Channeling Julia

A sifter is used with dry powdered or granular ingredients such as flour, sugar, cornmeal, starch, etc.

There are several reasons to use a sifter.

1. Break up lumps

2. Mix dry ingredients

3. Remove bugs, trash, husks, incompletely ground grains

Some people prefer to use a wire whisk rather than a sifter, but that doesn't cover use #3.

As a child, I occasionally visited relatives in rural Mississippi. They bought 50 lb bags of flour and sugar, which might last 6 months to a year. The bags were coarsely woven cotton. The humidity was high, so lumps were common.

When you use a sifter to mix ingredients, you will find that it makes a difference whether you use kosher salt or granulated salt. Kosher salt is too coarse to go through the sifter without being broken up. It has recently become very popular to specify kosher salt in cooking shows. Don't make the mistake of using it when it isn't appropriate - baking isn't a good place for kosher salt (except when used as a topping while baking bagels).

It also was very common to find mealy bugs in the flour. Less common were little pieces of trash or incompletely ground grains (you may find these in stone ground flour). Even in today's kitchen we have found mealy bugs in brand new 2 lb paper bags of flour (purchased from a convenience store during a major holiday) so sifting isn't a bad idea.

Some people like dull knifes. No, really, they do! They suffer under the misconception that it isn't as easy to get hurt with a dull knife.

We think it's the other way around. A sharp knife should be able to cut a tomato skin when drawn across with just its own weight. This means that you do not have to force the cut.

You are much more likely to hurt yourself when forcing a knife through food. You put a lot of pressure on the blade - it slips and the energy is directed sideways - towards your fingers. With a sharp knife the blade is much more likely to go where you want it to while you remain in control.

This means you need to have a means of making and keeping an edge in the kitchen - and use it whenever a knife dulls. Many of us have a "steel" in the knife block but don't know how to use it. It takes practice - you have to hold knife and steel just so and move them just the right way. For the occasional chef I'd recommend one of these little diamond gizmos with the V notch and the rollers to keep the blade in the right position. A couple of strokes and the knife is ready to use again.

Baking often involves foods that rise.

When we fill a pan, we must be aware that the final volume of the baked goods will be larger than the initial volume.

This is particularly true of recipes that use baking powder (or baking soda and an acid such as Cream of Tarter) as an ingredient. Baking powders are rapid acting and give off gases as soon as they are mixed with water, but they also create gas as they are heated (that's why they are called double acting). Cakes and quick breads will typically expand in volume to 150% as they cook (more or less depending on the recipe. This is why you will see notes like 2/3 full in a recipe.

Yeasts require much more time to rise. The yeast metabolizes sugars and starches to grow and carbon dioxide is the by product that makes the dough rise. The yeast may double or triple in volume. Large gas pockets may burst and change the volume. This is controlled by kneading the dough several times as the dough rises. Folding the dough reduces the size of the air pockets and gives a finer texture. If you've ever toured a large commercial bakery you can't help but remember the huge tubs where dough rises the first time and seen the big gas bubbles in the dough. The common grocery store loaf of bread has risen three times, twice in a tub and once in the pan just before baking. This is why white bread has such a fine texture compared to french bread (which only rises twice).

In our last video, we mentioned that the oven must be preheated.

Why is this important?

Fragile dishes such as meringues and souffles can be harmed by the strong air current generated by the rising combustion products (hot gases) generated in a gas oven. Airflow in a gas oven will surge as the burners are turned on and off by the thermostat. An electric oven is superior in this respect as the heat is primarily radiated from the heating elements - convection currents are much less since no mixture of water vapor (steam) and hot carbon dioxide is created by the burner. When the oven has reached the desired temperature, the convection air currents are at a minimum and the blackbody heat absorbed by or radiated from the oven walls has stabilized.

Back in the days when stoves were cast iron and wood fueled, precise oven temperatures were almost unknown in the average American home. Bakers built large brick ovens with indirectly heated thick walls and kept the fire going all day to produce the stable heat they needed.

We can also argue that the thermal shock of placing a dish such as a meringue or a cake in a hot oven can harden the surface skin so the air bubbles remain and a light fluffy dish can be created.

Many souffle recipes call for the oven to be preheated to a higher temperature than the cooking temp. This is so the convection currents are at a minimum when the dish is placed in the oven and the burner doesn't turn on for the first few minutes.