Baking Vocabulary - The Bake School

Baking vocabulary

Janice Lawandi — Tue, 19 Jan 2021 00:16:41 +0000

This glossary of baking vocabulary and pastry terminology will help you read and better understand baking recipes before you head to the kitchen.

Don't forget, there's also a glossary of French baking terms if you are having trouble with a recipe written in French.

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Dictionary of French baking terms and English translations

Janice Lawandi — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 03:19:21 +0000

This dictionary of French pastry terms will help you navigate French pastry recipes with translations for commonly used baking terms.

Over the years, not only have I worked as a recipe developer, but sometimes I also translate recipes from French to English, or from English to French for companies because I am bilingual, having grown up in Montreal, Quebec, and because I studied pastry at Le Cordon Bleu, where they taught us the French pastry terminology. Here's a dictionary of common French baking terms and pastry terminology that you may encounter the more you read recipes and bake with professional recipes. I hope you may find this list useful and I will update whenever I can!

A

abaisse is a sheet of rolled out dough, so if you are making a single crust pie, your recipe would call for "1 abaisse."
appareil is the French term for a batter.

B

babeurre is the term for buttermilk, but sometimes, it's also called "lait de beurre," which is the literal translation for buttermilk.
bain marie is the French term for water bath, either a double boiler setup on the stove like you might use to make a crème anglaise, custards, and curds. Bain marie can also refer to a water bath you would use to bake a cheesecake gently in the oven, setting the springform pan in a larger pan filled with boiling water, halfway up the springform.
beurre is butter in French.
beurre doux is unsalted butter.
beurre noisette is brown butter (or browned butter) which you can make by heating up butter in a small saucepan to melt it, then cooking it until the milk solids brown, giving off a nutty aroma similar to toasted hazelnuts. Beurre noisette is often used to flavour madeleines and financiers, but not always.
beurre salé is salted butter.
bicarbonate de soude is French for baking soda or sodium bicarbonate (as the British call it).
biscuit is a term that can mean cookie or it can also mean cake, specifically sponge cakes. For example, a "biscuit roulé" is a rolled sponge cake.
blanchir is a very important French pastry term, but unfortunately, I have yet to come across an exact word to translate to in English. When you are making crème pâtissière (pastry cream), one of the first steps is "blanchir les œufs avec le sucre" and it is SO IMPORTANT! To do this, you whisk the eggs (or the yolks) with part of the sugar in the recipe and you whip the mixture until the yellow yolks become very light and paler in colour, almost white. The word "blanc" means white and so translating word-for-word, "blanchir" means "to whiten." This step is done to ensure that the sugar doesn't burn the yolks, leading to little flecks of seemingly cooked yolk that would create imperfections in a smooth pastry cream.
boulangerie is the French term for a bread bakery or a bakery specialized in bread. The bread baker is called a "boulanger"
brioche is a buttery, yeasted bread made from a yeasted dough that is enriched with both butter and eggs, and sometimes milk too. Because brioche dough is enriched, it takes a lot more kneading. You can easily make homemade brioche with a stand mixer. And don't forget to use leftover brioche to make bostock with almond cream!
bûche de Noël is the French term for the rolled Christmas cake that is decorated to resemble a Yule log.

