydrates fall under the polysaccharide category and are much larger than oligosaccharides. Starches are a great example of complex carbohydrates because they are longer, more complex chains of glucose molecules bound together.

Types of sugar to bake with

We can divide the sugars we bake with in two big categories: crystallized sugars and the sugars that are in the forms of syrups.

Crystalline sugars

Most sugars crystallize when they are refined and purified. Some sugars are pure sucrose, while others may contain molasses, starches, or other ingredients. The colour differs depending on how pure they are, as does the size of the crystal (which also varies depending on the process).

White sugar

White sugar is made up of sucrose, a disaccharide of glucose and fructose bound together. You can rank white sugars according to their grain size or particle size, from largest crystals to smallest crystals as follows: coarse sugar > granulated sugar > superfine sugar > powdered sugar > fondant sugar.

• Pearl sugar resembles rocks of white sugar. It's so coarse and big that it doesn't melt readily when heated, nor does it dissolve as easily as other sugars. Pearl sugar is used to sprinkle on baked goods before baking, especially chouquettes (made of pâte à choux) and brioche buns (like this chocolate cranberry bread)
• Coarse sugar is finer than pearl sugar, but the crystals are still quite large. 700 to 1400 µM
• Sanding sugar is used as a finishing sugar, like sprinkles.
• Granulated sugar 450 to 650 µM
• Superfine sugar is especially useful for making meringues and pavlova because the finer crystals dissolve more readily in the egg whites, leading to a better texture of meringue with more lift. Superfine may also be labelled as ultrafine sugar. 150 to 450 µM,
• Caster's sugar (same as superfine sugar)
• Powdered sugar (also called icing sugar or confectioner's sugar) is sold in two forms, 6X and 10X, where 6X is more coarse than 10X. Both are much finer and more powdery than caster, superfine, and granulated sugar. Powdered sugar is mixed with up to 3 % cornstarch or tapioca starch before packaging. The starch absorbs moisture and reduces clumping. 10 to 40 µM
• Fondant sugar is an even finer form of powdered sugar and has the finest grain on the list of sugars. Fondant sugar doesn't usually have a starch added to avoid the starchy mouthfeel powdered sugar may give. It's often used for glazes and therefore may have maltodextrin to improve shine in donut glazes or 3–10 % invert sugar added to help glaze adhere without running off (like on donuts).

On this list, anything more coarse than powdered sugar will have a grittier texture. That texture may reveal itself in your baked goods. Think of shortbread made with icing sugar versus granulated sugar: using granulated sugar leads to a more gritty texture.

The coarsest sugars are not usually incorporated into baked goods. Instead, they are used as a garnish or finishing element. They are sprinkled on just before baking on the surface of doughs, usually. So pearl sugar, turbinado sugar, and sanding sugars are a garnish, as a rule.

Note that jam sugar would fall under this category of white sugars, but jam sugar is made of superfine sugar plus pectin. You use this type of sugar to ensure jams made with low-pectin fruit will achieve the perfect set. Of course, if you boil jams for long enough and to a high enough temperature, you will hit the jam setting point regardless of the pectin content of the fruit. For this reason, I feel like using jam sugar isn't critical or necessary.

Brown sugar

There's a very common misconception about brown sugar: many bakers think it is less refined than white sugar because of its golden-brown hues. That's false. Most brown sugars are white sugar mixed with a little molasses, to add back some of the colour and flavour lost during processing. This is an easier way for manufacturers to create a consistent product from one batch to another. The exception is muscovado, as you can see on this list of brown sugars:

• Yellow, golden or light brown sugar are lighter and more golden in colour, as the names suggest, and have a milder flavour.
• Dark brown sugar has more molasses added to it and therefore a more pronounced flavour. It works really well in these chocolate chip cookies with pecans, lending them a more complex flavour than white sugar alone can
• Muscovado sugar is less refined than dark brown sugars. For this reason, you may notice it has a more noticeable flavour, perhaps a little more earthy.
• Coconut sugar is made from the sap of flower buds of coconut palm trees. It is very dark in colour and has a very pronounced flavour that can be overpowering. Like maple syrup, the sap is boiled down to concentrate it. The concentrated syrup is then crystallized.

