(August 8, 2015 at 10:33 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote:(August 8, 2015 at 10:21 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: Okay, use unbleached flour. Trust me on this, it is better than bleached flour. Also, always sift your flour, even if it is "pre-sifted." It really can make a difference, depending on the exact recipe. Try it and report back on the results. I think you will be pleased.
Alton Brown recommends sifting pre-sifted flour, so it's probably good advice.
I haven't even *seen* a sifter since the 1970's.
I don't bake personally, it seems like a lot of black magic to me. My cooking skills are strictly in the savory department.
It seems like magic to me, too. I remember making a mistake in a cookie recipe once, in which I did not mix the ingredients in the specified order (I forgot something and added it in later in the mixing process). When the cookies came out of the oven, I was surprised by how messed up the resulting cookies were. Both their taste and texture were bad compared with how they normally were. I would never have guessed that the "little" error in the order of mixing things could matter so much. But lesson learned; when a recipe tells you to mix things a certain way, you had better do it that way if you want it to turn out as expected. Good recipes have things mixed in a particular order for a reason.
By the way, for a cookbook, I strongly recommend Betty Crocker's Picture Cookbook, revised edition (aka second edition) from 1956. (The first edition, which was reprinted not too long ago, is pretty good, too, but not as good as the second edition.) It is not merely a list of recipes, it actually teaches one how to cook. (I do, however, recommend cutting back on the salt in their recipes, to at least half, and you can cut it down to 1/4 of the salt they say.) One can get a used copy in good condition from a popular auction site typically for about $20 if one is patient in one's bidding. As a list of recipes, it is, of course, old-fashioned and not my favorite (though it does have my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe in it, which I modified with extra egg, extra vanilla, and a different kind of chocolate chips). But if you have not been taught how to cook, it is an excellent book to help with that.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
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