C

cassis is French for (black) currant, those round berries that look a lot like blueberries and that can also be red or even white. Cassis is a very common flavour in Europe, more so than in North America. If you want to bake something with currants, try these red currant muffins.
cassonade is the French word for brown sugar.
chemiser is the French verb that describes lining a pan. You can use parchment paper to line a pan, for example.
choux à la crème are cream puffs made from baked pâte à choux and filled with whipped cream.
cL is the abbreviation for centilitres, which many of you might be familiar, but Europeans often use centilitres instead of millilitres so I thought this would be a good opportunity to remind you that 10 mL is 1 cL, and 100 mL is 10 cL.
confiture is the French term for jam.
crème anglaise is an egg yolk thickened custard sauce. Crème anglaise is also the custard base for most ice creams! Here's a recipe for coffee crème anglaise to get you started. It's a great sauce to serve with bread pudding and it's the custard base to make ice cream.
crème d'amande is an almond cream filling made with equal parts of ground almond, butter, icing sugar, and flour, by weight. The filling includes an egg to help bind and thicken the almond cream. You can adapt the recipe with other nuts, like ground pistachios in this galette des rois. This is also what you use to make bostock!
crème fouettée is whipped cream, which you can sweeten with icing sugar (usually 10 % icing sugar by weight) and flavour with vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste. I've mixed greek yogurt to whipped cream to make the tangy topping for this strawberry and cream tart. Whipped cream makes a great topping for this simple gluten-free buckwheat chocolate cake.
crème fraîche is a cultured product made from cream. It is very similar to sour cream but has a higher fat content. Some brands make crème fraîche that has a fat content around 41 % (remember sour cream is usually 14 % fat), which is why it makes a great ingredient to incorporate into cakes and muffins (like these low sugar blueberry bran muffins) instead of sour cream, bringing that acidity but also a good amount of fat.
crème pâtissière is pastry cream, which can be infused with vanilla bean, vanilla bean paste, or vanilla extract. Start with this vanilla bean pastry cream recipe, which you can infuse with many other flavours like orange zest.
crème sûre is French for sour cream
croissants are a crescent-shaped flaky yeasted pastry. Croissants dough (pâte à croissant) is what you use to make many viennoiseries, like pain au chocolat, croissant aux amandes, etc. Croissants take a lot of work because the layers are built up with repeated rolling and folding of the dough, and if you are motivated, you can make homemade croissants.
cuillère à soupe (abbreviation c. à soupe or c. à s.) is French for a tablespoon. Remember in North America, 1 tablespoon is 15 mL.
cuillère à thé (abbreviation c. à thé or c. à t.) is French for teaspoon. It's sometimes also called a "cuillère à café." In North America, 1 teaspoon is 5 mL.

D

dorure is French for egg wash that is brushed on, though it could also be milk or cream...

E

émonder refers to the act of peeling nuts, for example. If a recipe tells you to "monder les pistaches," they are telling you to peel the pistachios.

F

farine is French for flour, and this is obviously an essential baking ingredient. A recipe may call for farine tout usage (all purpose), farine à gâteau (cake flour), farine à pâtisserie (pastry flour), or even farine à pain (bread flour).
fécule de maïs is cornstarch.
financiers are dense little cakes made with ground almond and browned butter, but you can use any nut to make them and you can skip the browning of the butter if you are in a hurry. Financiers cakes tend to have quite a bit of sugar which gives them their texture. If you'd like to give them a try, you can make berry financiers, kiwi coconut financiers, and even gluten-free chestnut financiers or gluten-free pistachio financiers. You can also make financiers with tahini, like these sesame kumquat financiers.
fonçage is the term to describe when you line a tart pan with tart dough, or the act of covering any pan with dough.
frangipane is very similar to almond cream. In fact, the difference isn't always clear. In pastry school, we were taught that frangipane was made from almond cream mixed with crème pâtissière (pastry cream). However, many bakers in North America actually call almond cream as frangipane, so to some, frangipane is a mixture of butter, sugar, eggs, flour, and ground almond.

G

galette can either be an open faced, free-form pie, like this apple galette or these mini raspberry galettes.
galette des rois refers to a free form tart made from puff pastry with an almond cream filling. This galette des rois can also be made with ground pistachios.
ganache is a filling or coating made of chocolate and cream. You can make milk chocolate ganache and use it as a filling for a raspberry chocolate tart, or a dark chocolate ganache as a filling for a rhubarb chocolate tart. Ganache is set to make truffles, like these Earl Grey lavender chocolate truffles.
garniture in French can refer to either the filling or the topping, which is a bit confusing at times.
génoise is a sponge cake made from whipped eggs, sugar, and flour. The whipped eggs act as a leavening agent, so you don't use baking powder or baking soda when you make a génoise. The technique is similar to the British warm milk sponge cake, which also calls for eggs whipped with sugar. You can make a chocolate génoise if you replace a portion of the flour with cocoa powder and this is the base cake for a black forest cake, called "gâteau forêt noire" in French.
gougères are made from pâte à choux combined with shredded cheese before baking, yielding savoury cheese puffs.

H-I-J-K

L

lait is milk in French whereas lait de poule is eggnog.
levain refers to fed sourdough starter but also sourdough bread, as in "pain au levain."
levure is the French word for yeast. You can buy "levure sèche instantanée" (instant yeast) or "levure sèche active (active yeast).
levure chimique is the term for chemical leaveners in French, but specifically refers to baking powder and is often sold in little individual packets in France.