You can replace any of the brown sugars in this category for another in the same category, gram for gram, and cup for cup. But remember that some of these are much more flavourful than others, so make sure the substitution you are making is appropriate for the result you want in terms of colour and flavour.

Raw sugar

Marketers will claim raw sugar is less refined. It is still refined up to a point in order for it to crystallize and taste good. These sugars generally haven't been decolourized:

• Turbinado sugar: a coarse golden crystalline sugar with large crystals
• Demerara Sugar: popular in the UK and similar to turbinado
• Golden cane sugar (also called evaporated cane juice or natural cane sugar): similar to granulated sugar but slightly less refined.

Turbinado and demerara sugars fall under the category of finishing sugars. You use them to garnish baked goods, like the top crust of a pie before baking, or the outer edge of a log of slice-and-bake cookie dough.

This type of granular, coarse sugar doesn't melt as easily as regular granulated sugar and therefore imparts more texture if you use it in doughs or cakes. For this reason, it isn't recommended in most recipes, except as a textural and visual garnish.

You can use golden cane sugar instead of granulated sugar, replacing one for the other, gram for gram.

Syrups and liquid sugars

Liquid sugars have water in them, which is why they aren't crystalline. Over time, many of these may and will crystallize, creating a gritty texture. Crystallization is most common in honey and maple syrup, though you may observe it in glucose too, which becomes more solid with time.

• Honey—bees produce honey, which beekeepers harvest. The bees eat flower nectar, digesting the sucrose in it, "inverting it" with their saliva to the building blocks, glucose and fructose. Honey is more acidic than other sugars, with a pH around 3.5, minimum.
• Maple syrup is sucrose syrup that comes from the sap of the maple tree during late winter and early spring months. Maple producers collect the fluid, watery sap of maple trees and boil it down to form a syrup. Producers grade maple syrup and label it according to how concentrated the product is and the colour ranges from very light to amber and even dark (almost black).
• Corn syrup (light or dark), also called glucose corn syrup is mostly glucose and maltose. It's made from the hydrolysis of starches (complex carbohydrates of glucose molecules). The flavour of light and dark corn syrup is different and therefore used in different circumstances.
  • Light corn syrup is flavoured with vanillin
  • Dark syrup has a very small amount of molasses.
• Glucose syrup is a colourless syrup that is very viscous and therefore hard to handle. Professional pastry chefs will wet a spoon with water to help remove glucose from a big tub, without having it pull and form strings that stick everywhere. Glucose is clear and colourless but will darken with time. The colour doesn't affect it. Glucose syrup will also become thicker and even dry out or crystallize if stored for a long time. Glucose syrup comes from starch: starch molecules are long chains of glucose molecules bound together and hydrolyzing starch breaks down the chain into the monosaccharide building block that is glucose.
• Molasses is a produced in the early stages of sugar cane refinement. It is a dark (practically black), thick, sweet, slightly bitter syrup, mostly made of sucrose. It's made by concentrating sugarcane juice
• Treacle is a syrup made during the sugar cane refinement process.
  • Black treacle is another type of molasses.
  • Golden syrup is also called light treacle and it is a cane syrup, but much lighter in colour than black treacle and molasses (as the name suggests). Golden syrup has a milder, very light taste. It's also known as pancake syrup.

Fun fact: invert sugars are sweeter than the sugars they come from. For example honey (an invert sugar syrup made of glucose and fructose) is sweeter than sucrose. If you think about it a little, it makes sense because the bees turn one sucrose molecule into two sugars, so logically you would expect the product with two monosaccharides to be sweeter than the nectar with a single disaccharide.

