Common Mistakes in Cooking 15

Baking powder or soda biscuits, gems, articles containing baking powder, need a very hot oven, and should be baked on the bottom before they are browned on the top.

Cakes split in the centre and burst open when they have been baked too quickly on top.

Pop-overs depend for their lightness entirely upon the heat of the oven, and must be baked quickly with the greater heat underneath, to drive them up, as it were. Pop-overs are often sodden when the batter is too thick, or when they have not been sufficiently mixed. :

Batter puddings are soggy and heavy when they contain too little flour, or when the baking powder has been mixed with the flour, and ‘this added to the milk and egg sometime before the pudding has been baked.

Whole wheat bread should be as light as white bread; if it is not, too much flour has been added, or it has been kneaded a third time. :

Pies lose their juices in the oven when the upper and under crusts are not well fastened together. Use a wide-rimmed dish ; brush the edge of the under crust with water or white of egg before placing the upper crust. ‘Then press the paste together on the inner edge of the rim, but loosen it from the outer edge of the dish. To be more explicit, if the undercrust fastens itself to the dish the upper crust, in swelling, separates from it, and the juices escape.

The meringue on a pie will usually remain fluffy, if it is left in the warm kitchen after taking from the oven; but if taken into the cold it will fall.

All pastry should be baked in a hot oven.

The hottest part of the oven. The question often arises as to which is the hottest part of the oven. ‘‘Where shall we bake pastry and cakes — on the grates, or on the floor of the oven?” This depends largely upon the stove. If it is a gas stove they should be baked on the grate, and, perhaps, one burner turned