M

macarons are French confections made from ground almond, egg whites, and sugar. They are filled with ganache and sandwiched. Remember the difference between macarons vs macaroons (which are made with shredded coconut)
madeleines are sweet little cakes baked in a madeleine pan to give them their signature seashell shape. Madeleines should have a hump on the top (the opposite side of the crinkled shell pattern side). The hump (called "la bosse") comes from the temperature shock between the cold batter and the hot oven, which allows the madeleines to rise up fast before the crumb sets. Madeleines are traditionally orange-flavoured, incorporating orange zest in the batter, but you can also infused them with other flavours, like these jasmine tea madeleines.
Maizena is what the French call cornstarch. The other word for they may use is "fécule de maïs."
masquer is the French verb for "to frost" so when a recipe says to "masquer le gâteau," you are coating the outside of a layer cake with frosting.
mise en place is the term used to describe putting all the ingredients in place before you start cooking or baking. With most recipes, though it's not written, you should always do your "mise en place" before you do anything else!
monter is the verb for whipping to stiff peaks. A meringue recipe may indicate to "monter les blancs d'œufs," meaning whip the egg whites. Monter literally translates to "to go up," like "monter les escaliers" means "go up the stairs." When you know this, you can understand where "monter les blancs d'œufs" comes from because you whisk the egg whites to incorporate air into them, a leavening agent, which causes the whites to increase in volume and rise up. You can also use this term for cream: "monter la crème fouettée."

N

nappe la cuillère is the French term for when a sauce coats the back of a wooden spoon, like when you are thickening crème anglaise or ice cream bases.
neige literally translates from French to snow in English, but it actually refers to when you whip egg whites to stiff peaks that resemble snow.
noisettes are hazelnuts in French, also referred to as filbert nuts in English. Hazelnuts are the nut used to make nutella, but you can make nutella without hazelnuts if you are allergic to them (like me!).

O

œuf(s) is the word for egg(s) in French. The yolks are called jaune d'œuf (because yolks are yellow or jaune) and the whites are called blanc d'œuf.

P

pain is French for bread.
pain perdu translates to French toast, but it literally means "lost bread" because traditionally, you would make pain perdu to salvage the stale bread and transform it into something fresh and new. If you have thick slices of bread, did you know you can make stuffed brioche French toast?
papier sulfurisé or papier parchemin are the French baking terms for parchment paper. Depending on what region the recipe writer is from, one or the other may be used.
pâte is the word for dough in French, but plural, pâtes can also refer to pasta.
pâte à choux is an eggy dough that is used to make éclairs, cream puffs, and cheese gougères (cheese puffs)
pâte d'amandes is almond paste, which is quite similar to marzipan, a thick confection made from ground almond, sugar, and almond extract.
pâte sablée is a sweet dough also known as a sweet shortcrust. Pâte sablée and pâte sucrée are very similar, but the ratios are what set them apart.
pâte sucrée is the sweet cookie dough used to make fruit tarts like this raspberry chocolate tart. Pâte sucrée is made with flour and ground almond, so it's more delicate than other tart doughs because it has less gluten. Pâte sucrée is made with egg yolks and sometimes milk to bind the dough ingredients together and also add richness.
pâte à foncer is pie dough that you would use to make fruit pies, like this maple apple pie, maple syrup pie, or this rhubarb lattice pie. You can even use pâte à foncer to make savoury pies, like this bacon and egg pie. The nice thing about pâte à foncer is not sweet so it is very versatile.
pâte feuilletée is French for puff pastry. You can buy puff pastry in most grocery stores. Just make sure it's made with butter only (and not hydrogenated fats). You can also make homemade puff pastry, if you have time.
pâtisserie is the French term for pastry but also the French word for pastry shop. The pastry chef is called the chef pâtissier or pâtissier.
pots de crème is an egg-thickened pudding, unlike American puddings, like butterscotch pudding, that is thickened with cornstarch. Pots de crème are often made with chocolate which makes them extremely creamy and unctuous because of the cocoa butter. You can make pots de crème on the stove, like pudding, or you can make it in a bain marie.
poudre à pâte is baking powder. It's also called levure chimique, meaning chemical leavener.
poudre de cacao is cocoa powder in French.

