First and foremost, the winner of the chili twister is………….HOLLY!  Congrats Holly, I told my son to pick a number between 1 and 26….my son picked number 11 and that’s your comment #!  Contact me with your mailing address please.

Now for today’s tips!  Some may find this useful and some won’t.  It’s been handy for me a time or two.

4 cups will fit into:

• 8-inch round cake pan
• 9-inch round pie pan
• 9-inch pie pan
• 4 x 8 x 2 3/4-inch loaf pan (small)

5 cups will fit into:

• 7 x 11 x 1 3/4-inch pan
• 10-inch pie pan

6 cups will fit into:

• 8 x 8 x 2-inch square pan
• 5 x 9 x 3 1/4-inch loaf pan (large)

8 cups will fit into:

• 9 x 9 x 2 1/4-inch casserole
• 7 1/2 x 11 3/4 x 2-inch pan

12 cups will fit into:

• 8 1/2 x 13 1/2 x 2 1/2-inch glass dish
• 9 x 13 x 2-inch pan

Today’s tips will revolve around baking. I LOVE to bake but hate the clean up;)  BTW–I give tips every Tuesday!!

• If you like to use insulated baking sheets, don’t run out to the store to buy them; you can simulate them by stacking one regular cookie sheet over another. Be especially careful when you take them out of the oven; the top sheet should be removed first.
• Bread Baking – Brush melted butter over the tops of breads and biscuits as soon as they are removed from the oven. This will make the crust soft and full of flavor.
• Freeze stale bread and then make croutons. Toast the bread first until it is crispy. Brush the bread slices with melted butter and sprinkle on garlic or onion powder, or your favorite herb blend. Then cut the bread into small cubes for croutons.
• Use an ice cream scoop to drop cookie dough. Your cookies will be uniform size and will bake evenly. If the dough is sticky, dip the scoop into water between scoops.
• Remove baked brownies from the pan and frost them upside down. They will cut easily into squares.
• Almost any quick bread can also be used to make muffins. Instead of making the bread into loaves, just put the batter into muffin cups (spray first) and bake at a slightly higher (25?) temperature. You also need to bake them a shorter length of time than a loaf.
• Add a pinch of baking soda to your frosting and the frosting will stay moist and prevent cracking.
• Do you bake pies? Especially Meringue? To stop the meringue from shrinking away from the sides of the pies, be sure that when you put the meringue on top, you make sure it touches the pastry all around the edge. This way, it will bake onto the pastry and will not shrink!
• Baking Cakes? Do you have a recipe for cake flour, but you only have all purpose flour on hand? Take your all purpose flour and sift the flour about 5 times! There, now you have cake flour!

Finally, if you have leftover cookie dough be sure to enjoy eating every last bite of it!