Technorati tags: food, hacks, cooking, backing, kitchen, disaster, fix, broken, sauce, tips, tricks, baking, diy
Stale Bread: Day old bread doesn’t need to be thrown away: make Crostini!All you need to do is thinly slice the bread and toast it in a 325° F oven until it’s crisp throughout and barely golden at the edges, which should normally take about 5 minutes. You can now use it for all kinds of dishes, in soups, with salads or eat it with Prucetta. Another way to revive slightly stale bread is to lightly sprinkle it with water, wrap it in foil and bake it in the oven until warm. If however your bread has gone rock hard, you can chuck it into a food processor and make bread crumbs! A good way to avoid bread going stale is freezing it. Do this as it is still fresh. 
Cake fixes: Save a Crumbly Cake with frosting Baking isn’t everyone’s favourite thing and when the thing crumbles, it seems like all is lost. So when your cake comes out of the pan in pieces, simply glue it back together by spreading generous amounts of frosting along the edges and pressing the pieces together. Then frost.
If your cake has fallen in the center, why not turn it into a trifle? The next time your cake sticks, try placing the bottom of the pan on a towel that has been wrung out with very hot water; the heat will help loosen the cake. Buttering the bottom of the pan and powdering it with flour or lining it with baking paper before you start baking, usually does the trick. A quick yummy fix for gone hard cookies: Crush them and add to ice cream! Makes a delicious dessert. 
Fixing burned rice: Personally I avoid cooking rice because each time I’m afraid I’ll burn it. The taste of burned rice is simply awful but there’s a quick and easy way to fix it. Turn off the burner, place the heel of a loaf of bread on top of the rice and cover the pot for five minutes. The bread will absorb most of the rice’s burned aroma. Then carefully remove the rice. Optical Illusion: food coloring A few drops of yellow in curried rice or biscuit dough makes the food look richer. Food that looks good, usually tastes better 
Too Salty: You can try neutralizing the salt by adding sugar and cider vinegar. Add 1 teaspoon, each, at a time until you have reduced the level of saltiness. Another method is the potato method: If making a soup and it is too salty, add 1 peeled potato, cut into large chunks. Allow the soup to simmer for 15 minutes then remove the potato. It will absorb some of the excess salt. The most effective way to reduce saltiness is to add more of all the other ingredients to dilute it. 
Broken or curdled Sauces: For a broken hollandaise sauce you are going to take 1 egg yolk and whisk it over a water bath until it is thick and pale, just like when you started your hollandaise. Next you are going to use the broken hollandaise just like you just the butter the first time. Slowly add the broken hollandaise to the yolk, whisking vigorously as you go. This will bring your sauce back together. To fix a broken cream sauce, take ½ cup of heavy cream and reduce it down to 1/3 of its original volume. Slowly drizzle in the curdled sauce while whisking vigorously. This should bring the sauce right back to its creamy, silky consistency. Overcooked potatoes: If your potatoes are a little overcooked don’t add the milk, instead use dry powdered milk for yummy mashed potatoes. Burnt gravy: Burned your gravy? Stir in a spoonful of peanut butter to smooth out the flavour.Get rid of onion or garlic smell: When you are about to serve dinner and realize your hands smell like garlic or onion just rinse them under cold water while rubbing with a large stainless steel spoon. I have tried this last week and it works well.Unflavored gelatin: For thickening cool things, soften a package in 1/4 cup of cold water and add it to 1 cup of warm liquid to dissolve it. Then add to aspic, pudding pie filling or whatever. Also a pretty good start for a lot of fancy desserts. Evaporated milk: Next time you do your shopping, add evaporated milk to your list. Running out of milk when you’re just about to bake or cook something is really annoying, Just use evaporated milk anywhere you’d use whole milk: desserts, sauces, baths ect. You can also use it to make whipped topping.