The many roles of sugar in baking

Sugar plays many roles in baking and some of them are hard to replace if you want to make a subsititution or eliminate sugar from your recipes:

• Adds flavour and sweetness
• Tenderizes
• Retains moisture
• Improves shelf-life
• Contributes colour
• Helps aerate

Flavour

Sugar can impart a flavour to baked goods because:

• the sugar itself is flavourful: for example maple syrup, honey, and coconut sugar have very distinct flavours and these will come through when you bake with them instead of granulated sugar
• the sugar caramelizes when heated, developing flavourful compounds so even white sugar can contribute a flavour if it's heated for long enough.

Think of adding sugar, not only to impart sweetness, but also to contribute flavour. Use different types of sugar in your recipes to give a more complex flavour to baked goods.

Texture

Sugar disrupts gluten formation when they dissolve. Adding sugar to baked goods means that the proteins that make up gluten are less likely to assemble and will not assemble so easily. This means your baked goods will be more tender than without.

Sugar also disrupts protein coagulation and starch gelatinization, increasing the temperature at which these structure-building activities happen. This delay leads to a more tender product.

Of course, if you add too much sugar to a recipe, it may disrupt the structure so much that your cake collapses or can cause a more crumbly texture.

On the other hand, sugar can also lend a crunchy or crispy texture in recipes like cookies. Rolling cookies in sugar can draw out moisture on the surface of the cookie. This dries them out, leading to cracks and a crunchier texture. Examples of this include these sugar cookies with sprinkles, ginger cookies with crystallized ginger, chocolate sugar cookies, and chocolate crackle cookies.

You may also sprinkle the surface of baked goods with turbinado or coarse raw sugar before baking. This contributes a lovely sweet crunch texture to the surface of scones and biscuits, to the edges of slice-and-bake cookies that were rolled in sugar before slicing, and to the top crust of pies.

Moisture

Sugar is hygroscopic, meaning it absorbs water from its surroundings. More sugar in a cake recipe contributes to a more moist texture and mouthfeel. By trapping water, sugar actually slows the drying out process of baked goods.

The hygroscopic nature of sugar means that it dissolves, turning into a syrup and so it contributes to cookies spreading when baked.

Shelf-life

Sugar improves the stability and shelf-life of baked goods. Remember that sugar is hygroscopic, meaning that it absorbs moisture from its surroundings. Sugar slows drying out in baked goods, giving you more time to enjoy them before they become stale and dry.

For this reason, recipes with reduced sugar often have to compensate with more moisture and/or more fat to improve perceived moistness and mouthfeel, but also to prevent baked goods from drying out too quickly.

Colour and caramelization

There are two ways that sugar contributes colour in baking: caramelization and Maillard browning. With caramelization, you have to heat sugar above 150 °C (300 °F) to colour and caramelize it. On the other hand, Maillard browning occurs much more readily, even at room temperature, especially in the presence of proteins and at high pH.

Tip: if you want to improve browning in baked goods that don't take long to bake, like cookies, try adding a little baking soda! You'll notice with my chocolate chip cookie recipe, I add 2.5 mL (½ teaspoon) of baking soda for 195 grams (1-½ cups) of flour. This not only has an impact on the spread but also the browning of the cookie.

Aeration

Recall that with the creaming mixing method often used for cakes and cookies, the first step involves beating together the softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy. This takes several minutes. This is a mechanical way for bakers to incorporate air in baked goods and is one of the reasons that this step is considered a method of leavening that people often skip over.

Actually if you don't spend enough time on this step, your baked goods may end up dense.

The same goes with meringue and egg-white based desserts. Dissolved sugar stabilizes whipped egg whites so that they can hold their shape and hold air.

