Why the refrigerator is bad for bread

May 30, 2026 by
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The refrigerator is probably in the top 10 of inventions that have postively affected humankind. Being able to keep items cool dramatically slows down spoilage, allowing people to keep a wider variety of food (and leftovers) safely stored for later consumption. However, there are a few items that don't belong in the refrigerator, one of the most important being bread,… read more

The best method for separating eggs

May 23, 2026 by
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carton of eggs
Separating the yolks from the whites to make custards, meringues, or other dishes that use only one part of the egg is a kitchen task that can easily become annoying. Breaking the yolk before you get the whites into a bowl is frustrating and wasteful. There are many different tips, tricks, tools, and "hacks" for making this process easier. Chowhound's… read more

Don’t tell your nonna, but this is a better way to cook pasta

May 13, 2026 by
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True or false: to make pasta you need to have a large kettle of boiling water, about 6 quarts per pound of pasta. For decades most people would have said "true", but people are turning to a newer way of cooking pasta that uses much less water. There are several advantages to the low water method, as Serious Eats' Leah… read more

More uses for your tortilla press

April 24, 2026 by
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The tortilla press is a simple piece of kitchen equipment, usually made of metal plates that are hinged together to create perfectly even, flat dough pieces to make corn or flour tortillas. At first glance it seems like an Alton Brown "unitasker", something that takes up valuable space but only has one use. That's simply not true, says Taste Cooking's… read more

Sourdough science

April 2, 2026 by
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Do you still have the starter you created when everyone was making sourdough bread in the pandemic? I'm sad to report that my starter died an ignoble death at the back of our basement refrigerator. I'm a serial starter killer, but I might have to try again, because nothing you can buy can replicate the flavor of a true sourdough… read more

Forget the spoon and use your fingers, says Daniel Boulud

February 11, 2026 by
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NYC chef Daniel Boulud has a storied history with nineteen restaurants, including Michelin stars. The chef recently spoke with Food & Wine about how to season like a French chef to get the perfect amount of salt in a dish. His biggest piece of advice is to forego measuring spoons while cooking, and instead just use your fingers to gauge… read more

New life for old spices

January 10, 2026 by
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"If your spice is more than six months old, you should replace it with new" is common advice, but it is not practical for most people. Throwing out spices is an expensive proposition, and with food prices in an unrelenting upward trend, it can stretch an already tight budget. While it's true that spices will lose potency over time, there… read more

The best type of pan for baking pie

December 18, 2025 by
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Even if you don't bake often, you probably have a pie pan that gets dragged out for special occasions like the holidays. A majority of people have a glass or ceramic pan because those are the most common options, but as Serious Eat's Rebecca Frey notes, those may not be the best materials to achieve an evenly-baked, flaky crust. She… read more

A new way to cupcake

November 22, 2025 by
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Cupcakes are finding their way back from being abandoned after the early 21st century cupcake craze sparked by bakeries such as Magnolia Bakery in New York City. What's not to love? They are individually portioned (making serving a breeze), can be cute as a bug, and offer as many flavor combinations as you can dream up. They bake quickly, usually… read more

Who needs a flaky pie crust?

November 22, 2025 by
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Milk Street's Christopher Kimball had a Reddit AMA session earlier this week. Kimball solicited questions on his favorite food holiday (Thanksgiving), asking Redditors to "get the conversation (argument) started!" He was ready to opine on topics such as cutting fat into flour for making pie crusts, the right way to brine your turkey, and his favorite dinner roll recipe. Rose Levy… read more

What’s the best bread for stuffing?

November 19, 2025 by
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With holiday dinners fast approaching, home cooks are preparing the menus for their family feasts. For many, this means a turkey and stuffing/dressing as a side dish. There are many decisions to be made regarding the stuffing, and chief among them is what bread to use. Food & Wine brings us chefs' top choices for this important stuffing ingredient. Kish… read more

Baking across borders

October 31, 2025 by
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As an avid baker and cookbook aficionado, I frequently purchase the UK version of baking books because the covers are always better than the US edition (something I have written about before). This has led to me learning - sometimes the hard way - about the differences between UK and US ingredients and measurements. Helen Goh recently explained many of… read more

