177 Fun Facts About Baking

What common leavening agent requires an acid to activate and produce carbon dioxide gas?

Baking soda is plain sodium bicarbonate, an alkali, so it needs a sour partner such as yogurt or lemon juice to fizz; with no acid in the mix it leaves a bitter, soapy taste.

What do bakers call the final rest and rise of shaped bread dough, the yeast's last job before the oven?

Proofing is the yeast's last shift: the shaped loaf rests while fermentation pumps out carbon dioxide, and that final swell is what the oven then sets.

The croissant's crescent shape was inspired by which Austrian pastry?

Kipferl, a crescent roll baked in Austria since at least the 13th century, reached Paris in the late 1830s, when Austrian officer August Zang opened a bakery there and French bakers began copying it.

Which solid baking fat is named for the crumbly texture it gives pastry?

Shortening is named for 'short', an old baker's word for crumbly: the fat coats the flour so long, stretchy strands cannot form. Lard was the original shortening, long before vegetable versions.

Which process between amino acids and sugars gives bread crust its colour and flavour?

The Maillard reaction is why crust tastes better than crumb: heat drives amino acids and sugars into melanoidins, the compounds behind browned food's colour and flavour.

Angel food cake is distinctive for being made without which of these ingredients?

Egg yolks are left out of angel food cake, along with butter, so it is almost fat-free and pure white; all of its lift comes from the beaten whites.

The word 'biscotti' comes from a Medieval Latin term meaning what?

Biscotti means 'twice-cooked': the dough is baked, sliced and baked again, which dries them out so they keep for ages and survive a dunk in Vin Santo.

Which Italian bread, a sandwich-shop staple, has a name that means 'slipper' in Italian?

Ciabatta means 'slipper', after the loaf's long, flat shape; baker Arnaldo Cavallari of Adria, near Venice, launched it under that name in 1982 as an Italian answer to the French baguette.

Canelés, the little rum-scented pastries of Bordeaux, are baked in fluted molds of which metal, prized for conducting heat fast?

Copper molds, traditionally brushed with beeswax, heat fast enough to caramelise a dark, thick crust around the canelé's soft, custardy centre.

In a classic sponge cake, how is the flour added to the whisked eggs and sugar?

The flour is gently folded in because the whisked eggs are a fragile foam, and any rough mixing knocks that lift straight back out.

What does 'blind baking' a pie mean?

Blind baking means cooking the crust before adding the filling, so a cream or pudding pie whose filling is never baked still gets a fully cooked, crisp shell.

Which of these is also known as confectioners' sugar?

Powdered sugar is confectioners' sugar: granulated sugar ground to a fine dust, usually with a little corn starch mixed in so that it does not clump.

Croissant dough, with butter folded into it over and over, is called what?

Laminated dough stacks thin sheets of butter between sheets of dough by repeated rolling and folding; it is chilled between folds, because butter that melts into the dough merges the layers.

Settlers of which nationality brought 'olykoeks', fried balls of sweetened dough, to New York, where they became doughnuts?

Dutch settlers' olykoeks, or 'oily cakes', were solid balls of fried dough; the hole came later, and an American sea captain, Hanson Gregory, always claimed he cut the first one, in 1847.

Which dairy product is a key ingredient in traditional red velvet cake?

Buttermilk helped give early red velvet cakes their colour: mixed with raw cocoa powder, it turned the crumb a natural reddish-brown long before bottled food colouring took over.

Panettone, the tall domed Christmas sweet bread, is associated with which Italian city?

Milan is panettone's home, and a Milanese baker gave it today's look: from 1919 Angelo Motta's bakery turned the older, flatter loaf into the tall dome that became the standard.

Creaming butter and sugar until pale and fluffy is done primarily to incorporate what into the batter?

Air is the point: creaming traps tiny bubbles in the butter, they expand in the oven's heat, and the gas from any leavener swells those same pockets, so the cake rises.

The name 'baked Alaska' is traditionally credited to which historic New York City restaurant?

