Monday, March 7, 2011

A Bit Of This And A Bit Of That.

I have an aversion to going to the grocery store. I don't know why. I have no problems getting up on Saturday morning to go to the farmer's market. I have no problem planting peas in the rain because I want to eat peas. But going to the grocery store is like pulling teeth. Thankfully my husband took that job and on top of that he takes the toddler with him EVERY TIME which is just lovely. However, sometimes he is not there and I HAVE TO bake just this minute or I need eggs and it's January and the hens are not laying and the supermarket's eggs are gross anyway.
I don't have a lot of substitutions that I have actually tried but these I use all the time:

Eggs: replace with 1/2 cup of pear or apple sauce for every egg. I make The Simple Cake without eggs now:          it makes it moist and slightly dense but light at the same time. In short it's good. I replace some of the              eggs in a lot of recipes now and it works great every time.

Almond Meal: sliced almonds in the food processor with a bit of flour (otherwise you get glue)

Buttermilk: if you want it right now mix 2 1/2 cups milk and the juice of 1 lemon. Microwave in 30 seconds                      increments until thickened.
                 If you have 24 hours and want to make more buttermilk than what you have: put 1 cup buttermilk                    in a quart jar, fill with milk, screw on the lid and shake to mix . Let rest for 24 hours in a warm                        spot. It will keep for weeks in the fridge.

Self-rising flour: mix 1 tsp baking powder for every cup of flour.

Also, while I think that whole milk, cream, butter and animal fat are important for good health, sugar and grains are less so. I have gradually reduced the amount of sugar in what I bake. You can easily remove 1/4 cup sugar and nobody will notice (I remove more than that) and you can replace one cup of regular flour with a cup of whole wheat flour without problems ( if there are several cups of flour in the recipe).

For a very complete list of substitutions try the Joy of Baking page.

                                                              Halloween 2010. Good thing I have a witch/fairy/pirate.

Now you can go mix some magic potions. For my part, I'm going to attempt a new kind of potion today: a face cream.


2 comments:

  1. Your witch looks like a little angel to me. Thanks for the substitute tips. B

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  2. adorable capture!! and nice advice. thanks

    ReplyDelete