baking and desserts

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Summertime Lemon Desserts

Technically, citrus season is in the winter, but lemony desserts seem like pure summer. Balancing sweet and tart flavors is key and with the help of a few ingredients (like sugar and salt), it is easy to elevate them and make an extra satisfying dessert.In this course, you'll learn different ways to maximize all a lemon has to offer, as well as the best tools to use for each task. Then you'll put your skills to the test with three brightly flavored lemon desserts: Lemon Olive-Oil Tart, Lemon Bars, and Lemon Posset with Berries.

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  • Baking & Desserts

Gluten-Free Baking

For many of us gluten-free baking is still a bit of a mystery. What is gluten-free flour? Which gluten-free flour is best? Can a gluten-free cake really taste as good as the traditional version? In this online cooking class, discover what new ingredients and new techniques are necessary for successful gluten-free baking. We’ve learned how to combine simple grocery store ingredients to make our gluten-free flour blend, appropriate for many baked goods and breads. We’ll share with you our favorite ingredients and equipment for success, as well as what pitfalls to look out for when it comes to making gluten-free versions of your favorite baked goods. And finally, get baking with our recipes for a delicious Gluten Free Yellow Layer Cake, Blueberry Pie, and Sugar Cookies.

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  • Baking & Desserts

British-Style Scones with Currants

What’s the difference between American- and British-style scones? Compared to American scones, cakelike British scones use far less butter, far more baking powder, and are brushed with a light milk-and-egg wash to add browning. The recipe in this cooking class will help you make the best British-style scones with a light and fluffy texture and not-too-sweet flavor. This course will also help you avoid common pitfalls resulting in short, pale, biscuit-like scones. You will also learn the proper technique for using a biscuit cutter and the best way to reheat scones.

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  • Baking & Desserts

Rustic Dinner Rolls

While American dinner rolls are soft, buttery, and rich, Italian dinner rolls are crusty, chewy, and lean. The dough is similar to that used in Rustic Italian Bread, but an entirely different approach must be taken to shaping and baking rolls. We started with the dough for our Rustic Italian Bread (another class in the Cooking School) and made a few adjustments. The result was perfectly risen, chewy rolls that were golden and crisp all around.

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  • Baking & Desserts

Vanilla Ice Cream

Ice cream requires very little other than preparing a simple custard base made up of milk, heavy cream, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and salt, and then churning and freezing it until firm. At least that is what most home cooks think until they turn out ice cream that is marred by ice crystals or doesn’t have the super-rich and creamy texture of artisanal store-bought (or parlor-made) ice cream. It turns out that commercial ice cream makers spend thousands of dollars on churners and fast and powerful freezers that eliminate the problems faced by home cooks, namely ice crystals—the enemy of smooth ice cream.

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  • Baking & Desserts

Introduction to Candy Making

Think candy-making is for the professionals? This online cooking class will change your mind. You can turn out tasty treats in your own kitchen. All you need is some essential equipment (like an accurate thermometer that can tell you when your toffee and caramel are done), techniques that will help you take on your favorite candies, and foolproof recipes that will have you turning out Chocolate Truffles, Salted Caramels, Chocolate-Toffee Bark, and Marshmallows. (Yes, homemade marshmallows.)

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  • Baking & Desserts

Deep-Dish Quiche Lorraine

Most recipes for quiche Lorraine are a fifty/fifty ratio of baked pie crust and custardy filling. We wanted a version that highlighted (and increased) the amount of savory bacon, cheese, and onion filling. To do that, we swapped out the regular 9-inch pie plate for a deeper 9 by 2-inch cake pan. But we also wanted to avoid the grainy and tough texture that deep-dish quiche often has. We did and also managed to make a crust that was flaky yet sturdy enough not to buckle under the heavy quiche filling, and a custard that's glossy-looking, savory, and smooth. Learn all of our secrets to the best quiche Lorraine, plus our recommendations for the equipment and ingredients you’ll need.

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  • Baking & Desserts

Classic Deep-Dish Pizza

Ever wonder what makes deep-dish pizza different from regular pizza? It’s not as simple as doubling the crust and cooking it longer—it comes down to the dough. With the addition of potato (yes, potato) and oil, the process is different from traditional pizza dough. And yes, you do cook the pizza longer. In this online cooking class, you’ll learn how to make a traditional Italian bread dough with potato and discover how the potato alters the flavor and texture of the crust. Find out how to make a quick tomato sauce using fresh tomatoes, and what cheeses and in what ratios work best. We’ll show you how to avoid common pitfalls (like a pale crust and soggy pizza) and the best equipment and ingredient to get the crust just right.

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  • Baking & Desserts

Peanut Butter Pie

Since peanut butter was first used as a pie filling by some nameless Southern cook in the early 1970s, peanut butter pie—a mousse-like peanut butter filling nestled in a crumb crust and topped with whipped cream or chocolate sauce—has become a fixture on picnic tables all over the country. Some recipes call for cooking the peanut butter with eggs, dairy, and sweeteners to create a pudding-style filling, while others, like ours, combine peanut butter with cream cheese, confectioners' sugar, and other ingredients in a no-bake filling. In this online cooking class, you will learn how to prepare our recipe, what equipment you should stock in your kitchen, and how to avoid common pie-making challenges.

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  • Baking & Desserts

Southern-Style Cornbread

Savory skillet-baked Southern- style cornbread should boast hearty corn flavor, a sturdy, moist crumb, and a dark brown crust. For the right texture, we used fine-ground cornmeal. Toasting it in the oven for a few minutes intensified the corn flavor. Buttermilk added a sharp tang that worked well with the corn, and soaking the cornmeal in the buttermilk helped to soften it so our cornbread was moist and tender. When it came to the fat, a combination of butter (for flavor) and vegetable oil (which can withstand high heat without burning) worked best, and greasing the pan with both delivered the crisp crust we were after.

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  • Baking & Desserts

Fluffy Yellow Layer Cake

Fluffy yellow layer cake isn’t your average cake. Think of it as a tender and delicate version of your standard yellow cake (like a chiffon cake); but strong enough to withstand a generous amount of frosting. Traditional chiffon is too delicate to act as a layer cake, and butter cake is sometimes too rich and dense for our tastes. Discover how we adapted a chiffon technique of using a large quantity of whipped egg whites to get high volume and light texture, and combined it with our butter cake recipe, a perfect marriage that results in a lighter, delicate yellow cake that works just right with frosting. We will share with you what equipment you need for success and what kind of flour ensures a tender, porous crumb.

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  • Baking & Desserts

Doughnuts

This online cooking class teaches everything you need to know to make doughnuts at home. Our doughnut recipe uses a lightly sweetened, yeasted dough, which creates airy and fluffy doughnuts. Once you know how to make doughnuts, you can decorate them with chocolate glaze, sprinkles, and buttercream. And don't worry--this recipe makes plenty of doughnut holes as well.

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