As someone who is disabled, I will say the gift of a stand mixer one xmas is the reason why I can still bake. When you can't stand, and your arm doesn't have the strength to hold a hand mixer very long anymore, and you don't have the strength to knead anymore the stand mixer is the way to go. But I was already at the "baker on the rise" level when I became disabled. But it lets me mix anything other than the simplest batters.
Your enthusiasm is infectious and you are absolutely a ray of sunshine, Erin! In a future episode, I would really like to see some adaptive tools to help people with disabilities. I often have a hard time in the kitchen because I have poor hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. Do you think this is something you could turn into an episode?
I have some similar problems. It's not the cheapest fix, but I've started using my stand mixer for almost everything. And then focusing on bigger-scale bakes helps a lot too. (It's so much easier to portion out the batter and frosting for one big cake than 24 fussy little cupcakes, for example.)
My kitchen aid stand mixer is the best investment I've ever made! There's so many attachments that just make life easier. I recently figures out that measuring flour by weight is much easier than by volume, not just for accuracy, but also whenever I measured by volume, I'd wind up with flour everywhere and would have to spend precious spoons cleaning it up. I also use foil pans more than the expensive ones cuz they are lightweight, which, when you're cooking something in a scary hot oven and have little upper arm strength, the lighter pan, the better.
This is an awesome video! Love Erin and her enthusiasm for baking. For bakers with a smaller budget, a lot of barely used baking sheets and cake pans end up selling for $1-$2 at secondhand stores!
Great suggestion! Anyone shopping second hand pans - don’t worry about discoloration (unless it’s rust!), but do worry about scratches and scuffs on the interior of the pan!
Why do I always feel compelled to comment on Erin's videos?! You continue to educate us and spread the joy of baking! And I can't wait to see where Abena's passion takes her.
Ms McDowell thank you. I am a baker, I love baking. You are my go to for advice. Thank you for providing such incredible details. I look forward to seeing more every day. You are my guru!
The pastry cutter, (I have my mom’s that’s about 70 years old), are such a multitasker! Aside from baking, it’s great to get just the right chop for an egg salad, it gets tuna flaked in no time…it’s so versatile!
Oh Erin! I love your videos!! Your energy is amazing. You're not just gifted but loveable. Waiting for my books Book of Pie and The Fearless Baker to arrive. Greetings from Mexico!!
Loved this video! Abena I hope you get your own channel too I enjoyed watching you. Erin, I always forget to check how long your videos are and get so enthralled I lose track of time. I usually have a short attention span but have never once felt like one of your videos was too long. I have most of the tools you mentioned because I love collecting kitchen gadgets, but I'm on the hunt for the new reduction tool at the end! Thank you both for brightening my day!
Yes! Was just going to ask this - I would love to see more of Abena and her baking/recipes! Thank you, Erin, for this wonderful video with so many great insights into what to invest in, and thank you so much for also introducing us to Abena. Looking forward to seeing her content soon, too!
Things i have added: church steeples with stained glass windows, lit fireplaces, added gingerbread dogs , cats, a bakery with baked goods inside front window and awning, shutters, flower boxes Christmas lights, porch lights and wreaths,trees and bushes, lamps, fences, interior lit fireplaces, gates, gables, and all sorts of candy decorations. Even mittens, boots and a sled against the front area near the dutch door. I loved doing them every year while my kids grew up-they also did it with their kids. Be creative and trace things if you can’t draw well. Don’t be afraid.
Thank you for this video! I often see stuff in the stores but not sure if I need them, and. i hv bought a lot of equipment I don’t actually use, so this video is super helpful! 🙌🏼♥️
A great way to build up your stuff before going out and buying new stuff is one asking family, typically older members that might not be baking anymore if there's anything they would like to hand down. Garage sales, sometimes there's brand new things that haven't even been used with tags still on because it was a present they got and didn't care for or a duplicate, or got stuck away in that back corner and forgot about you know that corner. Going to the ark or other second hand stores. And having a swap party, friends and family bring equipment that's still nice but they don't want anymore, downsizing or whatever and you simply trade. And of course there is key times of the year that stuff goes on sale, and if you could hold off it can be marked off after holidays if its seasonal like ice cream machine.