Q

quatre quarts is the name for the French pound cake made with ¼ butter, ¼ sugar, ¼ eggs, and ¼ flour by weight. Quatre quarts literally translates as four quarters.
quinconce is the word French pastry chefs use to describe how you stagger portions of cookie dough on a cookie sheet to allow for better airflow.

R

ruban is the term for the whipped eggs and sugar when you are making a sponge cake or génoise: it's the ribbon stage, where the mixture is so thick that as you lift the beaters, the whipped eggs trickle back down onto the surface forming a stable ribbon for a few seconds before it disappears.

S

saupoudrer means to sprinkle. For example, when you finish a dessert by sprinkling with powdered sugar, that's translated to "saupoudrer de sucre glace."
sucre is sugar in French.
sucre glace refers to icing sugar also called powdered sugar in English. In French, there are also a lot of different terms for this type of sugar, including "sucre à glacer" or "sucre en poudre," though this last one can also mean granulated sugar.
sucre semoule is granulated sugar.

T

tasse à mesurer is the French for cup measurer so when you are reading French recipes, you might come across measurements in your ingredient list like "1 tasse"(abbreviated as 1 T) or "½ tasse"(abbreviated as ½ T) which would mean 1 cup or ½ cup, for example. In North America, 1 cup is equivalent to 250 mL (or sometimes 237 mL).

U

V

vanner refers to the way you stir a crème anglaise or custard base, gently with a wooden spoon in a figure eight motion.
viennoiseries is a category of French pastry made from flaky croissant doughs, danish doughs, etc. Usually viennoiseries are what you would consume at breakfast.

W-X

Y

yogourt is the French term for yogurt, but some also use the word "yaourt," depending on the region.

Z

zestes is French for zests, meaning the finely grated peel of citrus fruit (like "zestes d'oranges" or "zestes de citron").

I hope that you will find this list of French baking terms and pastry terminology helpful. If there's a term I've forgotten or you need help with, please leave a comment below!

The post Dictionary of French baking terms and English translations appeared first on The Bake School.

Fruit desserts

Janice Lawandi — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 18:20:19 +0000

When it comes to baked fruit desserts, there are many variations and most seem to revolve around the same theme: a fruit layer baked with a dough on top and/or on bottom. The dough can be a pie dough, a yeasted dough, a biscuit dough, or even cake batter.

The naming varies by region or by family tradition, and can lead to some arguing within communities. Here's a list of fruit desserts that are common in North America to help mitigate some of the confusion. If you've ever wondered if you're baking a crisp or a crumble, a grunt or a slump, this list is for you!

Fruit desserts with crust or cake on the bottom

Some fruit desserts are made with a fruit filling and a crust on the bottom, usually made from an all-butter pie dough. The fruit filling combines lots of fruit, sugar, and a thickener. The thickener helps to gel the fruit juices released with the dessert bakes so that the dessert isn't soupy.

Pies

Pies are made from a fruit filling surrounded by crust, usually on top and on bottom, though you can have single crust pies with a crust only on the bottom of the pie and topped with a crumble or crisp topping. You can find many examples of fruit pies on this site, especially sweet pies like this rhubarb lattice pie and this maple apple pie, both of which are double crust fruit pies. On the other hand, this whiskey peach pie is a single crust pie and topped with a crumble topping.

Galettes

Fruit galettes are usually free-form pies that can be baked on a sheet pan, without a pie plate or tart pan. Galettes tend to be open-faced: a thick layer of fruits are piled on top of a sheet of pie dough, which is folded over the edges before baking to seal in the fruit juices. It's the easiest pie you can make. Here's an apple galette and a recipe for raspberry galettes to illustrate how easy they are to make!

Tarts

Fruit tarts are made with a sweet crust, like pâte sucrée that is blind baked in a ring mould or tart pan with removable bottom. Once baked, the tart is filled with custard, curd, ganache, or other fillings, and then topped with fresh berries. Examples of this type of fruit dessert include this raspberry chocolate tart, this strawberries and cream tart, or these cute mini matcha tarts with passion fruit curd.