Delmonico's gets the credit, as a salute to the 1867 Alaska Purchase, but no account from the time survives, and its chef Charles Ranhofer's own 1894 cookbook calls the dish 'Alaska, Florida'.

Which elastic protein network forms when wheat flour meets water, letting bread dough stretch, trap gas and turn chewy?

Gluten is not sitting in the flour bag as such; it forms only when water lets two wheat proteins, glutenin and gliadin, link into a stretchy net that traps the yeast's gas.

Which braided, egg-enriched bread is traditionally eaten on the Jewish Sabbath?

Challah is the braided, egg-enriched loaf blessed at Sabbath and festival meals; two loaves are set on the table in memory of the double portion of manna gathered before the Sabbath.

What pastry is made by boiling water, butter and flour, then beating in eggs, so it bakes into empty, puffed shells?

Choux pastry swells in the oven with no raising agent; its name is usually traced to chou, French for cabbage, after the buns' round shape, though it is also said to be a corruption of pâte à chaud, 'hot dough'.

What is the term for a stable mix of oil and water, like the one egg lecithin holds together in a batter?

An emulsion is what an egg makes each time it lets oil and water hold together: its lecithin coats the droplets so the two never separate. Mayonnaise works the same way.

Which acid, the same one that sours yogurt, do starter bacteria make to give sourdough its tang?

Lactic acid is made by the bacteria that share a sourdough starter with wild yeast; besides the tang, it helps the loaf keep longer than ordinary bread.

The dark, glossy skin of a traditional German pretzel comes from dipping the dough in what before baking?

Lye, a strong alkali, is the traditional dip: it makes the surface brown far faster in the oven, and it gives the German 'Laugenbrezel', literally lye pretzel, its name.

What technique heats and cools chocolate to stabilise its crystals for a shiny finish and crisp snap?

Tempering is crystal management: heating and cooling chocolate on a set curve wipes out the unstable cocoa-butter forms and leaves only Form V, which gives the gloss and snap.

What are meringues primarily made from?

Meringue is whipped egg whites and sugar: whisking unfolds the egg-white proteins into a foam that holds stiff peaks, and the sugar stabilises and sweetens it.

Which cookware company trademarked 'Bundt' and popularised the fluted ring pan in the 1950s and 1960s?

Nordic Ware's Bundt pan sold slowly for years, until a 'Tunnel of Fudge' cake baked in one became the hit of the 1966 Pillsbury Bake-Off and set off a national rush for the pan.

Which French mixture of chocolate and warm cream is used as a glaze, a filling and a truffle centre?

Ganache is just chocolate and cream, and the ratio does all the work: more cream gives a pourable glaze, more chocolate a firm truffle centre.

Which Breton pastry folds butter and sugar into bread dough until it caramelises?

Kouign-amann is Breton for 'butter cake': the Douarnenez recipe layers bread dough with equal weights of butter and sugar, which melt and caramelise into a crisp, glossy crust.

The ruffled rim around the base of a well-baked Parisian macaron is known as its what?

The ruffled rim is the macaron's 'foot' (pied in French), sometimes called its crown; bakers pipe the batter into rounds and leave them to form a skin before they go into the oven.

A stirred custard thickens, and a baked custard sets into a gel, because of which process?

Coagulation of egg protein sets a custard: heat unfolds the egg proteins and they bond into a network that traps liquid; too much heat tightens it until the custard curdles and weeps, a fault called syneresis.

Which sugar, made by splitting sucrose into glucose and fructose, keeps confections from crystallising?

Invert sugar is named for a lab test: a sucrose solution twists polarised light to the right, but once it is split into glucose and fructose the syrup twists it the other way.

What is a banneton, a piece of kit that many sourdough bakers swear by?

A banneton is a bread-rising basket for doughs too soft or wet to hold their shape; unlike a loaf tin it never goes in the oven, because the risen loaf is tipped out before baking.

Which pan with removable, unclipping sides is ideal for cheesecakes that cannot be inverted?

A springform pan's side is a ring held shut by a spring latch: unclip it and the ring lifts clear of the cake. The seam is not reliably watertight, a known hazard for cheesecakes baked in a water bath.