Other roles of sugar

Sugar plays a role even in recipes that aren't baked:

• In ice cream, sugar traps water, reducing ice crystal formation, leading to a smoother mouthfeel and a softer texture
• In homemade preserves, sugar
  • is essential to achieving the perfect set when making homemade jams. In fact, if you reduce the sugar in a jam recipe, you may never get the jam to set.
  • traps water thereby increasing shelf-life and preventing the growth of microorganism. Again, this is because sugar is hygroscopic and so traps water. Water is essential for microorganisms to grow, so high quantities of sugar will delay the growth of mold and bacteria.

Substitutions with sugar

Use the weight not the volume

Because the size of the particles and crystals varies so greatly from fondant sugar to coarse sugar, replacing one sugar for another is tricky. You will need to consider weight, not volume, to make substitutions without having an impact on flavour.

Consult the baking ingredients conversion chart to see for yourself: 1 cup of powdered sugar weighs 125 grams, whereas 1 cup of granulated sugar weighs 200 grams. That's a big difference. It becomes even greater as you scale up a recipe or work on larger batch sizes. If you want to substitute one type of sugar for another, use the weight as your guide. Replace them gram for gram.

Consider the texture

You need to understand the role and impact of each type of sugar in order to replace one with another. You also need to have a clear goal in mind in order to make smart substitution decisions.

Granulated sugar will give cookies a more crispy edge. Brown sugar will lead to a softer or more chewy texture. Brown sugar may reduce the spread of cookies ever so slightly. Superfine sugar will increase the spread because it dissolves into a syrup faster.

Pearl and coarse sugars like turbinado don't dissolve readily and resist melting even at high temperatures. It would be a terrible idea to replace granulated sugar with a coarse sugar. This would make your baked goods very gritty and add a crunchy texture from undissolved sugar.

Consider the flavour difference

You also need to consider taste when swapping one sugar for another: granulated sugar is a white sugar that has no flavour except for sweetness. Muscovado sugar adds a lot of earthiness to a recipe through it's molasses and mineral content. You may want to replace a portion of white sugar with muscovado or brown sugar, instead of all of it.

Replacing granulated sugar with maple syrup or honey in baking

1. maple syrup and honey are both liquid. You may have to reduce the quantity of other liquids in your recipe when replacing sugar with either of these. Or if there aren't any liquids in the recipe, increase the flour: add an extra 1 tablespoon of flour for every 60 mL (¼ cup) of maple syrup or molasses added)
2. maple syrup is mostly sucrose, just like granulated sugar, so it's as sweet. This means you can substitute one for the other, cup for cup.
3. honey is sweeter than regular granulated sugar so you may need to make adjustments from the extra sweetness honey brings.

Replacing granulated sugar

Replace 200 grams (1 cup) granulated sugar (or cane sugar) with either of the following:

• 200 grams (1 cup) of caster sugar (also known as super fine sugar or special fine sugar)
• 200 grams (1 cup) of brown sugar (light or dark doesn't make a difference but these will impart some caramel colour to baked goods, as well as some extra flavour)
• 190 mL (¾ cup) of honey
• 250 mL (1 cup) of maple syrup

Remember that you may have to adjust liquid quantities in your recipes if baking with sugar syrups.

⁉️ Sugar FAQs

Storage

If stored properly, the shelf-life of sugar is forever, meaning it won't spoil or go bad.

For syrups with water, storage varies:

• maple syrup must be stored in the refrigerator to slow the growth of mold and yeast cells
• glucose syrup shouldn't be refrigerated because it may crystallize. You may notice corn syrup or glucose will start to turn golden with age, but this has no impact on its properties. If this happens, you may not want to use it in a recipe where it could impart an undesired colour though.
• honey doesn't have to be refrigerated because of its acidity combined with a high concentration of sugar, it's not going to mold. You may notice it crystallize over time, but the sugar can be redissolved with gentle heating.