Upside-down cakes

Though the fruit is baked on the bottom of this retro dessert, upside-down cakes are flipped after baking so that the fruit is on the top in the end. The classic upside-down cake is made with rings of canned pineapple and bright red maraschino cherries, arranged in a decorative pattern. Today, bakers make this dessert with all kinds of summer fruit and even fall/winter fruit. This rhubarb raspberry upside-down cake is a beautiful example of a twist on the retro recipe.

Shortcakes

We can't forget shortcake desserts from the list, though they are a fruit sandwich of sorts because it's made from a biscuit that you split open and fill with fresh berries and whipped cream. Variations include this raspberry shortcake and this ice cream strawberry shortcake, filled with ice cream instead of whipped cream. All shortcake desserts are delicious and a great way to celebrate summer berries

Fruit desserts with a crust on the top only

When fruit desserts only have a crust on top, the fruit filling also has to be thickened to make the fruit on the bottom less soupy. The dough on top can be a streusel of sorts, a crumble topping made with oats, dollops of buttery biscuit dough, or even an all-butter pie dough.

Crisps

Crisps are made with fruit on the bottom and a buttery crisp topping of sugar, flour, nuts, oats, and butter. Crisp topping has oats. Some examples include these strawberry rhubarb crisps, sweetened with honey, this blueberry rhubarb crisp, and even this grape crisp with a peanut butter topping to show how creative you can get with the toppings.

Crumbles

Crumbles are like crisps but the crumble topping doesn't have oats, though it could still have nuts. The fruit is on the bottom in crumbles, as it is in crisps. This apple crumble doesn't have oats in the topping, so it's definitely a crumble. So is this cherry chocolate crumble. Again, you don't have to limit yourself to butter, sugar, and flour for the topping and you can come up with some fun variations!

Cobblers

Cobblers have a biscuit top or a cake-like top with fruit on the bottom. Some may use bisquick mix to make the biscuit topping. This wild blueberry cobbler is a great example of a cobbler topped with cake layer. It seems whether the cobbler is topped with biscuits or cake is a regional distinction and can lead to some arguing.

Pandowdy

Pandowdy got its name because it is made from fruit baked under pieces of dough in a pan. Apple pandowdy seems to be the most popular and most common, though one can imagine it with any fruit. Some use torn up store-bought puff pastry dough to make their pandowdy, though if you dare, you could use homemade puff pastry!

Grunts

Grunts are cooked on the stove in a cast iron skillet, and they have a fruity bottom topped with dollops of biscuit or dumpling dough. The dish is steamed and gets its name from the sound it makes as it cooks, when the steam escapes, it may make a grunting sound. It's commonly cooked on the East Coast. To make a grunt, the fruit filling is cooked on the stove first until it's very hot and bubbly, then the dough is dolloped on top and the dish is covered to trap the steam. The dough is steamed to cook it.

Slump

Slump is named because the dessert slumps down as it cooks, and it's also cooked on the stove. The apple slump is mentioned in Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. The slump is sometimes topped with a yeasted dough (leavened with yeast), though others may top with a baking powder biscuit dough of sorts. The leavener used depends on the recipe. To make a slump, like for grunts, the fruit filling is cooked on the stove first until it's very hot and bubbly, then the dough is dolloped on top and the dish is covered. The dough is steamed to cook it.

Sonker

Sonker is only made in North Carolina in Surry County specifically and they even have a festival dedicated to this fruit dessert. The sonker is a deep-dish fruit dessert that has crust only on the top. It is not a cobbler. And it's not a pie as it doesn't have a crust on the bottom. The fruit layer is usually quite juicy.

Desserts where the fruit is mixed into a batter

If you want to make a fruit dessert where the fruit is folded into a batter, it's important to either leave the fruit whole or to limit the amount of fruit used. Otherwise, the fruit may release too much water into the batter, which will make for a gooey or even gummy dessert.

Betty

Betty (also called brown betty) is a simple fruit dessert where the streusel is layered with the fruit in the baking dish, so the streusel adds sweetness but also thickens the fruit layer because the streusel is made with flour. Some will make the streusel with cinnamon sugar and ground or torn bread (instead of flour). This was a dessert that helped stretch the life of bread and so could be made with old bread so none goes to waste.

Buckle

Buckle is like coffee cake but with fruit, as is the "boy bait" cake, which originates from the Pilsburry baking competition: a 15 year old entered this cake into the competition and won. The cake has fruit and is topped with a crumble or streusel topping. The most common fruit for this dessert is blueberry. In retrospect, I should rename this apple crumble cake recipe as an apple buckle because it's basically what it is: coffee cake + fruit.