The génoise sponge is named after which city?

Génoise is named after Genoa, the Italian port city; the sponge gets all its volume from whisking warm whole eggs with sugar, with no chemical leavening at all.

Which type of oven uses fans to circulate hot air for faster, more even baking?

A convection oven's fan drives hot air around the food so it cooks faster and more evenly; recipes are usually set a little cooler for the fan setting so the outside does not overcook.

Which everyday ingredient do bread bakers add to slow the yeast and tighten the dough?

Salt holds the yeast back, so bakers use it to control how fast a dough ferments; it also seasons the loaf, which tastes flat and bland without it.

Which one-tin leavener pairs bicarbonate with a dry acid, so a splash of liquid alone sets off its rise?

Baking powder packs sodium bicarbonate and a dry acid into one tin, so liquid alone starts the fizz; double-acting versions hold some gas back until the batter heats up in the oven.

What do cooks call a bowl set over a pan of simmering water to heat ingredients gently?

A double boiler keeps its contents from ever passing about 100 °C, the boiling point of the water beneath, which is why it is the classic way to melt chocolate or thicken a custard without scorching.

What is the primary reason for sifting dry ingredients like flour and cocoa powder?

To aerate and remove lumps: sifting breaks up clumps in flour and cocoa and loosens the powder, so the dry ingredients combine evenly when they meet the batter.

Which chocolate bake is said to have been created at Chicago's Palmer House hotel for the 1893 World's Fair?

The brownie, legend says, was Bertha Palmer's idea: she asked the hotel's pastry chef for a dessert smaller than a slice of cake that ladies could eat from boxed lunches at the fair.

Baker's yeast, the living ingredient that makes bread rise, belongs to which kingdom of life?

Fungi include baker's yeast, a single-celled relative of mushrooms; its Latin name, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, means 'sugar fungus of beer', because the same species ferments ale.

Which light, airy cake swaps butter for vegetable oil and gets its lift from whipped egg whites?

Chiffon cake is credited to Harry Baker, a Los Angeles insurance salesman who guarded his oil-based recipe for some 20 years before selling it to General Mills in the 1940s.

Which icing of egg whites and sugar is the usual 'glue' for holding gingerbread houses together?

Royal icing is basically edible cement: whisked egg whites and sugar that dry rock hard, which is why it holds a gingerbread house up and takes fine piping.

In the oven, what actually forces apart the hundreds of buttery layers in puff pastry?

Steam does it: the water in the butter turns to vapour as the fat melts, and that pressure shoves the thin layers apart, so the pastry rises with no leavener in the dough.

Which puff-pastry case, filled with creamy chicken or mushrooms, has a French name meaning 'flight in the wind'?

A vol-au-vent, 'flight in the wind', was named for its lightness: a ring of puff pastry is stacked on a disc, so the centre bakes into a well ready for a filling.

Which white powder, a by-product of winemaking, do bakers add to egg whites to stabilise the foam?

Cream of tartar forms as crystals inside wine casks while grape juice ferments; they are collected and refined, and a pinch helps beaten egg whites hold their foam.

What should a fully baked loaf of bread sound like when a baker taps it on the base?

Hollow is what bakers listen for: recipes still say to tap the loaf underneath once the crust is golden brown, often with a thermometer reading of the centre as the surer back-up.

Which common cake flavouring is extracted from the cured pods of an orchid?

Vanilla comes from the cured seed pods of a climbing orchid native to Mexico; away from its native range every flower must be pollinated by hand, which is why real vanilla is so expensive.

The earliest known cupcake recipe, 'a light cake to bake in small cups', appeared in 1796 in which cookbook?

American Cookery, by Amelia Simmons, baked its light cake in small cups because muffin tins were not yet common; the word 'cupcake' reached print only in 1828, and could also mean a cake measured out by the cupful.

Which snack did a British tax tribunal rule in 1991 to be a cake, not a biscuit?

