Kitchen Notebook

(A little sisterly advice…)

Using up ingredients

Extra egg whites:

• macarons (see here for inspiration:  swoon!)
• meringues, iles flottantes
• angel food cake (when you really have an overload…)
• egg white souffle (see Julia Child)
• financiers (see ours here and here)
• buttercream icings (we talked about making it here)
• marshmallows
• see David Lebovitz‘s post here for more!

Extra egg yolks:

• Lemon (or other citrus) curd
• Ice cream!
• Puddings (old-fashioned pudding, creme brulee, pots de creme, flan…)

Extra sour cream:

• Make pastry dough and freeze until later:  just three tablespoons needed for this recipe, perfect for using up those little bits.
• Make ice cream!
• Absolutely wonderful pancakes–follow a recipe that calls for buttermilk to get the right proportions for baking soda.  (The acid means you use baking soda instead of baking powder).
• Make cakes!  You can’t freeze sour cream, but you can freeze a cake you make from it–if you want to…see our posts here and here for ideas.
• Scones
• Coffee cakes
• Ice cream

Extra whipping cream:

• Panna cotta–really easy, just keep some gelatin on hand.  Steep flavorings in the cream to add an endless variety of flavors.  I’ve halved recipes with success to use up a cup of cream, for example.  You can also try creme caramel.
• Pudding
• Rice Pudding
• Make your own butter
• Caramel sauce.  Try this recipe or this one, for starters.
• Caramels (as in the candy).  Here’s a recipe we hope to try very soon.
• Ice cream!
• Ice cream!
• Ice cream!

Kitchen tricks

Storing egg whites and egg yolks:

• Whites:  According to Julia Child, these freeze well.  Seems to be the case.  I freeze them in ice cube trays–I try for 2 cubes for every white.  Then I can put them in a ziploc bag in the freezer and use as neessary.  I used to freeze in glass prep bowls, this was fine too, except I never remembered how many I had frozen together.  (N.B. 1/4c generally equals one large white).  Note that egg whites generally keep for two weeks in the fridge too; not bad.
• Yolks:  See Rose Levy Berenbaum’s discussion here of how to freeze egg yolks.  (I haven’t tried this as I usually find myself with extra whites rather than yolks, but you can’t argue with the author of the Cake Bible).

How to use salt-packed anchovies

• See our post here

Better potatoes

• To ensure your scalloped potatoes don’t stick together, rinse them well in water and drain before using.  The starch that accumulates on their surface after slicing will be washed away, preventing them from adhering stubbornly together. I learned this from who else but Julia Child!

Substitutions

No buttermilk?  No Problem!

Some baking recipes require buttermilk because of the thicker consistency and flavor.  Not many of us regularly use buttermilk and the left over almost always goes bad.  Also, it’s one of those ingredients that can sneak up on you.  “Buttermilk?  A cup?” 

• I learned this trick from my mom who likely learned it or at least refreshed her memory from Betty Crocker:  1TB of lemon juice or vinegar + 1 cup of milk; let stand 5 minutes.  It will get “gloppy” but that just means it’s ready.  Voila, clabbered milk!   Some folks also add 1 TB of cream of tartar.
• You can also substitute yogurt (or even kefir) which have the same acidic profile as buttermilk, and with care you can even use sour cream.