Quick Bread Baking Tips

QUICK BREAD BAKING TIPS OVERVIEW

Muffins, biscuits, scones, coffee cakes and even crepes, pancakes and waffles are members of a family of sweets called quick breads.

Traditional breads leavened with yeast require at least one rest period after mixing. These breads get a fast lift from baking powder, a compound that does not need time, but liquid and heat to work its magic.

Quick Bread Baking Tips

LEAVENER: I use baking powder as a leavener. This compound produces bubbles in the batter as soon as it comes in contact with liquid, then it fires its second round of “puff power” when the oven’s heat hits it. To get this power, your baking powder must be fresh.

While the expiration date on a tin might be a year from now, I like to replace my baking powder every six months. (Mark the date on the tin with a magic marker.) It’s better safe than flat. If you have doubts about your powder, stir in a teaspoon into a quarter cup of warm water and check for bubbling, the sign of life.

THE TECHNIQUE: It’s not just the leavening that’s quick in quick breads; they do best when mixed the least. For most of these breads, among them almost all muffins, you measure the dry ingredients (usually flour, sugar, baking powder and maybe spices) into a bowl and give them a few turns with a whisk to mix them up.

Next you put the liquid ingredients (eggs, melted butter, or oil and maybe milk) and whisk them until they are blended. Then you pour the liquids over the dry ingredients and gently and swiftly stir them together. No beating and , unless the recipe instructs so, don’t worry about lumps and bumps in the batter-most lumps disappear in the baking process.

Quick Bread Recipes

Homemade Bread Recipes