Jaffa Cakes were judged cakes partly because a stale one goes hard, as a cake does, while a stale biscuit goes soft; it mattered because chocolate-covered biscuits carry VAT and cakes do not.

Which British two-layer cake, filled with jam and cream, is named after a monarch?

Victoria sponge, named after Queen Victoria, is not a true sponge at all: the butter and sugar are creamed first, as for a pound cake, instead of relying on whisked eggs for lift.

Pineapple upside-down cake grew popular after a 1925 recipe contest run by a Hawaiian canner later known by which name?

Dole, then the Hawaiian Pineapple Company, asked for pineapple recipes in 1925 and got some 2,500 for upside-down cake alone, so the cake was clearly no novelty; what the contest gave it was wide publicity.

Which cupcake is decorated to look as if it has a pair of wings?

A butterfly cake has its top sliced off and cut in half; the two halves are then pushed back into frosting or jam at an angle, so they stand up like wings.

Cambridge chemistry lecturer Ida Freund famously iced a set of cupcakes to teach her students what?

The periodic table she laid out gave every element its own iced cake; Freund was also prominent in the fight to get women into the Chemical Society, which admitted them only in 1920, six years after her death.

Which American snack brand's chocolate cupcake, first sold in 1919, carries a white icing squiggle of seven loops?

Hostess sold the cupcake plain for some thirty years: the creme filling and the white squiggle arrived only in 1950, and the man who added them said seven loops simply fit and looked right.

Which cupcake chain, founded in Beverly Hills in 2005, later sold cupcakes from round-the-clock ATMs?

Sprinkles billed itself as the first cupcake-only bakery; founder Candace Nelson, a former investment banker, said the ATM, launched in 2012, grew out of a late-night pregnancy craving she could not satisfy.

Which Bleecker Street bakery became a cupcake pilgrimage site after appearing in Sex and the City?

Magnolia Bakery opened in the West Village in 1996 and began making cupcakes only to use up leftover cake batter; cameos in Sex and the City and the 2005 SNL short 'Lazy Sunday' then made them famous.

Cupcake Wars, the baking contest hosted by Justin Willman, premiered in 2009 on which US channel?

Food Network launched Cupcake Wars in December 2009: four bakers were cut down round by round until the last two raced to make 1,000 cupcakes in two hours for a $10,000 prize.

Which Italian Christmas bread from Verona is baked as a tall, sugar-dusted star?

Pandoro, 'golden bread', is Verona's Christmas loaf, patented by baker Domenico Melegatti in 1894; its dusting of icing sugar is said to evoke snowy Alpine peaks, and unlike panettone it holds no dried fruit.

Sachertorte combines chocolate sponge and a chocolate glaze with which jam?

Apricot jam lies beneath the Sachertorte's dark chocolate glaze; Franz Sacher is credited with the cake, and the Hotel Sacher and the Demel pastry shop later fought for years in court over who could call theirs 'the Original'.

Which spirit traditionally soaks the sponge layers of a Black Forest gateau?

Kirsch, a clear cherry spirit, soaks the sponge of the cake Germans call Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte; where that name comes from is disputed, and one theory credits the Black Forest's own kirsch rather than its woods.

A Battenberg cake shows which two colours in its chequered cross-section?

Battenberg cake alternates pink and yellow sponge squares wrapped in marzipan; the pattern is so recognisable that the high-visibility checks on UK emergency vehicles are called Battenburg markings.

Bakewell tart is filled with raspberry jam and which almond filling?

Frangipane, an almond cream, is baked over the jam in a Bakewell tart; the tart is a later offshoot of the Bakewell pudding, which legend says a Derbyshire inn's cook first made by mistake.

Which county's pasty won protected status in 2011, so only pasties made there may carry its name?

Cornwall's pasty must be made in the county, crimped to one side and filled only with beef, potato, swede and onion, so adding carrot is enough to disqualify it.

An Elizabethan decree in London limited sales of spiced buns to burials, Christmas and which other day?

Good Friday was the third exception in the London decree; a baker caught selling spiced buns at any other time had to forfeit the whole batch to the poor.

