Keeping Brown Sugar Soft

I hesitate to even post this as this seems obvious to me and probably to everyone else, but I keep seeing blogs that talk about putting an apple or piece of bread into your brown sugar container to keep it soft. So evidently it is not that obvious to everyone. I used to keep my brown sugar in this Tupperware® container.

Yes, I know, this is probably worth something as an antique now. I would fill it to the top, but as I would use the brown sugar it would create a little bit of air space each time and I would notice that it would slowly dry out. By the time there was just a bit of brown sugar left, it was pretty hard and dry.

Then one day I asked myself this question, why does brown sugar stay soft in its original package that I can leave in my food storage room for months or even years? So, that was the obvious answer to this dilemma--keep it in its own package. So as you use your brown sugar, fold down the top of the original plastic bag, pressing out all air. Keep it folded down with a piece of masking tape. I use painter's tape as it's easier to pull off.

Then place the entire bag with the folded top down inside a Ziploc® bag, press out all the air and zip it up.

Then when I place the bag of brown sugar in my cupboard I fold over any extra Ziploc® bag underneath.

My brown sugar stays absolutely soft until I use the very last bit, and I don't use it up all that fast. This sugar was opened a long time ago.

Best Way to Slice Bread

I've been making my own bread for decades. Yes, that does age me a bit. I used to freeze the loaves of bread for several hours and then slice them with a bread knife. Sometimes I froze them too long and it was hard to cut through. Sometimes they weren't frozen enough and my knife would squish the bread as I sliced it. Then I started using my Bosch food slicer.

It did an o.k. job but often would leave a jagged edge along one side of the bread and then would pulverize the last few slices. It was a mess to clean up as well with crumbs hidden in all the crevices of the machine. I even considered buying a commercial bread slicer.

After all, my bread just had to look like it was NOT homemade but a smoothly sliced rounded loaf of perfection. But even the $1500 price tag for a used machine was a bit too much for me and then I'd have to leave it in the garage with the mess and then all sorts of creatures would get into it and eat the crumbs. The thought of it made me sick.

So then one day a neighbor brought me a loaf of her homemade bread and we got to talking about baking our own bread and how we sliced it.  She used her electric knife. What? Why didn't I think of that? She didn't have to freeze it or anything. I could have saved myself all sorts of stress throughout the years. And so, that's how I slice my bread.

It works perfectly. Sometimes a solution is so simple, you just don't ever discover it until way too late.

What Makes Cupcakes Go Flat?

Look at these two cupcakes. They were made from the same batter, the batter was measured with the same ice cream scoop, they were placed into the same cupcake liners, and they were baked along side one another at the same time in the same oven. What made one sink and overflow and look ugly while the other formed a perfect dome?

The PAN!!! They were baked in the same Chicago Metallic brand muffin pan, but the pan on the left was purchased about 25 years ago and the pan on the right was purchased a week ago.

That is why I have been having such trouble getting my cupcakes looking decent, thus requiring me to fill up the sunken centers with icing. But the cupcakes on the right are a bit too done for my liking, so I will have to bake them for less time and then they'll be perfect. So, a lesson to you is check your PAN to see if that is what is giving you all the trouble.

I have since purchased another Chicago Metallic muffin pan and I am putting the other muffin pans into storage. Perhaps one day they will be collector's items.