French pie cake

The French pie cake is a cake where fruit is baked in the cake batter. I suppose these black currant cakes and this plum spice cake could fall into this fruit dessert category because they are both made from fruit baked in a cake batter.

Bird's nest pudding and clafoutis

The bird's nest pudding seems to be a close relative of the clafoutis, a French baking term for a baked custard with cherries. Bird's nest pudding and clafoutis are made from fruit, cooked within an eggy batter, similar to a custard. Cut up fruit loose a lot of juice and the best way to avoid making a soggy or water-logged clafoutis custard is to keep the fruit whole. For example most French clafoutis are made with whole cherries, pits and all. Both the bird's nest pudding and the clafoutis are made with a lot of eggs and milk, and a little flour, and they have a firm custard texture.

I've made apple clafoutis with chunks of apple, but technically a clafoutis made with fruits other than cherries is actually called a flaugnarde in French.

Fruit muffins

Of course, we can't forget fruit muffins, which are a very popular snack in the summertime when summer fruit is folded into muffin batter before scooping and baking. Yes, they are considered more snacks than fruit desserts, but we can't forget about them on this list. You can make red currant muffins, honey blueberry muffins, rhubarb muffins with sour cream, strawberry rhubarb streusel muffins, and even plum coffee cake muffins with cardamom. So many variations are possible and so easy to make!

Baking fruit desserts with frozen fruit

During the off season, you may want to bake some of these desserts with frozen fruit and you can:

All the desserts with fruit on the bottom can easily be baked with frozen fruit and you technically don't have to defrost the fruit (so fruit crisps, crumbles, and cobblers, as well as sonkers, grunts, slumps, and pandowdies). Just prolong the baking time and make sure to bake the dessert long enough that the filling becomes very bubbly, even in the centre.
Pies can be made with frozen fruit: in fact, during the summer months, many bakers will assemble big batches of pie filling (mixing fresh fruit, sugar, and thickener) and freeze these in airtight freezer bags. This can make it much easier to use later on. If your filling is frozen, you can defrost it in the refrigerator over night and since the filling will be cold and quite juicy:
- make sure to increase the baking time to make sure the filling is bubbly and hot, even in the centre of the pie so that you are sure it will thicken and set properly.
- if your defrosted filling or fruit is very "saucy," strain the juices and place them in a saucepan to cook them down on the stove. Add the reduced fruit juices back to the fruit and proceed to fill the pie.

Storing fruit desserts

I store fruit desserts tightly wrapped with foil in a cool place, but not the fridge. This way, they can easily last 4 days without any problems. If your kitchen runs hot, you may have to refrigerate the dessert to preserve it longer. Muffins and cakes can be frozen and quickly defrosted, especially if they are portioned out.

The post Fruit desserts appeared first on The Bake School.

Baking recipe abbreviations

Janice Lawandi — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 23:52:59 +0000

Some recipe writers will spell out the units of measure in their recipe, others may use abbreviations. Here's a rundown of the commonly used baking abbreviations you need to know to tackle most recipes!

Abbreviations are commonly used in recipes on the internet and in cookbooks, which can be confusing if you aren't familiar with them.

Consult this list if you run into an abbreviation you aren't familiar with and bookmark it for later when you need it most! And remember that, when in doubt, you can also find a list of baking vocabulary and French baking terms if you aren't sure about some of the terminology!

Volumes

teaspoon is abbreviated to tsp, sometimes simply as t
tablespoon is abbreviated to tbsp, sometimes simply as T
cup is sometimes abbreviated as C or c., but I think this is less common than the others on the list
millilitre is abbreviated to mL or ml (most in the scientific community use a capital L to avoid confusion between the letter l and the number 1)
litre is abbreviated to L (most in the scientific community use a capital L to avoid confusion between the letter l and the number 1)
fluid ounces are abbreviated to fl oz
pint is abbreviated as pt
quart is abbreviated as qt
gallon is abbreviated as gal

Weights

ounces are abbreviated to oz
grams are abbreviated to g
kilograms are abbreviated to kg
pounds are abbreviated to lb