Recipes made with different types of sugar

Recipes made with molasses

• molasses cookies
• ginger molasses cookies
• ginger cookies with white chocolate
• gingerbread cutout cookies

Recipes made with dark brown sugar

Dark brown sugar contributes to a chewy texture in cookies and a richer flavour. Here are some baking recipes that feature dark brown sugar:

• spelt chocolate chip cookies
• chewy chocolate sugar cookies
• chocolate chip cookies with pecans

Recipes made with maple syrup

If you are interested in baking more with maple syrup, try these maple recipes:

• maple butter
• maple cream cookies (with a maple butter filling)
• thick and chewy maple cookies
• maple syrup pie
• maple pumpkin bread

Recipes made with honey

Honey gives baked goods a distinct flavour. If you'd like to bake more with honey, try these recipes:

• honey sugar cookies
• grapefruit pâte de fruit
• honey apricot jam
• strawberry rhubarb crumbles
• honey blueberry muffins

Recipes made with icing sugar

Icing sugar is essential in many frostings and glazes, but also used for decor in pastry. Here are some recipes that feature icing sugar:

• jam-filled shortbread cookies
• royal icing for decorating cutout cookies
• alfajores filled with dulce de leche
• thick cream cheese frosting

Recipes made with treacle

Treacle is darker and has a more pronounced flavour than molasses nad honey. Here are some recipes baked with treacle:

• Soft gingerbread cookies

📚 Further reading

If you would like to learn more about ways of baking with less sugar, I highly recommend the book Baking with Less Sugar by Joanne Chang. I really enjoy her book and I published a review of Joanne Chang's book a few years ago, so you can read my thoughts on it.

For more information about how to replace one sugar with another and all the things you need to consider, read my guide to baking substitutions.

If you are interested in diving deep into sugar and the science of baking, please read How Baking Works by Paula Figoni, a book that I have included in my list of best baking science books and references.

If you want to learn more about baking, I highly recommend you explore the baking 101 page and especially the series on baking ingredients! Within you will find a deep dive on the ingredients you need to bake.

The post Sugar in baking appeared first on The Bake School.

How to make maple syrup

If you want to make maple syrup, you will need a forest of maple trees and a specific climate found in parts of the New England area, like Vermont, and also parts of Eastern Canada, like Quebec and Ontario. Maple syrup is made from the maple water/sap of the maple tree. In spring, the water/sap rushes up from the roots to feed the budding branches that were dormant all winter. The liquid is collected during a brief period of spring, when the nights are cold and the days are warm, so usually during the month of March, though the season may start as early as the end of February and may extend into early April. During this period, the water from the earth rises up the trees at night when it's cold, then flows down during the day when it's warm. Sugar maple trees are tapped and a spout is attached to each to collect the sap as it rises and falls.

Maple syrup is concentrated maple water

The collected sap is boiled down to remove water and concentrate the sugars and flavours. To make pure maple syrup, you need 150 litres of maple sap (40 gallons) to make 3.8 litres (1 gallon) of maple syrup. I have visited a few maple farms and sugar shacks over the years and seen the process, but I've never attempted it myself at home. I honestly don't have access to a small forest of maple trees and I'm pretty sure tapping municipal trees in the park is a no-no. That being said, if you happen to be blessed with a backyard of maple trees and live in the New England area, Quebec, or Ontario, you can read all about making maple syrup in your backyard on Simple Bites!

Maple products available

Grades and classes of maple syrup

The flavour of maple syrup (the concentrated sap) reflects its origins, with woodsy, earthy notes. Only Grade A maple syrup is sold in stores in Quebec and it is made from pure maple sap with no other colours or flavours added. It's the real deal! You can buy four different classes of Grade A maple syrup in stores, each representing a different concentration of syrup, from the lighter syrups which have a milder flavour and a more transparent, light colour, to very dark syrups which are very concentrated with strong maple flavour:  

• Golden maple syrup or sirop d'érable doré is very light, almost colourless and has a very mild, delicate flavour. The lighter maple syrup is collected earlier in the season. Most will use golden maple syrup for serving on pancakes, crêpes, waffles, or ice cream
• Amber maple syrup or sirop d'érable ambré is my preferred maple syrup because it has a more pronounced flavour and a darker colour. I bake with it and I also pour it on pancakes
• Dark maple syrup or sirop d'érable foncé is much darker than amber maple syrup. Dark maple syrup is great in meat glazes like on ribs. I also bake with dark maple syrup when I want to add more flavour.
• Very dark maple syrup or sirop d'érable très foncé is the darkest maple syrup you can buy and has the strongest flavour of all with deep caramel notes. Darker maple syrups are collected later in the season.

