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Nina asks: For some reason, I can’t make good brownies. Even when I use the boxed mixes and follow the directions, the brownies are either underdone or overdone. What is the solution? Should I be making brownies from scratch?
Baking S.O.S. says: I have the same problem, too! Brownies are tricky–it is always hard to tell when they are done, whether you bake them from a box mix or from scratch.
Keep in mind that no matter what you are baking, the recipe baking time is only a guideline. Ovens vary in how hot they actually bake, so it is always a good idea to test your oven’s actual baking temperature with an oven thermometer periodically.
But oven variances aside, brownies are still one of the most difficult items to tell when they are done. Regardless of whether you use a box mix or bake from scratch, there are 2 primary methods for testing the doneness of brownies:
- the brownies should start pulling away from the sides of the pan, and
- a wooden toothpick inserted in the center of the pan should come out with moist by crumbly-looking crumbs on it.
If the wooden toothpick comes out still looking wet and gooey, the brownies are not done yet.
 top toothpick: done / bottom toothpick: underbaked To test these methods further, I baked a box of brownie mix and followed the directions for the recommended baking time (24-26 minutes). At 20 minutes, I checked the brownies, and they were still wet and gooey in the middle. I returned them to the oven for an additional 5 minutes, and found that they STILL needed a little more time, so I baked them for 2 more minutes (for a grand total of 27 minutes), and then they were finally done.
The directions on the box mix said to use a toothpick inserted near the EDGE of the pan to test for doneness, but I disagree. Every baked good will bake from the outside edges first and finally in the center last. So the best place to test for doneness is always in the center–especially with brownies. Even when brownies appear to be done near the edge of the pan, they can still be very wet and gooey in the center.
One other thing to keep in mind when checking for doneness on any baked good: If you do what I did and check frequently towards the end of the baking time, remember that your oven will lose quite a bit of heat every time you open and close the oven door which will in turn take more time for your oven to recover back to the original baking temperature. The loss of heat will also cause your brownies (or other baked goods) to take longer to bake. So the best way to test for doneness is not by baking time but by other methods (such as visual appearance and color, testing with a toothpick, etc.)
To avoid overbaking brownies, I would suggest that once you think the brownies are done, do not continue baking them “just to be sure.” With any baked good, there is always a little bit of “carry-over baking”–meaning that the product will continue to bake a little further even after you remove it from the oven.
Good luck. I hope this helps!
Somayya asks: Why do my cupcakes separate from the paper a day later? I have tried paper cups and foil cups and the same thing happens.
Baking S.O.S. says: I’m glad you asked this question. I have been baking cupcakes a lot recently, and I am having the exact same problem!
In my case, I assumed the reason the liners were separating from the cupcakes is that I was spraying the liners with cooking spray before I poured the batter into them. My guess is that the cooking spray was not only preventing the paper liners from sticking to the cupcakes–which is what I intended it to do–but also causing the papers to slip away from the cupcakes completely.
One of the very first lessons I learned in culinary school was the proper way to prepare pans for baking cakes: “Spray, Paper, Spray.” And I still use that method to this day. When making cupcakes, I always spray the paper liners with cooking spray because otherwise, you have the reverse problem, and the papers stick so much that when you try to peel them away from the cupcakes, they take half of the cupcake with them!
When you asked this question, I decided to do a little more research to see if there might be any possible remedies for this problem that other bakers have used. I found the following suggestions helpful:
– Be sure to fill the cupcake pans full enough so that the batter will stick to the top of the paper liner, keeping it adhered. Cupcake pans should be filled 1/2 – 2/3 full. (any fuller than that, and the batter will spill over the top, making a flat, messy cupcake top)
– Turn the cupcakes out of the pans as soon as they are finished baking. If cupcakes are left in the pan too long while cooling, steam will condense between the cupcake and the pan, causing the liner to loosen.
I hope these suggestions will be useful–both to you AND to me! Good luck!
Shortly after graduating from Johnson & Wales University, I moved to Washington, D.C. and began working as an assistant pastry chef at Firehook Bakery. I worked for a very talented Pastry Chef, Kate Jansen, who made all of the pastries from scratch and created many of her own recipes. Kate’s original recipes included two of my favorite cookies: “Sweet Dreams,” which were a unique variation of chocolate chip cookies, and “Presidential Sweets”–a “kitchen sink” type of cookie that Kate named after Hillary & Chelsea Clinton (during Bill Clinton’s presidency) when they visited the bakery on the day that Kate was testing and tasting her newest cookie creation.