The lamington is believed to be named after a governor of which Australian state?

Queensland's governor Lord Lamington employed a French chef, Armand Galland; a popular story has him feeding unexpected guests by dipping day-old cake in chocolate and coconut.

The pavlova is named after a Russian performer in which art form?

Anna Pavlova was a ballet star who toured Australia and New Zealand in 1926; both countries claim to have invented the meringue dessert named in her honour.

Which sweetener is a defining ingredient of Anzac biscuits alongside rolled oats?

Golden syrup sweetens the traditionally eggless Anzac biscuit; the 'Anzac wafer' that soldiers actually ate was rock-hard army hard tack, a different thing altogether.

Which upside-down apple dessert is named after the sisters who served it at their French hotel?

Tarte Tatin is named for Stéphanie and Caroline Tatin of the Hôtel Tatin in Lamotte-Beuvron; the tale of a kitchen accident on a busy day is a legend, and upside-down apple tarts were being made before theirs.

What does the name croquembouche mean?

Croquembouche means 'crunches in the mouth', from croque en bouche; the caramel-bound cone of profiteroles is often credited to the chef Carême, yet a French cookbook had already named it in 1806.

Which cream-filled French pastry has a name that literally means 'flash of lightning'?

Éclair is French for a flash of lightning; nobody is sure why, but the favourite story is that it is eaten in a flash, and Chambers Dictionary defined it as 'a cake, long in shape but short in duration'.

Which shell-shaped French cake stirs childhood memories for Proust's narrator?

The madeleine, a little cake from Lorraine, is dipped in tea by Proust's narrator; the scene grew so famous that 'madeleine' itself became a word for anything that evokes a memory.

Which ingredient flavours the financier, a French almond cake shaped like a gold bar?

Brown butter, or beurre noisette, flavours the financier; a baker named Lasne, whose shop stood near the Paris stock exchange, is credited with moulding it like a gold bar for the financiers he served.

Opera cake's soaking syrup and buttercream share which flavour?

Coffee flavours both the syrup and the buttercream of an opera cake; the Paris house Dalloyau says its pastry chef Cyriaque Gavillon created it in 1955 and that his wife named it after the Opéra Garnier.

The wheel-shaped Paris–Brest pastry was created to commemorate what?

A bicycle race, the 1,200 km Paris–Brest–Paris, gave the pastry its name and its wheel shape; it is usually credited to Louis Durand, whose shop at Maisons-Laffitte stood on the riders' route.

The St. Honoré cake, named for the patron saint of bakers, is crowned with a ring of what?

Cream puffs dipped in caramel ring the St. Honoré cake, created in the 1840s at the Chiboust pastry shop on Paris's Rue Saint-Honoré; the chiboust cream piped into its centre is named after the shop.

In North America, the mille-feuille is usually sold under which name?

Napoleon is the usual North American name for a mille-feuille, yet the emperor has little to do with it: the word is an alteration of French napolitain, 'of Naples', that drifted toward his name.

The Turkish version of baklava was probably developed in the kitchens of which palace?

Topkapı Palace's imperial kitchens are where baklava is thought to have taken its Turkish form; each Ramadan the sultan sent trays of it to his Janissary troops in a procession known as the Baklava Alayı.

Stollen, the German Christmas fruit bread, is most closely tied to which city, which holds a festival in its honour?

Dresden parades a giant stollen weighing more than a tonne through its old town each Advent, then cuts it with an outsized knife and sells the pieces to the crowd.

Lebkuchen are German Christmas cakes sweetened with what?

Honey gives Lebkuchen their other name, Honigkuchen or 'honey cakes'; bakers traditionally mix the flour-and-honey dough weeks ahead and leave it to rest in the cool, which slowly ferments it and deepens the flavour.

Most accounts say pretzels were invented by whom?

European monks get the credit in the best-known story: a 7th-century Italian monk folded strips of dough to look like arms crossed in prayer and gave them as 'pretiola', little rewards, to pupils who learned their prayers.

The oldest strudel recipes, from 1696, are held in a library in which city?

