Baking Tips
Below are some baking tips from old-fashioned cooks.
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Old Fashioned Cookies
Family and vintage recipes
 
Homemade Pie Crust
  • use lard, it makes the best crust, about 1 part lard to 3 parts flourr
  • cut with table knife or pastry cutter.
  • use very cold water or ice water. Sprinkle over crumbly mixture to

Chocolate Chips
  • in Dec. 2009 I purchased Nestles semisweet chocolate morsels to use
    in cookies. They were not good (changed after over 50 years of being
    a high quality product). Nestles apparently is no longer using enough
    cocoa butter. The result is a product with no chocolate flavor and
    much too sweet. My advice is find Belgian chocolate or chocolate bars
    that you can crumble for chocolate chips.
  • Baker's Bitter Baking Chocolate is still good to use.
  • I have not tried Hershey's chocolate lately. I think the bitter sweet
    chocolate bars are still good. Sample them before using in a recipe.
Cookies
  • use unbleached flour
  • if dough is crumbly, sprinkle about 1 t cold water over part of the flour,
    then mix with remaining flour, and then incorporate into cookie dough
  • if cookies spread to much, refrigerate dough before baking.
  • mix with hands when dough becomes too stiff to mix with electric
    mixer or spoon