Don't confuse maple syrup with maple-flavoured pancake syrup! These two products are not the same! Maple syrup is a syrup of sucrose in water, whereas pancake syrup is a glucose-based syrup, flavoured with natural and artificial maple flavours. These two products are different and not to be confused. Read all about sugar in baking to find out more about the difference!

Other maple products

Though maple syrup is the most common, well-known form of maple on the market, there are other maple products available that you can buy:

• maple water, which is maple sap collected during maple season and often boxed in a Tetra Pak. Maple water is sold in some grocery stores and health food stores. If you are curious about the taste, try it on Amazon.
• maple sugar, a concentrated, granular, dry form of pure maple syrup. Buy maple sugar on Amazon.
• maple flakes are newer to the market and they are literally a flaky form of pure maple syrup, like the flaky sea salt version of maple syrup, if you see what I mean. Maple flakes are light and make an awesome crunchy, sweet maple topping sprinkled as a finishing touch on frosted cupcakes and cakes, cookies, etc. I recommend using maple flakes after baking as a garnish, like in these maple shortbread cookies or in cookie dough, like in these maple sugar cookies. Get maple flakes on Amazon.
• maple taffy is a gooey, sticky concentrate of maple syrup that is called "tire d'érable" in French because it can be pulled into long sticky strands of syrup. Maple taffy is what is poured on snow and rolled onto popsicle sticks during maple season, to be eaten like a maple lollipop
• maple butter is a creamy spread made from pure maple syrup. You can buy maple butter, but at home, you can follow this maple butter recipe, which you can use to make these maple cream cookies. Spread it thick on toast. Buy maple butter on Amazon if you don't have time to make it at home.

Baking with maple syrup

Maple syrup works very well in baking recipes and personally, I like to bake with Amber Grade A maple syrup because it has a pronounced but not overpowering flavour. I find the golden maple syrup is too delicate to stand out in baked goods, while the darker syrups are too robust. There are a few things to consider when using maple syrup as a sugar substitute in baking:

Substituting maple syrup for granulated sugar

Given that maple syrup is a liquid sweetener and contains some water in it, you cannot substitute granulated sugar for maple syrup without making certain adjustments to the recipe. Baking with maple syrup may lead to a slight difference in texture and will have a noticeable impact on flavour. You may have to adjust the temperature of your oven when baking with maple syrup, reducing it by 25ºF. As a rule:

• Replace 1 cup of sugar with ⅔ cup to ¾ cup of maple syrup. This works for both granulated sugar and brown sugar.
• Reduce liquids in the recipe when baking with maple syrup: You may also have to reduce the amount of liquid in your recipe if you replace sugar with maple syrup, around ¼ cup less liquid for every cup of sugar replaced. 
• Replace 1 cup of sugar with 1 cup of maple sugar, but this will be expensive. Maple sugar is a concentrated, dry, granular form of pure maple syrup and makes a great sugar substitute but it comes at a high price! Use it in combination with maple syrup to achieve the best balance of price, texture, and taste.

Substituting maple syrup for honey or agave

Both honey and maple syrup are liquid sweeteners and so as a rule, they can be interchanged, though this will have a big impact on flavour as the taste of honey is quite different than the taste of maple syrup. Also note that honey is sweeter than maple syrup, so if you replace honey for maple syrup, cup-for-cup, you will notice that your recipe is less sweet with maple syrup than when honey is used. You can also easily replace agave with maple syrup.