Vienna's city library holds the handwritten cookbook of 1696 with the oldest strudel recipes; the dough is stretched by hand until, purists say, a newspaper can be read through it.

Which nut, as an alternative to almonds, is ground into the crumbly pastry of many Linzertorte recipes?

Hazelnuts or almonds are ground into Linzertorte's crumbly pastry; the oldest known recipe dated from 1696 until 2005, when a researcher found one from 1653 in an Austrian abbey's archive.

Dobos torte was introduced at an 1885 exhibition in which city?

Budapest's national exhibition of 1885 saw József Dobos unveil a torte designed to outlast its rivals when cooling was scarce: the hard caramel lid stops the layers from drying out.

Bagels were first mentioned in 1610 in the community ordinances of which Polish city?

Kraków's Jewish community regulations of 1610 contain the first written mention of bagels, reportedly as a gift for women in childbirth; the dough ring is boiled briefly before baking.

Focaccia takes its name from the Latin 'focus', meaning what?

Hearth is what Latin focus meant: Roman panis focacius was 'hearth bread', flattened on a stone and cooked under the hot ashes of the fire, and Spanish hogaza comes from the same word.

Pastéis de Belém, the original custard tarts, are named after a district of which city?

Lisbon's Belém district is home to the Jerónimos Monastery, where the tarts began; when Portugal's monasteries were shut in 1834 the recipe passed to a nearby sugar refinery, whose bakery has sold them since 1837.

The French word 'baguette' literally means what?

Wand or stick is the literal sense: the French also say baguette magique for a magic wand and baguettes chinoises for chopsticks, so the loaf is simply named for its shape.

Which organisation recognised the baguette's 'artisanal know-how and culture' in 2022?

UNESCO inscribed the baguette's craft in 2022, noting that the loaf is made from just four basic ingredients yet comes out different at every bakery that shapes it.

What do bakers call the slashes cut into a loaf just before baking?

Scoring, cutting shallow slashes into the loaf with a blade or lame just before baking, controls where the crust splits as the dough springs in the oven and gives each loaf its signature pattern.

Pumpernickel is a dense bread traditionally made from which grain?

Rye, coarsely ground, is the grain of a traditional pumpernickel; the loaves bake at low heat for many hours, which is what turns them so dark and faintly sweet.

Which flaky, currant-filled pastry is named after a town in Greater Manchester?

The Eccles cake is named after the town where James Birch began selling the currant pastries in 1793; the name has never won legal protection, so an Eccles cake can be baked anywhere.

Naan is traditionally baked by pressing the dough against the scorching inner wall of what?

A tandoor's inner walls can reach about 480 °C (900 °F), so naan pressed against them browns in spots and bakes through in only a few minutes.

Injera, the spongy Ethiopian flatbread, is traditionally made from which grain flour?

Teff, a tiny Ethiopian grain, is fermented into the sour batter for injera; the flatbread then works as both plate and utensil, with stews spooned on top and torn pieces used to pick them up.

The earliest known pound cake recipe was printed in 1747 in a cookbook from which country?

England's Hannah Glasse printed it in The Art of Cookery; the name comes from using a pound each of flour, butter, sugar and eggs, which is why the French call the cake quatre-quarts, 'four quarters'.

The chocolate-glazed cream pie named for a US state capital is credited to a chef at which hotel?

Parker House, the hotel that also gave its name to a soft dinner roll, is credited with the cake in the 1850s; it is called a pie because cakes and pies were then baked in the same pans.

Key lime pie's tart filling is traditionally made with lime juice, yolks and which dairy ingredient?

Condensed milk became the pie's base probably because fresh milk and refrigeration were rare in the Florida Keys until the 1930s; the lime juice's acid thickens the filling before it is ever baked.

Karo's makers popularised pecan pie as a new use for which syrup?

Corn syrup is what Karo sells: its makers say a sales executive's wife discovered the pie as a new use for it, although Harper's Bazaar had already printed a pecan pie recipe back in 1886.

Libby's canned pumpkin comes from a variety botanically closest to which squash?