To fan, or not to fan – that is the question

October 2, 2025 by
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oven dial
If your oven has a convection setting, how often do you use it? If the answer is "never because I don't know when it is appropriate", recipe developer and cookbook author Irvin Lin can help you. He penned an article on Simply Recipes that gives you the lowdown on how to properly use your oven's convection setting. First, you need… read more

Chemistry in the kitchen

September 18, 2025 by
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If you love to cook, you are applying scientific concepts every time you make a meal - even if you hated science classes in school. I happened to love chemistry, which may explain why I geek out over the science of cooking. Serious Eats also has a thing for food science, which is why they created a series of articles… read more

A new (old) way to fry food

September 16, 2025 by
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A deep frying technique that has been used for centuries in Asia is gaining a new fan base in the West, and it uses a surprising ingredient: salt. Salt (or, more commonly, sand) frying "is a process with historical roots that spans countries and centuries" says Food & Wine's Merlyn Miller. It's receiving renewed interest since cooking creator Roice Bethel's… read more

Is this really the best way to cook rice?

August 6, 2025 by
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Cooking rice is something that intimidated me for years. I did not grow up eating rice very often and when we did have rice, it was often included in a dish and not cooked separately. So when I was a young cook timidly exploring beyond the culinary borders of my upbringing, making rice proved to be a challenge. For one… read more

Herb pairing basics

August 5, 2025 by
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Over 13,000 recipes in the EYB Library have "herbs of your choice" as an ingredient. When you see that in the ingredient list, do you have a set of herbs in mind or do you struggle to determine what herbs would be best? If you are in the latter group, head over to Samin Nosrat's Substack, because she just posted… read more

Pasta: the long and short of it

May 30, 2025 by
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Fresh or dried? Bronze cut? Long, tubular, or flat and folded? With eggs or without? There are many questions to answer when choosing the kind of pasta to use in a particular dish. With hundreds of pasta shapes available, it can be difficult to know which type will pair well with your sauce. Epicurious brings us the information we need… read more

Splish-splash: What is the best method for washing your produce?

May 23, 2025 by
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When you buy fresh produce, especially items that are loose in bins, you don't know what (or who) it has been in contact with, so you wash it before using. There are new products on the market that claim to be able to better remove pesticides or contaminants that may be lurking on the surface of your food than just… read more

What type of cardamom to use when?

May 13, 2025 by
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Do you remember the first time you tasted cardamom? Perhaps it occurred when you nibbled on Swedish meatballs or drank masala chai. Cardamom’s enchanting flavor has made a home for itself in cuisines across the globe. Since there are several types available, it can be difficult to know which is most suited for a particular dish. In a recent Kitchen Aide article at… read more

Tips on using mint in cocktails

May 3, 2025 by
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Today was the Kentucky Derby, an event known as much for its hats and its signature cocktail - the mint julep - as for the thoroughbred horses racing around Churchill Downs. Since this event also heralds the return of summer cocktail season, I was reminded of an article we featured several years ago that provided advice from top bartenders on… read more

What’s the right way to trim asparagus?

April 6, 2025 by
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When I was learning to cook, a friend showed me how to snap asparagus spears to remove the tough ends and keep only the tender parts. I dutifully did this tedious prep until I read an article that said it was a waste of time. Instead, it was better to just cut them all across the board because any difference… read more

Lessons from a lifetime of cooking

March 25, 2025 by
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When I was a fresh-faced college graduate 30 years ago, I was far from an accomplished cook. In fact, I was terrible. This was a shortcoming I was determined to overcome, because I really liked eating and did not have the resources to frequently dine out. This was before the ease of finding instruction on YouTube, so I looked to… read more

How to fix a broken emulsion

February 23, 2025 by
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Time may mend a broken heart, but it's not going to fix a broken emulsion. However, there are other ways to bring your sauce back together if it separates, as Chowhound's Nikita Ephanov explains. If it's been a while since you learned what an emulsion is in science class, here is a quick refresher: an emulsion is a mixture of two or… read more

The pursuit of the perfect boiled egg

February 12, 2025 by
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In a quest for perfection, people can fall down some interesting rabbit holes. They will go to lengths that makes the average person scratch their head in puzzlement. This is true of nearly any human endeavor, and perhaps especially so for cooking. There are bakers who weigh the most minute quantities of ingredients in tenths of a gram, espresso connoisseurs… read more
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