• Replace 1 cup of honey with 1 cup of maple syrup
• Replace 1 cup of agave with 1 cup of maple syrup

Substituting maple syrup for molasses

Just like with honey, both maple syrup and molasses are liquid sweeteners and therefore you should be able to substitute 1 cup of molasses with 1 cup of maple syrup. For example, I have successfully done this in my simple gingerbread cookies cutout recipe and replacing molasses with maple syrup worked very well. Again, the flavours of molasses and maple syrup are very different and also molasses is much darker in colour and so this substitution will also have an impact on the colour of your baked goods.

• Replace 1 cup of molasses with 1 cup of maple syrup

Maple syrup recipes

I adore maple syrup and so I try to sneak it into many of my baking recipes, as you may have noticed. Here's a rundown of desserts to bake with maple syrup and recipes featuring maple syrup:

Maple butter

Maple butter, also known as maple cream, is a creamy spread that is 100% maple syrup and nothing else. Don't be fooled by those quick maple butter recipes that are basically sweet, maple-flavoured compound butters made by whipping maple syrup with butter. That is not the same thing! Maple butter is great spread on toast for breakfast, but feel free to make maple cream sandwich cookies by sandwiching a dollop of maple butter between maple shortbread cookies!

Maple pie

The classic sugaring-off dessert in Quebec is tarte au sucre, also known as sugar pie, maple pie, or maple syrup pie. Maple pie is one of my favourite pies and it's actually quite easy to make at home, with an all-butter pie crust that is whipped together in the food processor, no blind-baking required, and a filling that is simply whisked before pouring into unbaked pie shell and baking. Maple syrup pie is such a treat! We make it in spring, during maple season, but also in the fall, many will serve maple pie for Thanksgiving. 

Maple apple pie

You can sweeten a classic apple pie with maple syrup, which adds so much flavour to the apple filling. With very juicy apples, I like to toss apple slices in maple syrup before roasting them to soften and concentrate their flavour. Then I use the maple roasted apple slices to make maple apple pie by mixing the roasted apple slices with a little more maple sugar.

Traditional maple walnut fudge

In my family, we tend to make traditional maple fudge around the holidays because that's when you have a lot of guests over so you can share the fudge and avoid eating it all by yourself. Maple fudge is delicious, but best served in small pieces for sharing because it is quite sweet. Some people prefer creamy fudge, but I like it smooth with just a hint of grit to it from the crystallizing sugar. By the way, the walnuts in the recipe are entirely optional. 

Maple brioche buns

Swirl maple syrup into your favourite brioche recipe as you shape the brioche dough and you will have a lovely brunch-time maple brioche treat that is buttery and maple-forward.

Maple nut granola

Use maple syrup in your favourite granola recipe and I guarantee you will love it even more! Pro tip: if you press the unbaked granola into your baking sheet before baking, you will end up with perfect granola clusters.

Apple maple syrup recipe for pancakes

If you think maple syrup makes a great topping for pancakes and waffles, try this apple maple syrup with chunks of apple in it. I bet it would taste great poured over this Dutch baby pancake recipe too!

If you would like to read more about maple syrup, consult the Maple From Quebec website and the Pure Maple From Canada site!

Please note this post contains affiliate links to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. If you buy a product I recommend, I will get a small commission, and the price you have to pay will not change in any way.

The post What to bake with maple syrup appeared first on The Bake School.

If a recipe calls for cinnamon sugar, don't buy it! It's a huge waste of money. Instead, make your own! You can make a big batch in seconds, store it in jars in your baking pantry for future projects, or give it away as a fun (and easy) homemade gift!

Ingredients

The ingredient list to make cinnamon sugar is short. You probably have everything you need in your cupboard so you will never buy cinnamon sugar again!

• granulated sugar
• ground cinnamon

The amount of each ingredient is dependent on how cinnamony you want it. Sometimes, I add more than a tablespoon of cinnamon per cup of sugar if I want it to be more potent. It's really up to you. Use this recipe as a starting point.