Lengths

Europeans follow the metric system, where lengths and distances are expressed according to the metre, whereas North Americans tend to measure distances according to inches and feet:

inches are abbreviated as in or as "
centimetres are abbreviated as cm
millimetres are abbreviated as mm

Temperatures

Europeans tend to favour expressing oven temperatures as degrees Celsius, while North Americans favour degrees Fahrenheit:

degrees can be written with the symbol º
Fahrenheit is abbreviated F
Celsius is abbreviated C

Time

Time is also abbreviated in many recipes

minutes are abbreviated as min
hours are abbreviated as h

Other abbreviations you might need

If you bake sourdough, you might want to know that sometimes sourdough is abbreviated "SD" and that "DO" is the abbreviation for the Dutch oven that home bakers use to bake sourdough breads.

Now that you are familiar with the commonly abbreviations used in baking recipes and cookbooks, you can also consult the baking conversions chart if you ever need to convert recipes from volumes to weights, or vice versa!

The post Baking recipe abbreviations appeared first on The Bake School.

Macaroon vs macaron

Janice Lawandi — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 18:00:00 +0000

I remember reading an issue of Bon Appétit magazine that featured macarons a few years ago. Bon Appétit referred to them as macaroons throughout the entire magazine article, and I was a little pissed off disappointed. There are macaroons, and there are macarons. They are not the same thing. I suppose that translating the French baking term "macaron" into English might yield the word"macaroon" (Merriam-Webster), but since when do we translate the names of pastries? For example, a croissant is a croissant, in both English and French, therefore why would we treat the word "macaron" any differently? Perhaps I am being overly nitpicky.

Macaroons and macarons are pretty similar in that they are made from egg whites and sugar, but macarons contain finely ground almonds, while macaroons are made with shredded coconut. Actually, there is a third cookie that falls under this category of egg white-based confections: the Italian amaretti, made from egg whites, sugar, and ground almond (or sometimes the nuts of apricot fruit). Amaretti usually flavoured with liqueurs, like amaretto, and therefore can have a more pronounced bitter almond flavour. That signature "bitter" flavour is where amaretti cookies get their name ("amaro" in Italian means bitter).

Macarons are often served sandwiched together with a filling, like jam or ganache. The sandwiched version of the macaron is actually called "macaron gerbet" or macaron de Paris as this form of macarons most likely originated at Pâtisserie Ladurée in Paris. Because of the mild flavour of the macaron shells, many consider that they are the perfect way to deliver flavoured fillings and ganaches.

Interestingly, there is a key step in making macarons called "macaronage" where the ground almonds and powdered sugar are folded into the meringue. The goal is to deflate the egg whites a little, but not too much. If the meringue is not deflated enough, the macaron shells will be lumpy looking and won't appear as perfectly smooth mounds. If the meringue is deflated too much, the shells will spread too much and might lose that signature "foot" at their base.

Macaroons in North America are coconut-based and served plain, or topped with chocolate. Sometimes they are flavoured, and they can even be sandwiched with fillings (like in The Macaroon Bible). Macaroons are crispy chewy and they are much more rugged than macarons, the shells of which are more delicate, with a crispy exterior and a soft interior. See, macaroons and macarons really aren't the same at all. Coconut macaroons may have been born from a version of the almond macaron recipe at some point, historically, and their names might come from the same Italian verb maccarone, but I still don't think that's a reason to refer to a macaron as a macaroon, or vice versa. Today, they are very different cookies.

Amaretti can vary in texture, depending on how they are prepared. The amaretti di Saronno are very crispy with a delightful but light crunch, while amaretti morbidi are chewier and softer. The bitter almond flavour of amaretti cookies really sets them apart and is what I love about them the most. Again, they can be sandwiched with some dark chocolate.

So, perhaps they all share the same origins, and they all have similar recipes, but macaroons, macarons, and amaretti still aren't the same cookie, and the recipes/flavours seem to be quite dependant on the country each of them is from. Now, would you call an amaretti cookie a macaroon? No because they are quite different. So why would you call a macaron a macaroon? In a sense, amaretti could be construed as closer to macarons as they are composed of the same base ingredients, but amaretti have that distinct flavour... I say, if you are eating a macaroon, call it a macaroon. And, if you are eating an amaretti, call it an amaretti. And, if you are eating a macaron, how about we just call it a macaron?

Don't forget, to check out my review of the Macaroon Bible.

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