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Excursions in vegan baking

My youngest kid decided to become vegan a couple of years ago. I have been teaching healthful, plant-based cooking classes for over a dozen years, so it is easy to cook vegan meals when my kid comes home from college to visit.

But baking is a completely different story: I love butter, eggs, […]

Trouble-shooting Holiday Cookies

Terry says: Hi! I wrote to you last year and asked you about baking cookies and you gave me allot of information. I decided to try making cookies again and I succeed in making Snow Balls, Twice Baked Cookies and Thumb Prints. The recipe that I have for Thumb Prints was baking them for 6 […]

Christmas Cookies: Baking with Butter vs. Vegetable Shortening

Terry asks: I would like to bake some cookies for Christmas and I’m confused. I haven’t baked for many years, and the recipes call for butter and Crisco. I have the butter, but I don’t have the Crisco. Could I substitute all butter? I want to bake: thumb prints, snow balls, twice-baked cookies, oatmeal, and […]

Can I Put a Dessert Back in the Oven to Finish Baking if it is Under-done?

Jennifer says: I bake all the time and love doing it! I always follow a recipe to the “T”, but today I decided to combine 3 different parts of 3 recipes into one! I made blueberry crumble bars in a 9×13 Pyrex pan, and after they cooled completely, I cut into them–only to find that […]

Decorating Cut-out Cookies with Royal Icing

Erin says: I am attempting for the first time to make detailed frosted duck shape cookies as favors for a baby shower on Saturday. I want to use royal icing, pipe around the shape then ‘flood’ inside that line. I baked the cookies on Sunday and they are currently in the freezer. A few questions: […]

Substituting Whole Wheat Flour in place of Flour

Pam asks: Can you use wheat flour in place of white flour in an oatmeal cookie recipe to make them more healthy?

Baking S.O.S. says: Absolutely!The general rule when substituting wheat flour in a recipe is to use half whole wheat and half all-purpose flour. If you try to use more than that (i.e. using […]

Baking Challenge: Finish the Recipe!

Kathy asks: Here’s my situation: I was getting ingredients together for a baking project but couldn’t complete it because I didn’t have the proper ingredients. I mixed together:

2 c flour 1 c sugar 1/2 tsp salt 3/4 tsp baking soda

And stopped.

My question is: What can I put with this mixture to create […]

Substituting Butter for Vegetable Shortening

Aretia asks: Is it safe to substitute butter for butter-flavored Crisco?

Baking S.O.S. says: Yes! You can substitute butter for butter-flavor Crisco. Your baked goods may spread more because butter contains more water, but they will taste better with butter, too!

Sugar Cookie Sprinkles

Quick Tip of the Day: If you don’t have time to make frosting and decorate sugar cookies with elaborate icing techniques, try using colored sugar sprinkles instead. To help the sugar sprinkles adhere to the cookies, lightly spritz the unbaked cookies with water from a spray bottle, then sprinkle with colored sugars. This will help […]

How to Keep Sugar Cookies From Spreading

Cut-out sugar cookies

Andrea asks: I am looking for any tips or advice on sugar cookie cut-outs. Whenever I make these, the cookies spread so much in the oven that the shapes become puffy-looking. Is there anything I can do to keep the shapes cleaner?

Baking S.O.S. says: There are a number […]