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Q&A
Page Three
Q. I like to serve iced tea along with regular hot tea when I invite guests over for Afternoon Tea. I've heard that you can "decorate" ice cubes, but I've never tried. Can you tell me how to do that?
A. There are a few ingredients that you can freeze right inside ice cubes to make them pretty. Raspberries, blueberries, lemon or orange peels and even edible flowers work wonderfully. However, to make them clearly visible through the ice, you must first prepare the water. Bring the water that you plan to use to a rolling boil, then cool it to room temperature and put it in the refrigerator. Fill an ice-cube tray about one-quarter full with the water and freeze it just until ice crystals begin to form. This should take about 15 minutes. Remove the tray from the freezer and arrange your fruit or flower on top of the partially frozen cubes. If you are going to use orange or lemon peels, scrape off as much of the white pith as you can and cut the peel into thin strips. You can criss-cross the strips in a pretty pattern. Then, top off the ice-cube tray with more of your prepared water and freeze the cubes until they are frozen solid. This will give you pretty and clear decorated ice cubes.
Q. Why do my cheesecakes always crack after I bake them, and how can I stop this from happening?
A. Cheesecakes release a lot of steam not only while baking, but while cooling as well. Too much steam releasing too quickly can cause cracks in the surface of your cheesecake. Also extreme temperature changes from hot to cold can lead to cracks. That's why cheesecakes are baked at low temperatures. When finished baking, don't remove the cheesecake from the oven. Simply turn the oven off and prop the door open slightly (you can wedge a wooden spoon handle in the door) to let the cheesecake cool gradually. Deep cracks result when the egg white structure has collapsed and you are left with a cake that is more like a wet pudding. Shallow cracks are rather normal and can almost be expected. Simply consider them to be a home-baked look, or top your cheesecake with fruit to cover them.
Q. Why do pastry recipes call for ice water?
A. When your pastry recipe calls for butter or margarine, you do not want that fat to warm. If it does, its water content will be released and wet the flour in the recipe. When that happens, gluten forms and makes your pastry tough. Also, when you roll out the pastry, it will stretch too much and then shrink too much during the baking process. Ice water brings the dough together properly with only a small amount of gluten developing. For the best dough to work with, make it a day ahead of time and let it rest in the refrigerator overnight. That way, you will have the perfect dough to work with.
Q. Whenever I bake a cake and need to cut the layers in half horizontally to spread a filling in between them, I always wind up cutting them crooked and they crumble so they never look good. How can I cut cake layers cleanly and evenly?
A. In order to cut cake layers with the least amount of damage, they must be cooled completely. When you are ready, use a long serrated knife (like a bread knife) and cut the cake using long back-and-forth strokes with the blade. That will prevent the cake from crumbling. Now, to cut the layers in half evenly, an easy trick is to insert toothpicks horizontally around the sides of the cake, leaving half of each pick showing, and use them as a guide for your knife. Then cut with long strokes. The fewer the strokes of the blade, the less crumbling your cake will do.
Q. I usually wind up baking more cookies during the holidays than my family and friends can eat. How can I save the extras to enjoy at a later time?
A. Simply freeze your leftover cookies. It's easy and you can not only save extra cookies to eat later, but you can make your holiday cookies ahead of time and save on some of the work you will have to do during the holidays. All you will need are plastic freezer containers and waxed paper. Just put the cookies in a container, one flat layer at a time, and place a piece of waxed paper between the layers. Make sure that you keep the crispier cookies in a separate container from the chewier ones. If not, the crispy cookies will absorb moisture from the chewy ones and become soggy. The crispy cookies can be safely stored for up to three months, while the softer, chewy cookies can be stored for one month. To thaw, leave the cookies in the container and set out on the counter to thaw at room temperature. The condensation that forms will cling to the waxed paper, not the cookies.
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