Butternut squash shares its species, Cucurbita moschata, with the Dickinson pumpkin that Libby's cans; the tan, oblong fruit looks nothing like a jack-o'-lantern.

Which US state named the whoopie pie its official state treat in 2011?

Maine settled for 'state treat' after a bill to make the whoopie pie its state dessert was amended to give that title to wild-blueberry pie; Pennsylvania also claims to be the cake's true home.

Ruth Wakefield, credited with the chocolate chip cookie, ran the Toll House inn in which state?

Massachusetts is home to Whitman, where Ruth Wakefield ran the Toll House; in 1939 she gave Nestlé the right to print her recipe for one dollar, which she said she never received, though she reportedly got free chocolate for life.

Oreo cookies were an imitation of which 1908 chocolate sandwich cookie?

Hydrox, launched by Sunshine Biscuits in 1908, predates the Oreo by four years; Nabisco's 1912 imitation so outsold it that many assume Hydrox was the copy.

When wartime rationing hit cookie baking in the 1940s, Girl Scouts raised money by selling what?

Calendars filled the gap from 1944 while butter and flour were rationed; the cookie tradition itself began in 1917, when a troop in Muskogee, Oklahoma, sold home-baked cookies in its high-school cafeteria.

The graham cracker was inspired by the preaching of Sylvester Graham, part of which movement?

Sylvester Graham, a Presbyterian minister in the temperance movement, preached a bland vegetarian diet built on coarse wholemeal flour; the cracker named for him later became the crushed crust of cheesecakes and pies.

Snickerdoodles are cookies rolled in what before baking?

Cinnamon sugar coats each ball of snickerdoodle dough before it goes into the oven; an acidic leavener in the dough gives the cracked-topped cookie a taste and texture unlike a plain sugar cookie's.

Both 'macaron' and 'macaroon' derive from which Italian word?

Maccheroni, in its dialect form maccarone, once meant a pasty food of any kind, which is how one Italian word gave French its almond macaron and English both macaroon and macaroni.

Which Bavarian city's name may legally appear only on Lebkuchen baked within the city itself?

Nuremberg sat at the crossing of medieval trade routes, which brought in the spices its bakers needed; the name of its Lebkuchen has been protected under European law since 1996.

Which British Easter cake carries eleven balls for the apostles minus Judas?

Simnel cake was first baked for Mothering Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Lent, when servants were given the day off to go home to their mothers; only later did it become an Easter cake.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, which savoury dish was served at weddings in place of today's cake?

Bride's pie was savoury: Robert May's 1685 recipe fills it with oysters, sweetbreads and cocks' combs, and suggests hiding live birds or a snake in one compartment to amuse the guests when it is cut.

The Great British Bake Off left the BBC after its 2016 series for which rival channel?

Channel 4 won the show with a three-year deal after the BBC's offer of about £15m a year fell short of the £25m its makers, Love Productions, wanted.

In the US, The Great British Bake Off swaps 'Bake Off' for which two words?

Baking Show replaces 'Bake Off' in the American title because Pillsbury, which has run its own Bake-Off contest since 1949, owns the 'Bake-Off' trademark in the United States.

Mary Berry went to France as a young woman to study at which culinary school?

Le Cordon Bleu trained Mary Berry; her first job, with the electricity board in Bath, was visiting new customers at home and showing them how their electric ovens worked by baking a sponge cake.

Bake Off's Paul Hollywood trained in which art before joining his father's bakery?

Sculpture was Paul Hollywood's subject at art school in Wallasey until his father persuaded him into the family bakery business; he went on to be head baker at hotels including the Dorchester.

Cake Boss follows Carlo's Bake Shop in which city in New Jersey?

Hoboken's Carlo's Bake Shop was founded in 1910 and bought by Buddy Valastro's father in 1964; once the show began, queues wrapped around the block and the family bakery became a tourist attraction.

Eben Horsford, whose 1856 patent gave American bakers a reliable chemical raising agent, taught at which university?

