Cooking Tips — little secrets from the pros
Why does rice turn out fluffy, why won’t dough rise, why does meat get tough? 2163 tips tested by chefs and the community — sorted into categories and explained one by one.
All Tips
2,163 tips listed
Can You Measure Dry Ingredients with a Liquid Measuring Cup?
You can, but the results will not be consistent, because the two cups are designed for two different jobs. A liquid measuring cup has room at the top so it is n...
How Do You Scale a Recipe Between a Muffin Pan and a Cake Pan?
The same batter can be baked in a cake pan or in the wells of a muffin pan; what changes is not the total amount but the depth of each piece. To switch pans, di...
Should Shredded Cheese Be Measured by Volume or in Grams?
Measure shredded cheese in grams, because the amount in a 200 ml measure varies with the shred size. In the reference measurements, one 200 ml measure of shredd...
How to Measure Milk Powder as a Substitute for Milk
Milk powder has two distinct uses, and those two uses require separate approaches to measuring. If you reconstitute it and use it in place of milk, the ratio is...
Is a Cake Pan Measured at the Top or the Base?
Pan size is measured across the opening, and manufacturers list that top diameter; but because most pans have sloped sides, the base is narrower. Two pans with...
Why Keep the Batter Depth the Same When Upsizing a Pan?
When scaling up a recipe, multiply the ingredients by the pan’s base area and keep the batter at the same depth as before. If you do this, the baking time chang...
How Do You Convert Ounces and Pounds to Grams?
One ounce equals 28.35 grams, and since one pound is 16 ounces, it equals 453.6 grams. In the kitchen, these two figures can be rounded: the ounce is roughly 28...
How to Measure Chopped Vegetables with a Glass Measure
When chopped vegetables are measured by the glass, what is being measured is the space between the pieces, not the vegetables themselves. Coarsely chopped piece...
How to Adjust Yeast and Baking Powder When Scaling a Recipe
Baking powder increases linearly with the flour because the chemical reaction is proportional to the amount used. Yeast is alive and multiplies in the dough; in...
How to Convert Pan Sizes Given in Inches
One inch equals 2.54 centimeters. The two pan sizes most commonly used in recipes, 8 and 9 inches, correspond to 20.3 and 22.9 centimeters. The real issue is no...
How Do You Adjust Measurements When Replacing Solid Fat with Liquid Oil?
Butter is not pure fat; it also contains water and milk solids. That is why an equal weight of liquid oil adds more fat and less water to a recipe. Volume can b...
Why Doesn’t Soup Liquid Increase Proportionally When You Scale Up a Recipe?
Evaporation happens at the liquid’s surface, while the volume of liquid increases with the amount. When you double a soup in the same pot, it boils across the s...