Back in Tips for Better Baking, I mentioned that the first thing to do when baking was read the recipe – ingredients and method – all the way through so you weren’t taken by surprise mid-bake.
Have you been doing so? Yes? Excellent. You would make Mary Berry proud. You might even make Paul Hollywood proud but he wouldn’t let on since he’s been practicing his inscrutable face in preparation for the new series of Bake Off – which, did I mention is coming VERY SOON?
What’s that? You haven’t been reading through the recipes before starting? Well, OK. Let’s not mention that to Mary or Paul and see if we can’t come up with a “save” of sorts.
At the end of Better Baking Tips, we talked about what do when you have no buttermilk and how to make your own self-raising flour from the good old plain stuff. But there are all sorts of things you might find yourself running out of so here are a few more last minute ingredient saves.
Some swaps are straight one to one affairs that won’t actually change anything else. Some may result in minor changes in consistency or flavor. Some of those changes you may come to prefer. You may even want to try a a few of these just to see what happens.
- Have you run out of baking powder? To replace 1 teaspoon of baking powder, use 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda and 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar
- What if you don’t have cream of tartar? Well, try this swap within a swap! For each teaspoon of cream of tartar you need, use either 2 teaspoons of vinegar or 2 teaspoons of lemon juice
- You’ve looked everywhere for brown sugar and all you can find is white. Don’t worry – if you’ve got molasses, you’re covered. Need light brown sugar? Combine 2 tablespoons molasses with 1 cup of white sugar. Need dark brown sugar? Combine 3 tablespoons molasses with 1 cup of white sugar
- Is corn syrup on the ingredient list but not in your cupboard? For 1 cup DIY corn syrup substitute, combine 1 and 1/4 cup white sugar with 1/3 cup of water
- Need 1 cup of unsalted butter and there’s none to be found? Use 1 cup of shortening or 7/8 cup of vegetable oil
- I can’t imagine running out of vegetable oil but I suppose it might happen – and if it did and I was baking a cake that called for 1 cup of oil, I could swap in 1 cup of applesauce.
- Does the ingredient list call for a cup of Golden syrup that you don’t have? Use 1 cup maple syrup or 1 cup corn syrup instead.
- Provided you don’t need to whip the 1 cup of heavy cream called for in the recipe, you can use 3/4 cup milk mixed with plus 1/3 cup melted butter instead.
- Oh and that buttermilk swap I mentioned in Part 2? It is just one of many. You can also substitute 1 cup sour cream or 1 cup of plain or low fat yogurt for 1 cup of buttermilk. What you may notice about this tip is that there is another tip buried within in – what if you have no sour cream? Well, guess what? You can use the yogurt instead!
So – remember, read the recipe all the way through and do your best to have everything on hand. But you know – life happens. Sometimes we don’t get to the store when we mean to and other times we discover half way around the store that we have accidentally left our very carefully compiled shopping list on the counter. Don’t let these little hiccups stop you from baking up a storm.
Swap and switch and bake on!