I had a lot of kitchen "stuff" for baking and savory cooking. My daughter always ridiculed me about my "kitchen stuff", I had too much. She said all that is needed is a skillet, a knife, a spoon and a fork. Good for her! I loved my stuff. I also loved a well sto c ked pantry. My sense of security. She is 53 yo and jusy doesn't and won"t understand. Erin, I love all your videos. I just wish I had your talent. ❤❤❤
Erin, also on scales: to weigh small amounts, ingredients you would use measuring spoons for, get a kitchen scale accurate to 0.01g. That should be sufficient for measuring down to 1/8 teaspoon. It would be best to use a laboratory balance accurate to 0.1 mg, but those are extremely expensive, have to be used in a specific environment, and can only weigh up to about 30 g. But they do fractions of a gram incredibly well, far better than would ever be needed in the kitchen. There are several scales that weigh accurately to 0.01g and 0.001g if you spend a bit more. 1/8 t. water is 0.62 g.
Erin, I love your detailed and entertaining baking videos! Can you tell me where you get all of your aprons from? I also. love that you wear the head wraps while baking!!!
Erin, I love that you use a Benzomatic torch! Isn't it the best??? I use one in auto mechanic applications such as the easiest way to get the years baked on oil pan gasket off your oil pan quickly and easily so you can replace it! I am going to look for a second tip for mine so I can use it in the kitchen when I'm not using it on my car. I'm a chemist by profession, though retired now, but I love to work with my hands, and baking and cooking scratch that itch so well. In our south Louisiana weather I can't always work outside on my car. It's plain too hot. But I cook and/or bake most every day in the air conditioning. I also recently got a bench scraper. It's been a godsend for pie dough, biscuits, and cleaning up my cutting board when I cut things up. It ruins your knives to scrape the sharp edge across the cutting board, so a scraper at the ready keeps me from doing it. My hands are hot, actually everything it hot, so I use my pastry cutter to blend butter into flour. I also put everything including the bowl with flour into the freezer 10 min before I start my pie dough. With practice, I've stopped putting things in the refrigerator for a quick cool-down to putting them into the freezer most of the time. That way I know it will be cold enough to proceed when I take everything out of the freezer. Southern heat has produced some considerable challenges when I work with dough. I'm working on methods to deal with it more easily and get reproducible results. I'm still struggling with pie dough. My mom uses shortening to make pie dough because it was supposed to be healthier than lard, like my grandma used. But we know it's not healthier, it just melts at a higher temperature. Shortening has also gotten expensive. A traditional can of Crisco is $20 at Walmart this week (Oct. 2022). The same sized can of lard is $10. I use butter, but I'm going to try butter and lard, half and half, to see if I can prevent some pie crust problems. Butter comes out of my crust either during par baking or during pie baking after the par bake did well. I haven't figured out the minimum cooling required to successfully bake a pie with a butter crust. It works fine when it's cool, all 3-4 months of the year, but since it is mostly hot here, I have to figure this out. Since we wear shorts at Christmas a lot, it's a significant problem. I also do not have a marble countertop or board. My grandma had a full marble countertop specifically for dough. My grandpa built the kitchen so she would have exactly what she needed to make excellent dough all year. My sister, who lives in the Dallas area, has a 2 ft x 3 ft marble slab she uses for dough. I have a tiny apartment kitchen right now, so I don't have a marble board. I'm considering getting one as soon as I can figure out where to store it.
I would love to see Erin do something for people who don't use their ovens on a regular basis - sort of small-batch baking, if you will. I never use my oven. To me, that's for big-batch baking. I use a toaster oven. If I can't make it in the toaster oven, I'm not making it, because I'm only making it for me. It would be cool to see some small-batch baking recipes for people who aren't baking for a bunch of other people.
Just a suggestion....I always crack eggs into a cup or glass before adding to a batter...that way if an egg is "off", you don't have to discard the whole mix & start again.
