How many times have you heard the annoying phrase, "There are no shortcuts in baking and cooking?" Is it really not possible to shorten the process or take steps that’ll make it easier to cook and prepare food? Fortunately, it is possible and it’s even recommended for anyone who wants to make life easier in the kitchen. In the next article, you’ll learn 15 tips and tricks that’ll make cooking and baking easier and more enjoyable, and some will even shorten processes that in the past have taken a lot of precious time. Read carefully and try the following tips yourself, and the next time you hear someone say that there are no shortcuts in the kitchen, you can prove them wrong!
Making personal cakes requires a lot of tools and work. Things such as rolling out the dough, putting them into small tins, filling and baking take up a lot of precious time. In order to shorten the process, there is an original shortcut to making delicious and wonderful personal cakes without any effort. All you have to do is make a regular sized cake and bake it in a large baking dish, then use a cookie cutter in the size and shape you want, decorate and serve. If you’re wondering what do with the leftovers, the solution is simple – you can make cake balls or use the rest as a layer for cheesecake.
Have you ever found yourself fighting to take a cake you baked out of its tin? If you answered yes, then you need to know this next genius tip! Before baking the caked, lightly oil the baking tin (bottom and sides,) and line it with parchment paper. Don’t trim the parchment paper, leave an overhang of about 5 inches, and fold it outward. Pour in the batter, bake, and when you pull it out of the oven, carefully go around the edges with a knife. All that’s left to do is grab the overhanging parchment paper and pull the cake out without destroying it!
Squeezing lemons isn’t considered super difficult, but have you ever been able to squeeze all the juice out? The answer is probably no. To efficiently squeeze all of the juice, it is recommended to put the lemon into the microwave on high for 15 seconds, let the lemon cool down a bit and then cut it in half and squeeze. This can also be done with oranges.
Steamed salmon is one of the most popular dishes, but to steam a salmon we use a lot of different tools that just complicate everything and make the cook time so much longer. The next steaming method can also be used to prepare other types of fish and to steam vegetables, and all you need is a Ziplock bag. Place the seasoned salmon with a few vegetables or lemon into the bag, roll the air out of the bag and close. Place the bag in a medium pot with boiling water and cook until it’s steamed through.
When you are thinking of preparing a stuffed chicken, you know in advance that you are committing to something a little more complex than just oven roasting. Gathering all the ingredients in advance, cooking the rice, filling and at the end, sewing the chicken closed. Sometimes sewing takes more time than all the prep work, especially when your hands are greasy and the needle keeps slipping, refusing to penetrate the skin. The next tip makes life easier and it makes use of flavorless floss. So how do you do it? Stuff your chicken and place it on a clean work surface. Bring the two legs together and tie them using the dental floss in a double knot so that you end up with two long ends, move the ends of the threads around the wings of the chicken twice behind each wing and tie them again in a double knot. Place on the pan and roast in the oven - the floss will easily come off after roasting.
Washing vegetables is an important step in preparing food, and we usually wash them one by one under the tap, thus wasting a lot of time and water. The quickest and smartest solution is to wash all the vegetables together in a colander.
If you want to work quickly and efficiently, you need to keep your workspace clean and organized, and sometimes this isn’t possible because your hands are dirty and the garbage can is inside a cabinet or has a lid that you can’t open without dirtying it. In order to solve the problem, just use a medium sized bowl lined with a plastic shopping bag, and keep it nearby. This way you’ll be able to get rid of the mess as you make it, and when you’re done cooking, all you need to do is pick up the bag and put it in the trash.
If you want to use dried herbs, or perhaps dry fresh herbs to keep them from going bad, use the microwave in the following way: Place a piece of paper towel on your work surface and arrange the herbs in one layer at a distance of about half a cm between the stems. Put the herbs in the microwave and run for 20 seconds, turn them over and microwave them for another 20 seconds.Then check if the herbs are completely dry, if they aren’t dry enough, turn them over and microwave them again. Repeat until the herbs are completely dried, and then remove the herbs from the microwave and gently separate the leaves from the stems.
Many cakes are decorated with thinly grated chocolate, chocolate curls and more. However, chocolate, as we know, has a low melting point, and the second we start grating it, we end up with a melted chocolate mess all over our hands. To prevent this from happening, try putting the grater and chocolate in the freezer for at least an hour and then grate into a cold bowl or onto parchment paper laid over marble. If the chocolate at some point starts to melt again, place the grater and the chocolate back in the freezer for a few minutes. This method can also be used for cheese!
Cooking of a large number of time-consuming dishes becomes even more time consuming if you aren’t working in an organized manner. The best way to shorten prep and cook time is to pre-prep correctly. For example:
Peeling vegetables takes a lot of time and often isn’t even necessary. To save precious time, you just have to wash the vegetables well. Doing this will allow you to benefit from all the vitamins found in the vegetable peel – which usually has more than the vegetable itself!
In order for foods to cook in the shortest time and to make sure that all of the ingredients are cooked evenly, all the vegetables should be cut small and uniform. The smaller the size, the shorter the cooking time, and note that if the recipe requires cutting the vegetables in different sizes, you should start cooking the large pieces first and add the smaller vegetables a little later.
If you are making soup or a dish with vegetables, you should know that sautéing the vegetables in a little oil before adding stock or water makes them soften faster and shortens the cooking time by 5-10 minutes. If you want to shorten the time significantly, add your cooking liquid when it has already boiled.
When frying chicken, we always find ourselves with both arms fluffed and coated. To prevent this from happening, use a Ziplock and paper bag. If you follow the instructions below, you can keep your hands completely clean during all the prep and frying.
Bacteria are one of the main morbidity factors in food, but if we work wisely and intelligently we can try to reduce the number of bacteria in food products and the tools we use to cook, for example:
