Some people treat fudgy vs cakey brownie discourse like it’s a debate. It’s not; the latter is a chocolate traybake, and the former is a proper, you know, brownie.
With that understanding, I’ve long been on the hunt for the fudgiest, densest, most chocolate-y of chocolate brownie recipes.
I’ve tried Gordon Ramsay’s (fine, but not quite the right texture), Nigella Lawson’s (delicious but, again, not as relentlessly squidgy as I prefer), and even Mary Berry’s (dare I say it; they were a little lacklustre too).
Only a few recipes stood up to my gooey-base, paper-thin crispy top standards; and all of them had a counterintuitive secret in common.
Which is?
It sounds completely wrong, but the densest, fudgy-est brownies I’ve made have never featured melted chocolate in the batter.
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Part of the reason why that feels so untrue is that melted chocolate is so luxurious, so extravagant, and so, well, chocolate-y. Why would something so cocoa-lly good make a chocolate dessert less sumptuous?
All I can say is it turns out Bon Appetit found the same thing I did when testing brownie recipes: “As compared to those made with just chocolate or a combination of the two, cocoa brownies are reliably superior in terms of texture and flavour,” they shared.
That’s partly because chocolate contains a fat called cocoa butter, which is solid at room temperature (hence, you bite a chocolate bar rather than spread it on your toast).
But when you include cocoa powder, which contains next to none of the fat, your batter is forced to rely on the other fat in the mix for its texture ― butter.
That means brownies made without melted chocolate in the batter take on more of the properties of the butter; they’re softer, more velvet-y, and gooier when cold.
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Then, there’s a question of taste; good cocoa is, well, 100% cocoa, while chocolate will always be somewhat tempered.
That leads to a darker, denser, more chocolate-y flavour.
So what’s the best recipe?
I do actually add some chocolate chunks (never chips) to the brownie mix after it’s all combined. Because it’s not incorporated into the batter, it doesn’t affect the brownie’s texture as much, and it tastes amazing.
I have screenshotted, sent, and then saved his steps on multiple email accounts and written them out physically in more than two notebooks in case The Guardian ever take the page down.
“For me, brownie nirvana is a crackled, shiny top beneath which lies a rich, dense and chewy middle, verging on the underdone,” the food pro wrote ― and he delivered.
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The only note I have is to skip the walnuts he suggests as an optional add-in in place of chocolate chips. Come on ― we all know why we’re really here.
But if you’re anything like me, a delusional part of your brain probably also went: “That looks nice, I could do that.”
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Well, if you want to attempt the precarious pastry, it turns out that none other than GBBO’s former judge Mary Berry has a timeless recipe.
Sharing her know-how on BBC’s site, the Cordon Bleu-trained chef said: “These decadent pastries filled with praline and cream are like giant profiteroles, perfect for sharing.”
How does Mary make ’em?
She says you’ll need”a food processor, a piping bag, a star nozzle and a silicone mat” to perfect her recipe, which offers two Paris-Brests (a pair if you will).
She preheats her oven to 220C/200C, lines a baking sheet with baking paper, and draws four 10cm-ish circles on it before flouring the parchment.
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Then, she makes choux pastry by putting milk, salt, sugar, butter, and water into a pan, removing from the heat once it starts bubbling, and ― frankly ― beating the bejesus out of it “until it forms a dough that leaves the side of the pan clean.”
Then she places the mix back into the pan and heats it for five minutes or so.
Once cooled slightly, she beats eggs into the dough “until the dough is smooth and glossy,” and then place it in a piping bag.
She pipes four thick rings into the circles she drew earlier, then tops them with egg wash and almonds.
These should be baked for 10-15 minutes at full temp, and then a further 10 minutes at 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4; dry them out in an opened oven for three minutes afterwards.
Then, Mary makes a praline by spreading hazelnut-filled caramel onto a silicone mat, leaving it to cool, and whizzing it in a blender.
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She also makes vanilla whipped cream for the filling.
“Sprinkle half the praline onto the bottom halves of the choux rings, then pipe a generous amount of cream over the praline. Sprinkle the remaining praline over the cream and place the pastry lids on top. Dust with icing sugar and serve,” Mary says.
It was named after a bike race that runs between Paris and Brest, a port city; it was even designed to look like a bike.
The New York Times advises making your praline first, in direct contradiction with Mary Berry’s advice (should we make them cycle a race to determine the winner?).
With the Great British Bake Off set to return today, most of us (ie. me) have grand ideas of baking alongside the show.
Inevitably, though, life gets in the way ― after all, the show does air on a school night.
Luckily, though, Philips’ in-house air fryer chef Martin Senders has a delicious cookie recipe that takes a measly eight minutes to cook in everyone’s favourite time-saving appliance.
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“We can’t all be born ‘Star Baker’, so any technology that makes baking more of a breeze is always welcome ― and that’s exactly what the Airfryer does,” Senders told HuffPost UK over email.
“An Airfryer works by circulating hot air, making it perfect for golden, perfectly risen bakes with no soggy bottom’ in sight,” he added.
Cookies in particular do well in the devices, as it’s really easy to achieve that drool-worthy soft inside and crips exterior.
What’s the recipe?
Senders’ recipe serves eight, he says.
The ingredients are:
60g milk chocolate
60g dark chocolate
160g plain flour
2 pinches of salt
1 teaspoon of baking powder
2 tablespoons of cocoa powder
100g softened unsalted butter
70g white sugar
2 tablespoons of milk
40g almond flakes.
To make the cookies, he says, you should follow these steps:
Coarsely chop both types of chocolate, and combine then combine the flour, salt, baking powder and cocoa powder in a bowl and mix until incorporated.
Add the softened butter and sugar to a bowl and beat until fluffy. Add the milk and continue mixing. Gradually add the flour mixture while continuing to mix until evenly combined. Add the chopped chocolate and mix until just incorporated.
Shape the dough into about eight balls and let them rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Flatten them into a cookie shape.
Dip the bottom of your cookies in flaked almonds, before placing four of them into the Airfryer basket and cooking for 8 minutes at 160 degrees. Repeat this step for the remaining cookies.
Let cookies sit for around five minutes to cool before serving.
Cookie dough balls can be wrapped in baking paper and stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to three days.
If you still haven’t used up all the biccies by then, you can store them in the freezer for up to three months by placing the individually-wrapped cookies in a freezer bag ― just pop them in the air fryer for a little longer than you would when fresh when you fancy one.
Now, I am a Mary Berry STAN. I love her. I love her recipes, I love seeing her on TV and I stopped watching Bake Off when she left because, truly, what’s the point?
Take, for example, the tomato soup that I found in there today. It’s a ‘summer’ tomato soup which means it’s eaten cold and not cooked but also… there are… no actual tomatoes that need to be chopped for this recipe?
I swear, I had to keep re-reading because I thought I’d missed a step but apparently I didn’t and neither did Mary herself because this is still an entire soup.
I can only put it down to the 70s being a little weird.
Mary Berry’s Tomato-Less Tomato Soup Recipe
So. If you’re feeling like a yoghurty gazpacho is on your bucket list, you may want to try this vintage recipe. It’s not for me personally but as Mary says in the recipe itself, “it’s very much a sophisticated taste” and what can I say? I’m an uncultured buffoon.
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So, for this alternative tomato soup recipe, you’ll need:
500ml of natural yoghurt
500ml of tomato juice
The juice and grated rind of a lemon
1/2 cucumber, cut into 5cm cubes
Salt
Ground black pepper
Worcester sauce
Cucumber slices for garnish
… Told you! No tomatoes! Juice tomato juice!
Then you simply:
Whisk together yoghurt and tomato juice
Stir in lemon juice, grated lemon rind and cucumber
Season well and add Worcester sauce
Serve chilled and garnished with thin slices of cucumber
This comes from a vintage cookbook of Mary’s from 1975: Beating The Cost Of Cooking and while I likely wouldn’t choose this meal, I’ll cherish this throwback cookbook forever.
The words ‘national treasure’ are thrown around far too lightly for my liking but when it comes to Mary Berry, they absolutely apply. First appearing on our screens in the 70′s, Mary has been teaching the nation to cook and bake for longer than I’ve been alive.
My first real exposure to her was obviously Great British Bake Off where her cheeky little smiles were a perfect sidekick to co-host Paul Hollywood’s gentle snark. Racing over to my friend’s after work, we’d tuck into some pasta, share a bottle of wine and talk about whether it was too late for Mary to adopt us as her granddaughters.
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With all of this fangirling in mind, it’s probably not a surprise to learn that I forked out for a vintage cookbook of Mary’s from 1975: “Beating The Cost Of Cooking”. It’s yellowed, bent a little in the middle and perfect.
Mary Berry’s vintage scrambled eggs recipe
I bought this book mostly to learn how much not only Mary’s cooking has changed over almost 50 years but how much food trends have changed in general. It’s a great read but there are some that I’m glad stayed right where they belong. In the 70s.
Take for example, the ‘sweet corn scramble’. I don’t know if it’s because I hate sweetcorn or because the illustration is… vile, but this one really got my stomach turning.
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Anyway, if sweetcorn isn’t an issue for you, you can try this vintage scrambled eggs recipe from Mary herself.
You’ll need:
6 eggs
6 tbsp milk
salt and pepper
15g of butter
175g of drained sweetcorn
toast
Then, simply beat your eggs in a bowl with milk, salt and pepper. Melt the butter in a pan and make scrambled eggs in your usual way. Just before the eggs are ready, stir in drained sweetcorn and cook until hot. Pile on toast and serve at once.
Despite this cursed illustration haunting my nightmares, I still love you Mary.
I can stand some Irish stereotypes; actually, yes, we do all know each other (more or less). And yep, we love potatoes ― what sane person wouldn’t?
I like mine baked, fried, chipped, boiled, mashed, and, uh, be-saladed (?). But It wasn’t until I read Mary Berry’s version of the dish that I started eating it on its own for lunch.
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That’s because the Cordon Bleu-trained chef adds tasty (and omega 3 and protein-rich) salmon and prawns to her dish, not only making it more delicious but also turning it into a more balanced meal.
In fact, the dish is so tasty that it’s earned a five-star rating on its BBC page ― having tried it myself, I can understand why.
The dish also contains radishes
The tasty addition of radishes to the dish adds a crisp and peppery bite to the meal, balancing out the mushy spuds and tender fish.
It holds up well during storage, too ― in fact, all of this recipe does. “The potato salad can be made a day in advance and stored in the fridge, adding the radish, freshly cooked salmon and the prawns up to four hours ahead,” the BBC’s page suggests.
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In order to hold up longer against refrigeration, Mary Berry recommends using thicker, middle-cut salmon from the centre of the fish, rather than the tail.
The result is a delicious, balanced dish with loads of contrasting texture and complex flavours ― way, way better than your standard spud salad.
What’s the recipe, then?
You’ll need three middle-cut salmon fillets, each weighing 125 grams or four and a half ounces, with their skin left on. Additionally, the recipe calls for one lemon and 16 cooked tiger prawns.
For the potato salad, you’ll need 500 grams of baby new potatoes, four tablespoons of olive oil, three tablespoons of Dijon mustard, one tablespoon of caster sugar, and three tablespoons of white wine vinegar.
You’ll also require six tablespoons of mayonnaise, one bunch of thinly sliced spring onions, 150 grams of thinly sliced radishes, four finely chopped celery sticks, one small bunch of finely chopped flatleaf parsley, salt, and freshly ground black pepper. This makes enough for six people.
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Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C Fan/Gas Mark 4, and line a baking tray with kitchen foil.
To prep the salad, place the potatoes in a saucepan of salted water and bring them to a boil. Allow them to cook for approximately 15 minutes or until they are tender ― once they’re cooked, drain them and then slice ’em into quarters.
While the potatoes are cooking, place the salmon fillets skin-side down on the foil-lined baking tray. Squeeze half of the lemon juice over them and season them with salt and pepper. Cover the fillets with foil, seal to make a parcel, and bake for about 15 minutes or until just cooked. Once that’s done, remove them from the oven and let them cool before removing the skin.
For the salad, combine oil, mustard, sugar, and vinegar in a large bowl. Add the hot potatoes, season with salt and pepper, and set aside to cool. After that, you can mix in the mayonnaise, spring onions, radishes, and celery. Adjust the seasoning to your taste and add the remaining lemon juice.
Gently flake the cooked salmon into large pieces and stir it into the salad with the prawns and half of the chopped parsley, ensuring you don’t accidentally mash any spuds. Serve sprinkled with the remaining parsley.
Voila ― you’ve got an elite potato salad that’s bulky and balanced enough to count as a full meal (at least, I’ve eaten it for dinner with a baguette twice this week).
And now, it seems the Cordon Bleu-trained chef has a secret for shortbread, too.
In her recipe for the simple Scottish delicacy, Mary Berry goes beyond the typical sugar-flour-butter recipe we’d expect.
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Instead, she adds another ingredient for extra crunch ― semolina (yup, like for her roast spuds).
Why semolina?
Semolina is a hard flour, the less finely-milled version of durum wheat (which is used for pasta).
It has more gluten and protein than all-purpose wheat four, as well as more flavour. And because it’s coarser, it doesn’t become soft and fluffy as easily as all-purpose flour ― meaning it’ll help to provide a structure and bite to your baked goods.
“I like to use semolina as well as flour to give the shortbread crunch, but you can use cornflour or ground rice instead,” Mary Berry says.
What’s Mary Berry’s shortbread recipe?
First, you should preheat your oven to 160°C/Fan 140°C/gas 3, and grease a 30cm x 23cm roasting or traybake tin.
You’ll need 225g (8oz) of plain flour, 100g (4oz) of semolina, 225g (8oz) of butter, 100g (4oz) of caster sugar, 50g (2oz) of flaked almonds (there aren’t mandatory), and 25g (1oz) of demerara sugar for dusting.
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Combine the flour and semolina in a bowl or food processor. Incorporate the butter and sugar, then use your fingertips to rub them together until the mixture starts to come together. Gently knead the mixture until it forms a smooth dough.
Spread the dough into a baking tray and then press its top until even with a knife or spatula. Then, prick its surface with a fork, add your flaked almonds if you like, and store it in the fridge to chill until it’s firm.
After it’s chilled, bake it for 35 minutes or until lightly golden brown. Sprinkle it with demerara sugar after it leaves the oven. Then, after a few minutes, cut it into 30 fingers in the tin and leave those to cool further on a cooling rack.
Enjoy ― store any leftovers on a cooling rack (though I’d be amazed if you had any.)
The holidays traditionally are for getting together with the people you love most. Tradition also holds that it’s the season of office parties and other semi-mandatory affairs. Whether you’re attending the next cocktail (or ugly sweater) party excitedly or begrudgingly, a good cocktail is likely to improve the evening.
While there’s nothing wrong with hot toddies or spiked eggnog (actually — I take it back, there’s plenty wrong with eggnog), an expert-designed seasonal cocktail could be a nice change of pace. Warm your bones with one of these recipes, shared by some of New York’s most impressive bars and restaurants, and give your guests the gift of a good, stiff drink.
You may have to make a trip to a bar specialty store, or, you know, the internet, to pick up some of the requisite ingredients, but we’ve included tips for substitution whenever possible. You’ll want a basic bartending set with a cocktail shaker, strainer and muddler to make these. We’ve also suggested glassware and garnishes for each cocktail, if you’re going all out. Also, flavoured syrups aren’t a bad investment — they’ll taste great in your coffee on Christmas morning.
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When Smokey Sings
Courtesy of Casa Ora
Not into eggnog? Good news: You can offer your guests something comfortingly creamy that isn’t glorified boozy custard. Ivo Diaz, the co-owner, beverage director, and chef at Casa Ora, a stylish Venezuelan restaurant in Brooklyn’s East Williamsburg, shared this recipe for a rich and delicately spiced drink that’s sure to warm up your insides.
There is some prep involved, but you can make the chicha de arroz and cinnamon syrup hours or even days before guests arrive. To make things even easier, you can grab a bottle of premade cinnamon simple syruponline or at a kitchen specialty store.
Once you have your syrup and chicha on hand, you’re really only working with three ingredients, so it should be easy enough to shake these up for guests and still enjoy your party. For a really professional look, invest in a jumbo ice tray to make cocktail bar-ready ice blocks.
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To make your own cinnamon simple syrup:
In a pot, muddle about 3/4 ounce (by weight) of cinnamon bark, and add 2 cups of water and 2 cups of Domino superfine sugar. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally, then cover and reduce heat to a simmer for 15 minutes. Strain with a fine strainer before storing.
To make the chicha de arroz:
Combine 16 ounces rice milk, 1 can sweetened condensed milk, 1 can evaporated milk, and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder in a blender until smooth. Store in a container and keep refrigerated.
To make the cocktail
Combine cinnamon simple syrup, chicha de arroz and mezcal in a shaker with ice. Double strain into a rocks glass over a jumbo rock block and garnish with mint leaves.
Nashi Sour
Courtesy. of Ophelia
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Treat your loved ones to a partridge in a nashi pear tree — or at least a creative and pear-flavored take on a classic whiskey sour. The Nashi Sour, by bar director Amir Babayoff of Opheliain Manhattan’s Midtown East, features spiced winter fruit flavours frothed up with egg white.
We suggest you buy liquid egg whites rather than having to deal with cracking eggs and separating yolks while you’re trying to entertain company. For the most faithful version of this drink, try to stick to Babayoff’s suggested liquors as much as possible. Again, you can find ginger and cinnamon syrups online, if not at your local HomeGoods; or, you could go full elf and make your own.
Add all ingredients, dry shake, add ice, shake and double strain into a Nick and Nora glass. To garnish like the restaurant does, cover half of the top of the glass with a square white paper and spray or sprinkle chai powder on just half of the foam.
Cranberry Cup
Courtesy of Lindens
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If you haven’t yet had your fill of cranberry sauce (I know I haven’t), this vodka-wine spritzer by Gary Wallach, beverage director at Lindens, could be your new party signature. The bar, newly opened at the Arlo Soho in New York, serves theirs in a highball glass, dressed with an elaborate garnish of fresh thyme, lemon zest and a roll of dried cranberry leather.
If you can’t find thyme and apple liqueurs at your local liquor store, snag them online. Same goes for the spiced cranberry shrub — a traditional mixer made with sugar and vinegar for a tangy-sweet taste. You can make your own if you’re feeling ambitious. But if you’re normal, you can find inexpensive craft shrub online — here are a couple of options we found.
Once you’ve shaken all the other ingredients together, top it off with Lambrusco, a sparkling and often sweet red wine, to taste.
Optional: thyme sprig, lemon twist, cranberry fruit leather, and/or grated nutmeg, to garnish
Add all ingredients except for Lambrusco into a small cocktail shaker. Add ice and shake vigorously. Strain into a highball glass over fresh ice, top with Lambrusco and garnish. Lindens uses a thyme sprig, lemon twist, cranberry fruit roll-up and grated nutmeg.
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Raspberry Mint White Chocolate Holiday Cocktail
Courtesy of Mala Project
From Christmas cookies to candy canes, December is the time when your sweet tooth is likely to reign supreme. If you’re hoping for a cocktail that will fulfill your candy cravings, Irene Li of New York’s MáLà Project restaurants has one that combines chocolate, peppermint — and some raspberry for good measure. You’ll probably have to buy a few new liqueurs for your stash, so consider getting nice ones that you’ll be excited to experiment with all winter.
Combine white chocolate liqueur, peppermint schnapps, raspberry liqueur, vanilla extract and vodka in a shaker. Fill the shaker with ice and shake until all ingredients are well incorporated.
Pour into a chilled rocks glass. Top off with crushed candy cane pieces and a peppermint stick or two (or three … we’re not counting).
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Holiday Manzarita
Kartrite Resort
This light and fruity drink comes from the Kartrite Resort located in the Catskills in New York state, and it’s a great way to use up the last apples of the season.
Your first step is to muddle your fresh apple chunks, so if you don’t already have a muddler on your bar cart, now’s the time to pick one up. Or, you can simplify that step by just using your favourite store-bought apple cider.
And if you don’t already have St-Germain on hand, you won’t regret picking up a bottle. The herbal, elderflower-flavoured liqueur is a great cocktail staple that you’ll find uses for well into the spring. As for the garnish, Kartrite serves the Manzarita with a flaming cinnamon stick — but you can feel free to leave yours unsinged.
1 1/2 ounces blanco tequila
1/2 ounce St-Germain
1/2 ounce cinnamon syrup
3/4 ounce fresh-squeezed lime juice
3-4 small cubed apple pieces (or 3/4 ounce of apple cider)
Cinnamon stick, to garnish
In your cocktail shaker, muddle the apple. Add all remaining ingredients to the shaker with ice. Shake for 6-8 seconds. Double strain into a rocks glass over ice. Garnish with cinnamon stick and serve.
Whether you’re new to cooking or you’ve been doing it for decades, it’s entirely possible you have no idea what you’re doing in certain areas. One particular topic that home cooks struggle with is understanding the differences between parchment paper, wax paper, aluminium foil and freezer paper, and when to use which one.
And trust us, mixing them up could legitimately ruin your recipe in some cases.
What’s the difference, and which materials are interchangeable? We talked to the experts to clear up any confusion you might have. Read on for the inside scoop on exactly when to use parchment paper, aluminium foil, wax paper and freezer paper — and exactly when you shouldn’t.
Parchment Paper
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Parchment paper is a godsend for baking, when you want cookies to slide right off the cookie sheet.
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Thanks to its versatility, parchment paper is the shining star of the kitchen. It’s an odourless paper made from cotton fibre and pure chemical wood pulps that’s been coated with silicone. In addition to being nonstick, it’s heat- and moisture-resistant.
Parchment can be used for many kitchen tasks, but it’s best known for acting as a liner for baking sheets and pans, helping to promote even cooking and food not sticking. And according to Laura Ritterman, the cook behind the food blog Recipe Fairy, it also makes cleanup a whole lot easier. Think: being able to slide roasted veggies, cookies, fish and more right off the baking sheet with no mess.
“You can also line parchment paper on your kitchen counter to aid in cleanup,” said Christina Musgrave, a professional recipe developer. Because it’s nonstick and moisture-repellent, you can do all of your chopping, mixing, kneading and rolling on top of a layer of parchment, then toss it when you’re done, saving you the trouble of scrubbing down your countertops later.
Despite being super-versatile, parchment paper can only be used up to a certain temperature. “You can normally use parchment paper up to around 420 degrees Fahrenheit,” Musgrave said. “Heating it over that temperature can risk it catching on fire.” For safety purposes, always know the heat limit of the brand of parchment paper you’re using while cooking.
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As for what to use as a substitute if you find yourself out of parchment paper, that depends on what you’re planning to use it for.
“Foil can be used to help prevent food from sticking, so long as it’s well-greased,” Ritterman said. (Or, if you’re specifically using a nonstick foil.) “It’s not as good as parchment paper, but can be used in a pinch if you don’t have any.” For easier cleanup, wax paper is a good choice for covering countertops.
Aluminium Foil
MirageC via Getty Images
Runner-up in the versatility department is aluminium foil, which is made of over 98% aluminum ― the balance of which consists mainly of iron and silicon for added strength and puncture resistance. During the final rolling, two layers of foil are passed through the mill at the same time. The side that comes into contact with the polished steel rollers becomes shiny, the other side dull.
This is why, despite popular belief, it doesn’t matter which side of the foil contacts your food. (The only exception to this is nonstick foil, which does have a dull side that’s nonstick ― perfect for cooking foods that are cheesy or sticky.)
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Where aluminum foil really shines (pun totally intended) is with high-heat cooking, like grilling and broiling. Any recipes that require cooking foods at a higher temperature than your parchment paper can hack, that’s where foil comes in.
Another handy skill? “Aluminium foil helps with even cooking or baking in the oven, mitigating the burning of food before it has finished cooking,” Ritterman said. “This is great for things like casseroles, roasts or pies.”
Say you don’t want your turkey or casserole to over-brown ― make a foil tent by placing a sheet of foil over your roasting pan or casserole dish, leaving a 1-inch gap between the top of your food and the foil tent for heat circulation, then crimp the foil onto the long sides of the pan so it stays put.
To keep your pie crust from burning while the centre bakes, foil to the rescue: Take a 12-inch foil square and fold it into quarters. Cut out the centre and round off the edges so you’re left with a ring that’s two inches wide. Unfold the ring and place it over your pie, removing it for the final 20 minutes of baking time.
“Because foil easily holds its shape, you can also wrap foods (meat, potatoes) to prevent them from losing moisture as they cook, as well as make foil packs of food to pop in the oven or on the grill,” Kyrie Luke, recipe developer and blogger at Healthfully Rooted Home, told HuffPost. (It’s an especially effective strategy for more delicate foods, like veggies and fish.)
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But you should never use aluminium foil in the microwave. “Since aluminium foil is metal, it can heat so quickly that it can cause a spark and catch on fire,” Musgrave warned.
The best replacement for foil is parchment paper — specifically, for oven cooking and making food packs. For high-heat cooking, however, aluminium foil is difficult to replace, with the closest options being grilling papers and oven and barbecue bags.
If you’re not sure whether to go with aluminum foil or parchment paper, just remember: Grill or broil, go with foil.
Wax Paper
picture alliance via Getty Images
Wax paper is a good idea if you’re decorating already-baked cookies, but you should never bake cookies on it.
Wax paper is tissue paper that’s triple-waxed with a food-safe paraffin coating. It’s best known for covering countertops ― you can measure dry ingredients, such as flour, over wax paper and avoid a messy countertop during baking and cooking.
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“It’s similar to parchment paper in that it can be used to keep food from sticking to surfaces, such as allowing chocolate-covered strawberries to harden or delicate artwork for cakes and pastries,” Ritterman said. It can even line pans for non-baked items, such as fudge or no-bake desserts to make cleanup easier.
Unlike parchment, wax paper shouldn’t be used in cooking situations that require heat. “Never use wax paper in the oven, microwave, grill or anything that conducts heat,” Luke said. “The wax will melt and it may cause a fire.”
The only exception to this rule is that wax paper can be used for lining cake pans for baking cakes. Because the cake batter completely covers the wax paper and absorbs much of the heat, the wax paper won’t smoke or melt.
The easiest way to remember whether to go with parchment or wax paper is to picture a burning candle as a reminder that wax melts. “The last thing you want is waxy food ― or a kitchen fire,” Luke said.
Freezer Paper
Freezer paper is a thicker paper that’s used for, you guessed it, freezing food. “It’s best known for wrapping meats and seafood for freezing to seal in juices and protect them from freezer burn,” Musgrave said.
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One side of the paper is coated with either wax or plastic and provides a barrier to air and moisture that helps prolong the freshness, flavor and nutrition of your food while frozen, helping it last in your freezer for up to one year. Because the other side of the paper isn’t coated, it can be used to mark down the contents and pack date of the wrapped food.
Since freezer paper has a wax or plastic coating, it shouldn’t be heated ― otherwise, the wax or plastic will melt and ruin your food.
In a pinch, you can use heavy duty aluminium foil as freezer wrap, but because it can be torn and punctured easily, it’s best to use an overwrap, too.
“Wax paper can also replace freezer paper if you plan on eating the stored food in a short period of time,” Ritterman said. It’s not moisture-vapour resistant the way freezer paper is, though, so for longer storage times, freezer paper all the way.
Can I do nothing fright? First, comes the news that I’m boiling my potatoes wrong for mashing; then, it turned out I’ve been using my colander wrong this entire time.
And recently, I spotted an Instagram reel that changed how I view boiling broccoli.
If you’re anything like me, you’re used to chopping your broccoli into florets and adding it either to a steamer or boiling water. But it turns out you don’t need to face those green crumbles all over your chopping board to begin with, and you might not even need to whip the board out at all.
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Andrei Emelianov’s Instagram page andre_lifehack, which is filled with (you guessed it) life hacks, revealed in a video that a better way to boil broccoli is to impale the stem with a chopstick or skewer, turn the broccoli upside down so the head is submerged in your pot’s water, and then lay either side of the implement on the rim.
This keeps the veg in place as it cooks ― and when it’s done, you don’t need to drain it. Simply remove the entire head and chop off the florets you want, mess-free.
Huh!
Yep! Lots of commenters mentioned that it’s wasteful to discard the delicious (and fibre-rich) stem, but you don’t have to ― save it and chop it for a pasta bake or grate it for tasty fritters.
Of course, nutritionists say boiling broccoli means you lose a lot of nutrients in the water, so if you choose to steam it instead, simply trim the stem of the entire head so the whole veg can fit in your lidded steamer basked. You can save the trimmed stem for later. And even if you’re not boiling or steaming your broccoli, you can use one of Andre’s other food tricks shown in the video; turn the broccoli head upside down and run the water through the florets that way when washing it, rather than using the less-effective floret-side-up approach.
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Any other tips?
Yep! The reel is brimming with wisdom.
For instance, you’re better off chopping a large veg (like squash) by placing a knife along the side of the gourd and rolling the whole vegetables. It makes the cut much easier.
Also, you’re probably cracking pistachios open wrong ― rather than pulling two sides of the shell apart, try pushing them together until they snap for a simple release.
Loosen grapes from their stalk by placing the whole bunch in a tea towel and gently rubbing the top half of the terrycloth parcel ― they’ll gradually evict themselves from their woody homes.
And solidified, cakey spices that are stuck in a jar can be loosened by circling the base of another spice jar over the inverted bottom of the affected container.
Lastly, you can cleanly remove flour from the bag by spinning a balloon whisk in the bag and lifting the filled utensil from the bag ― it’s amazingly mess-free.