See recipe card for the exact quantities and ingredients.

Variations

While this is a classic, you can use this recipe as a jumping-off point:

• Spices: Try adding cardamom to make cardamom sugar or pumpkin spice mix to make pumpkin spice sugar for your fall baking. There are so many great spices that could work here!
• Sugar: while granulated sugar is the classic, you can try maple or brown sugar. The texture, colour, and flavour will be quite different.

How to Make it

Cinnamon sugar is so easy to make.

Step 1: Combine the cinnamon and sugar in a bowl.

Step 2: Whisk the two ingredients together. I like to use a fork to do this job.

That's it! It's even easier to make than lemon sugar, which requires you to work the lemon zest into the sugar to draw out the oils.

Store cinnamon sugar in an airtight container like a Mason jar in a cool, dry place. You can keep this indefinitely, though the cinnamon may become less potent with time.

How to Use it

Now that you have a big jar of it, you might wonder what to do with it. Cinnamon sugar is great for coating baked goods or finishing them.

The easiest thing to make with cinnamon sugar is cinnamon toast. Toast a slice of soft white bread until golden brown, then butter it and sprinkle generously with cinnamon sugar. I like to use salted butter to make the cinnamon toast salty and sweet. It's the perfect breakfast for kids and adults!

Other uses include garnishing the top crust of a pie before baking it to add more flavour. You can also use it to add flavour to pie dough scraps to make pie crust cookies. You can sprinkle it on top of this banana bread without baking soda or a pumpkin loaf cake before baking, or roll freshly baked/fried donuts in cinnamon sugar to coat them. It's an easy way to add something extra to so many recipes.

What You Can't Do With It

You may be tempted to replace cinnamon in a recipe with the same amount of cinnamon sugar, but given that cinnamon is only a fraction of this pantry staple, the rest being mostly sugar, this baking substitution isn't exactly ideal. It's just not a potent source of cinnamon flavour for cake batters and cookies doughs.

If you need to replace cinnamon with cinnamon sugar, there are two steps you may want to consider ideally:

• consider adding double or triple the cinnamon sugar so if the recipe calls for 5 mL (1 teaspoon) of cinnamon, replace it with 15 mL (1 tablespoon) of cinnamon sugar
• add less sugar to your recipe, so pull back on the amount of granulated or brown sugar you are using slightly since cinnamon sugar is mostly sugar. I'd remove 15 mL (1 tablespoon) of sugar from the recipe if you are adding 15 mL (1 tablespoon) of cinnamon sugar.

You could also consider replacing the granulated sugar in your recipe with cinnamon sugar if you've run out of cinnamon. This is another option, depending on how much you have in your pantry.

If you tried this cinnamon sugar recipe (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!

📖 Recipe

Print

Cinnamon Sugar

Learn how to make cinnamon sugar with this easy recipe. You will never have to buy it at the grocery store again!

Course pantry staple

Cuisine American

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Total Time 5 minutes minutes

Servings 50 teaspoons

Calories 16kcal

Author Janice Lawandi

Equipment

• Mason jars

Ingredients

• 200 grams granulated sugar
• 30 mL ground cinnamon you can use more cinnamon if you like!

Metric - US

Instructions

• In a small bowl, whisk together the granulated sugar and the cinnamon until it is evenly mixed. You can also use a fork if your whisk is too big for the task.
• Store in a Mason jar or an airtight container.

Notes

• Feel free to add more cinnamon to make the cinnamon sugar more flavourful. It's up to you!
• Play with the spices: instead of cinnamon, try ground cardamom!
• Vary the sugar: classic cinnamon sugar calls for granulated white sugar, but you could try maple sugar for more flavour.

Nutrition

Calories: 16kcal | Carbohydrates: 4g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 1g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 1g | Sodium: 1mg | Potassium: 1mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 4g | Vitamin A: 1IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 3mg | Iron: 1mg

The post Homemade Cinnamon Sugar appeared first on The Bake School.