I actually thought that was a ‘given.’ It’s the only smart way to bake. Sadly, I fail to see it done as it should be. So many missed opportunities to do things correctly. Another important aspect to baking is to measure into a separate container. Think about all the hundreds, if not thousands, of times we’ve seen vanilla measured over our ‘bake.’ As I hold my breath. One bump or spill, and so much money is wasted. Think about the cost of a quality vanilla? Seriously. What a missed opportunity to mise en plac.
I love the BRAUN hand mixer! I got one to replace my old cheapo. The one I got from Amazon has a small 2-cup food processor attachment, which is great, since I was able to get rid of my smaller food processor that had a crack in the bowl. The ONLY attachment I wish BRAUN still made for it is the immersion blender attachment.
Erin, I love this! I agree with Charlie, Emma and Mickey, with adaptive aids for disabilities. I have Low vision, ( brought on my uncontrolledly baking in 2020) And have found, talking digital thermometers and scales for vision impairment, and a host of other sight related items. I do have issues with clarity in vision, everything is enlarged. PLEASE PLEASE do an episode of tools for determined bakers!! Thank you. (( I also decided, I have enough tools, to open up a store. *LOL* or a teaching lab))
This was amazing. I really appreciate this video. Im suprised Food52 doesn't milk Erin for all's she's worth and spread out these videos into smaller segments for profit. Everything but the blow torch seems perfect. My eye brows stay away from fire.
This is a wonderful video! At the beginning of the video there was a rolling pin with rolling guides attached. Could you let us know the brand and where we can buy both the pin and the guides?
"I don't hate anything, but I hate measuring cups." Interesting then that your cupcake recipes on Food52 use measuring cups 🤔 So what is the truth? Jokes aside, Erin, I love your content, this series continues to be excellent and informative and engaging. I loved the feature of Abena, another wonderful addition to the video. Also a shout out to the food52 team and the editors and everyone else who works to produce this outstanding series
Since all the work I do is aimed at home bakers, I still provide volume measures - it matches the style standards at Food52, but I also do it in my books! I want everyone to bake, even if they don’t have a scale - but since measuring cups can lead to problems with baking, you’ll notice all my recipes always provide gram measures, because it is 100% my preference. This also makes it easier for people all around the world to bake my recipes, since the US is really the only place that measures by volume. 💛
@@erin-jeanne-mcdowell I love your recipes, for the record. I just made your chocolate cupcakes last night, and they are incredible, but felt like trying to tease cause I only saw the volume measurements listed. I do wish the US would just convert to metric and weight already, it would save so much headache.
I weigh my ingredients in metric units, but they can pry Fahrenheit out of my cold, dead hands! There are 80 more data points in Fahrenheit between the freezing and boiling points of water. That kind of precision is critical in baking!
I like to use a scale to measure ingredients also. What I wonder about is I find different recipes that have varying gram amounts listed for say 1 cup of flour. That confuses me and then I’m not sure how much to use.
This might come up in the future bite size on oven thermometers, but how do you know your oven thermometer is calibrated correctly? Like do I need another oven thermometer to double check the first one? Thanks as always Erin! You and your team are gems.
This video is so helpful! Thanks, Erin! One question: what brand is the hand mixer you showed? I am needing to replace my old one that has finally succumbed and your recommended one is not identified in the notes. Thanks so much!
I like the reduction spatula. I saw on the Amazon picture that the notches and numbers are different colors for easier reading, but reviews say numbers are same color as the spatula, which makes reading difficult. Hopefully this could be fixed b/c I'd really like to get one. Most buyers really liked the spatula otherwise.
me watching: oh i have that and i have that and i have that ☺️ also loved the b-roll happy birthday trick, i’m glad you left it in lol. happy belated birthday faki
Thanks for watching Robert! Check out the Pullman Loaf Pan here: go.skimresources.com?id=28369X863759&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fshop.kingarthurbaking.com%2Fitems%2Fpain-de-mie-pullman-loaf-pan&xcust=fd-res-Mar2022-BIUAN_YT
@Erin Jeanne McDowell do you have any tips for converting our age-old family recipes from volume to weight? I suppose one can just weigh things as they go through a volume-based recipe and write that down....but is there a good way to swap things on the fly without having to remake every recipe to convert them? like, what _should_ a cup equal out to in weight?