Several years after leaving Firehook Bakery to move back to my home state of Ohio, I coincidentally re-encountered the Presidential Sweet cookies: I was reading an article in Ohio Magazine about Andrew’s Pastries, a bakery in my hometown of Marion, Ohio. The article mentioned that Pastry Chef Andrew Swartz had previously worked in Washington, D.C., and Andrew shared his recipe for Presidential Sweet cookies in the article–the recipe being very much like the one I remembered making at Firehook. It seemed like too much of a coincidence to be accidental.
So when I had occasion to return to Marion for my high school reunion, I made a point of stopping by Andrew’s Pastries to meet Andrew and ask him if he had worked at Firehook Bakery. Sure enough, Andrew worked for Kate at Firehook before my stint there. What a
small culinary world! I couldn’t believe that two pastry chefs who had worked at the same independent bakery in Washington, D.C. were now both living and working in Central Ohio–how amazing! It was a complete pleasure to meet and get to know Andrew, and I enjoy visiting him in his bakery whenever I go back to Marion.
Having Andrew’s Sweet Dream cookies (no doubt, the same recipe I had made at Firehook) inspired me to try to re-create the recipe myself. I remembered that the cookie was essentially a chocolate chip cookie
with cinnamon and ginger added to the dough and rolled in powdered sugar before baking. I had to try several different variations before I settled on a recipe that tasted close enough to the original for my
satisfaction. But I was very pleased when I finally decided that I got it right.
What started out as a simple restaurant review in a local travel magazine has brought me immeasurable value: it connected me to a talented pastry chef who hails from the same experience and background as myself, and it inspired me to re-create one of my favorite unique cookie recipes, which I can now share with you. Enjoy!
“Sweet Dreams”
Ingredients
½ C. shortening
½ C. unsalted butter, softened
¾ C. granulated sugar
¾ C. brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
2 C. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
1 ½ tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 pkg. chocolate chips (12 ounces)
Sifted powdered sugar
Directions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Creaming Method: Beat the shortening, butter, sugar and brown sugar together on medium speed for 8-10 minutes.
- Add eggs one at a time and beat well after each addition. Scrape down bowl each time. Then add vanilla and mix well.
- In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and ginger. Then add to above and mix just until blended.
- Stir in chocolate chips by hand.
- Form cookies with a small scoop, then drop into a bowl of sifted powdered sugar and coat well.
- Place cookies 2 inches apart on parchment-lined baking sheets.
- Bake 10-12 min. until lightly golden brown. Do not over-bake! The cookies will continue to bake as they cool on the pan.
- Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 1-2 minutes. The transfer to wire rack to cool completely.
Yield: 5 dozen cookies
http://twitpic.com/dupkd – Hit the jackpot @ the thrift store: tartlet, brioche & mini cake pans for a steal! Going to make Moosewood’s …
As the brownies bake, Ada says: “I smell COOKIES!” Brad responds: “Not just ANY cookies–the BEST cookies in the world!” Thanks, honey!
Making Moosewood’s “fudge brownies”–inspired by our recent visit to the restaurant. Interesting:no baking powder: that’s why they’re dense!
Doing a little troubleshooting: why my coffeecake appeared to be done but wasn’t: http://bakingsos.com/blog/?p=479
@SoulafiedCHEF Sign me up!! That is one of my favorite Summer desserts 🙂 I just made a peach pie last week with fabulous PA peaches.
Once again, I am learning from my own mistakes, chalking my baking failures up to “experience.”
I recently picked 15 pounds of organic blueberries, most of which I froze for use in the Winter when fresh produce is expensive and less-than-desirable quality.
But I had some sour cream in the frige that was about to expire, and rather than let it go to waste, I decided to combine the two ingredients and make a blueberry sour cream coffeecake.
I probably have a recipe for blueberry sour cream coffeecake somewhere in my stache of newspaper recipe clippings and multitude of cookbooks, but rather than sift through all of those various resources, I find it all-too-easy to go to allrecipes.com and do an ingredient search. I love the ingredient search feature when I have ingredients I want to cook or bake with but need some fresh ideas for new ways to use them. And using the ingredient search, I quickly found the above recipe–it was exactly what I was looking for!
I made the recipe exactly as it was written. I always tell my baking students: the first time you make a recipe, follow it exactly so you know how it is supposed to turn out. THEN you can make adjustments for your own preferences.
Unfortunately, though, I made one mistake: I did not bake the coffeecake fully. This is where it gets tricky and a little confusing. . . the coffeecake passed the usual tests for doneness: 1) a wooden toothpick inserted in the center of the cake came out clean, and 2) the top sprang back when I touched it, indicating that it should have been done all the way through. Not so. After I allowed the coffeecake to cool completely in the pan, I inverted it onto a plate and cut a slice to test it. The bottom of the cake was fully baked and had a nice texture, but the top of the cake was still gooey and dense–it was completely underdone. YUCK!
