1 - Bake breads, pastries, and desserts. When most people think of "baked goods," they think of breads and pastries - the kinds of foods you can commonly buy at a bakery. These types of foods usually use common ingredients like flour, butter, eggs, sugar, baking soda, salt, oil, milk, starch, cheese, and/or yeast to form a dough or batter which is then baked in sections or as a whole. Breads and pastries are often flavored with spices, syrups, and other additives to give them unique savory flavors. Here are a few basic points to remember when baking breads and pastries:
- Your dish's final shape is usually dictated by the vessel it is baked in. A loaf of bread baked in a bread pan, for instance, will have a different shape than a ball of dough cooked on a flat pan.
- Baked goods usually require special care to ensure they don't stick to their pan. Butter, shortening, oil, or aerosol sprays are commonly used to keep cooking pans slick.
- Some baked goods which use yeast (especially breads) require extra time for the yeast to "rise." Yeast is a live, microscopic fungus which eats sugar in the dough, releasing carbon dioxide gas (which causes dough to "rise") and other compounds which affect the flavor of baked goods.
- Generally, the higher the proportion of dry ingredients (flour, etc.) to wet ingredients (eggs, oil, milk, etc.) in a recipe, the crumblier the dough will be. One common trick for working with especially crumbly dough is to cool it in the freezer or refrigerator - it will thicken, becoming easier to handle and shape without crumbling.
2 - Bake meat and poultry. Along with frying, roasting, and grilling, baking is a great cooking method for meat and poultry. The hot, dry air used in baking can give a cuts of poultry a crispy, browned exterior while keeping the interior of the meat moist and juicy. Roasting a large cut of beef or lamb at a low temperature for hours is a great way to ensure you get a moist, flavorful final product that's cooked all the way through Here are some things to remember when baking meat and poultry:
- When roasting large cuts of meat, have a meat thermometer handy, along with a list of the desired internal temperatures for different kinds of meat. It's much easier to use the thermometer to judge whether the meat's done than painstakingly removing it from the oven, cutting it all the way through, and placing it back in the oven.
- Some people prefer removing the skin from pieces of poultry, while others prefer leaving it on. When seasoned and cooked, the skin can have a delicious crispy texture, but can slightly increase the fat and caloric content of the dish.
- There are pros and cons for leaving the bone in cuts of meat (as opposed to removing the bone.) Cuts of meat with the bone in are generally cheaper and, according to some sources, more flavorful (though this is not backed up by hard evidence.) They also sometimes offer additional options for cooking (try stuffing garlic or other herbs into the section of ribcage attached to a bone-in chicken breast). On the other hand, eating around bones can be annoying.
- Always cook meat and poultry thoroughly. A 2011 study found dangerous Staph bacteria in about half of the meat and poultry samples tested. Don't take any chances - make sure the center of the meat is cooked with no pink spots and that the meat's juices run clear. For bone-in meat, insert a fork to the bone, feeling for any resistance - a fork will smoothly and easily pierce a done piece of meat.
3 - Bake vegetables. Baked or roasted vegetable dishes are a nutritious addition to any meal. Some, like baked potatoes, stand up as delicious main courses. Compared to frying, baking is almost always a lower-calorie, higher-nutrition cooking option for vegetables. Brushed with a little oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper, vegetables can even be baked to give a crispy, satisfying crust. Here are just a few tips for baking vegetables:
- Generally, vegetables are "done" when they're tender. However, different vegetables tenderize at different speeds - whole squashes, for instance, can take over an hour to soften, while carrots can take half as long. Look up cooking times for your vegetables before attempting to bake.
- Some vegetable dishes (notably baked potatoes) require you to puncture the vegetable with a fork or knife before cooking. As the vegetable cooks, water trapped inside will heat and turn to steam. If it can't escape through pre-made holes, the pressure buildup may cause your vegetable to explode!
4 - Bake casserole dishes. Some baking recipes incorporate multiple types of food (some even cooked separately from the other ingredients) into a casserole-style dish. Often, these dishes use a carbohydrate, like rice, pasta, or a starch, as the central ingredient.The ingredients in these dishes are either layered or combined freely. Usually, the casserole is served directly from the deep-sided plate it was cooked in. Casserole dishes are filling, easy to serve, and often quite rich. Here are just a few examples of baked casserole-style dishes:
- Lasagna
- Ziti
- Potatoes au gratin
- Macaroni casserole
- Moussaka
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