Top tips for baking cookies and dessert

Can I use artificial sweeteners, such as Splenda, as a substitute when baking cookies or cakes?
- apicheca

Hello Mom - Good morning and thanks for the question!
I am personally not a fan of artificial sweeteners. Splenda recommends that you can substitute artificial sweetener one-for-one with sugar in recipes. I find that it dries out baked goods and so it is better to use a recipe that has been developed with artificial sweetener instead of sugar.

Our 2007 Holiday Best Special Issue has a whole feature on special diet desserts that have recipes and here is a link to a recipe for Orange Almond Shortbread if you are looking for a Christmas cookie.

Hi Christine,
I love this live forum, you should do these more often.
I have a cooling pan problem. Many recipes call for cooling cakes or baked
goods in the pan, cooling for 10 minutes then inverting and then just
inverting on a cooling rack and then some don't mention how to handle it at all. What is your rule of thumb for cooling cakes? And does that apply for cupcakes?
-Confused

The method for cooling that you have written is the best way to go. You want any baked goods to cool in the pan they have been baked on for a short amount of time because when an item comes right out if the oven the starches have not gelatinized so it is prone to fall apart if you try to remove it right away. After it has set you want to cool it down quickly so that the baking process is arrested as soon as possible - turning out onto a cooling rack is best where air can circulate which helps to cool it fast.

If you flip a cake onto a cooling rack I usually flip it back over so that it is sitting flat - this is especially true if the top of your cake is rounded because it can crack if it is not sitting flat. To do this I use the bottom of the pan I baked it in or another rack, set it on top of the cake and flip the whole thing (rack cake and top rack or pan) over so that it is right side up to cool - if I have used the bottom of my baking pan I then slide it back onto the original rack to cool.

Do the same thing for cupcakes and make sure they are totally cool before you ice them or the icing will melt even with just a little residual heat.

Hi Christine - I'm going to ask another question. Hope you don't mind. I've always wondered which are the best cookies to send via mail. It's always nice to receive a cookie package for Christmas but that's no good if the cookies crumble or the chocolate melts. Any suggestions?

No problem ask away!
You are right, fragile cookies do not fare well. A drop type cookie like hermits or ginger snaps are great for sending - wrap these in pairs and send in a box where they can be stacked together for protection. Also butter cookies that are uniformly shaped and not too fragile like shortbread, or ice box cookies work well because you can stack them together and wrap them and they protect each other.

Small round or shaped cookies work well in cookie tin - place a layer of bubble wrap to protect the beauties in transit.

What does flooding mean? I hear it used quite frequently, however, I'm not sure what it means... HELP!!
-William

William thanks for question. Flooding refers to a way of decorating cut-out cookies like gingerbread or sugar cookies when the whole top of the cookie is covered with icing. You would use royal icing (this is a combination of egg white or meringue powder and icing sugar and dries to a hard finish) to outline the shape you want to fill in and then essentially colour in the outline with the thinned out icing. You can get quite elaborate creative designs on a simple sugar cookies with this technique. You are probably seeing it a lot now because it is used quite often on cookies that you would hang as a decoration.

Hi Christine,
When making a pie crust, can butter be used instead of shortening?
-DKC

Yes, absolutely go ahead and substitute. It has approximately the same fat content as shortening so it can be substituted in equal quantites, cut it into small pieces, because of a slightly higher liquid content than shortening it is a bit harder and so not quite as easy to incorporate, and make sure it is very cold. I think that shortening makes for a slightly flakier crust but nothing beats the taste of butter!

Here is a link for more pastry tips and information on butter pastry.