I know from my previous experience working in professional bakeries that coffeecakes always take a LONG time to bake–even longer than when they appear to be done. I should have applied that knowledge and experience to this recipe, too.
Here is where I think my tests for doneness went wrong: I baked the coffeecake in a bundt pan, which is rather deep. But I tested the cake with a standard wooden toothpick which is not long enough to test all the way down to the bottom of the pan. The top portion of the cake was fully baked (when inverted, that became the bottom part that was done). But my toothpick did not reach down to the bottom that was under-done.
Once my cake had cooled completely and I discovered my mistake, I attempted to salvage it by putting it back in the oven to continue baking it. WRONG. That doesn’t work, either! By the time my coffeecake had baked and cooled, the baking powder had been fully activated and would no longer react once I returned it to the oven–regardless of how long I continued to bake the coffeecake. I think I baked the coffeecake twice as long as it suggested in the recipe, but it never got any more done on the top (the bottom of the pan). It was a hopeless effort.
Lessons learned: 1) When baking a coffeecake in a bundt pan, use a LONG wooden skewer to test for doneness all the way down to the bottom of the pan. Be sure it is fully done before removing it from the oven! 2) Once a cake (or other quickbread) has cooled completely, it is not possible to return it to the oven to bake it further if it is not completely done. The leavening agent (baking powder or baking soda) will not react a second time to make the cake rise and bake fully.
I can’t wait to try this recipe again and bake it properly the next time. The parts that were done tasted fabulous!
@jenisicecreams That kid IS really cool. . . he’s my son’s best friend 🙂 And that reminds me: I am due for a trip to our local Jeni’s!!
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Test for doneness: Coffeecake
Once again, I am learning from my own mistakes, chalking my baking failures up to “experience.”
I recently picked 15 pounds of organic blueberries, most of which I froze for use in the Winter when fresh produce is expensive and less-than-desirable quality.
But I had some sour cream in the frige that was about to expire, and rather than let it go to waste, I decided to combine the two ingredients and make a blueberry sour cream coffeecake.
I probably have a recipe for blueberry sour cream coffeecake somewhere in my stache of newspaper recipe clippings and multitude of cookbooks, but rather than sift through all of those various resources, I find it all-too-easy to go to allrecipes.com and do an ingredient search. I love the ingredient search feature when I have ingredients I want to cook or bake with but need some fresh ideas for new ways to use them. And using the ingredient search, I quickly found the above recipe–it was exactly what I was looking for!
I made the recipe exactly as it was written. I always tell my baking students: the first time you make a recipe, follow it exactly so you know how it is supposed to turn out. THEN you can make adjustments for your own preferences.
Unfortunately, though, I made one mistake: I did not bake the coffeecake fully. This is where it gets tricky and a little confusing. . . the coffeecake passed the usual tests for doneness: 1) a wooden toothpick inserted in the center of the cake came out clean, and 2) the top sprang back when I touched it, indicating that it should have been done all the way through. Not so. After I allowed the coffeecake to cool completely in the pan, I inverted it onto a plate and cut a slice to test it. The bottom of the cake was fully baked and had a nice texture, but the top of the cake was still gooey and dense–it was completely underdone. YUCK!
I know from my previous experience working in professional bakeries that coffeecakes always take a LONG time to bake–even longer than when they appear to be done. I should have applied that knowledge and experience to this recipe, too.
Here is where I think my tests for doneness went wrong: I baked the coffeecake in a bundt pan, which is rather deep. But I tested the cake with a standard wooden toothpick which is not long enough to test all the way down to the bottom of the pan. The top portion of the cake was fully baked (when inverted, that became the bottom part that was done). But my toothpick did not reach down to the bottom that was under-done.
Once my cake had cooled completely and I discovered my mistake, I attempted to salvage it by putting it back in the oven to continue baking it. WRONG. That doesn’t work, either! By the time my coffeecake had baked and cooled, the baking powder had been fully activated and would no longer react once I returned it to the oven–regardless of how long I continued to bake the coffeecake. I think I baked the coffeecake twice as long as it suggested in the recipe, but it never got any more done on the top (the bottom of the pan). It was a hopeless effort.
Lessons learned: 1) When baking a coffeecake in a bundt pan, use a LONG wooden skewer to test for doneness all the way down to the bottom of the pan. Be sure it is fully done before removing it from the oven! 2) Once a cake (or other quickbread) has cooled completely, it is not possible to return it to the oven to bake it further if it is not completely done. The leavening agent (baking powder or baking soda) will not react a second time to make the cake rise and bake fully.
I can’t wait to try this recipe again and bake it properly the next time. The parts that were done tasted fabulous!