Harvard's Rumford Professor replaced a costly imported ingredient of early formulas with a phosphate he extracted from bones, then named his Rumford brand after the chair he held.

Alfred Bird, a 19th-century chemist from Birmingham, is best known for inventing what?

Egg-free custard was Alfred Bird's answer to his wife's allergy to eggs; she could not eat yeast either, so the Birmingham chemist went on to devise a way of raising bread without it.

Bristol baker Henry Jones, self-raising flour's inventor, lobbied for years to get fresh bread to whom?

Sailors lived on bone-hard ship's biscuit, so Jones kept urging the Admiralty to bake fresh bread at sea with his flour; it resisted for years, even though the Queen had made him her flour supplier.

Which Cincinnati brand of 1868 sold America's first commercial yeast?

Fleischmann's was the work of two immigrant brothers who wanted bread that rose as it did back home; their model bakery at the 1876 Centennial Exposition made the yeast a household name.

The Pillsbury Doughboy, who debuted in 1965, is officially named what?

Poppin' Fresh was dreamed up by ad copywriter Rudy Perz in his own kitchen, as a mascot who would pop out of a can of dough; the first stop-motion puppet cost $16,000 to build.

Which American flour company, the country's oldest, was founded in Boston in 1790?

King Arthur began as Henry Wood's flour-importing business on Boston's Long Wharf; it took its Arthurian name from a flour launched in 1896 and left the city for Vermont only after nearly two centuries.

Which fictional kitchen expert was invented in 1921 to sign replies to baking questions?

Betty Crocker was created by the Washburn Crosby flour company, later General Mills: 'Betty' was picked as a friendly-sounding name and 'Crocker' honoured a popular company director, William Crocker.

Which baking brand is named after a real travelling salesman who wrote restaurant guides?

Duncan Hines, born in Bowling Green, Kentucky, noted the best places he ate while on the road and self-published them as Adventures in Good Eating, years before his name went on a cake mix.

The original 1963 Easy-Bake Oven used what as its heat source?

Two ordinary light bulbs, 100 watts each, did the baking because Kenner judged them safer for children than a heating element; the bulb finally went in 2011, when a redesign switched to a real element.

Which stand-mixer brand began as a home version of Hobart's commercial mixers?

KitchenAid is said to owe its name to an executive's wife who tested a prototype at home and declared it the best kitchen aid she had ever had.

Which ancient alchemist is said to give her name to the French term for a water bath?

Mary the Jewess is the usual explanation for bain-marie, 'Mary's bath': the alchemist Zosimos credited her with the device around 300 AD, although water baths were known centuries before her.

Galette des rois, the French cake that hides a small charm called a fève, is eaten to mark which feast?

Epiphany brings out the cake: whoever finds the fève in their slice is crowned king or queen, and by custom the youngest guest sits under the table calling out who gets each piece.

The Great Fire of London began in 1666 in Thomas Farriner's bakery on which street?

Pudding Lane is now marked by the Monument, a 61-metre column raised nearby to designs by Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke. The fire burned for four days.

Which bakery convenience did US officials briefly ban in 1943 as a wartime conservation measure?

Sliced bread was banned on 18 January 1943 because sliced loaves needed heavier wrapping. The order was rescinded on 8 March, with public outcry generally credited.

Which crisp unleavened flatbread, made from only flour and water, is eaten by Jews during Passover?

Matzo recalls the biblical story in which the Israelites fled Egypt in such haste that they could not wait for their dough to rise.

Which Brothers Grimm tale do some researchers credit with inspiring the first gingerbread houses?

Hansel and Gretel, published in 1812, sends two lost children to a house they can eat. Other food historians think the Grimms described treats that already existed.

Twinkies were first filled with which flavour, until wartime fruit rationing forced a change?

Banana cream was baker James Dewar's way to use shortcake machines that sat idle whenever strawberries were out of season. Rationing during the Second World War ended it.

The cake remark long attributed to Marie Antoinette actually names which rich French bread?

Brioche, enriched with butter and eggs, counted as a luxury. The line comes from Rousseau's Confessions, which credits it only to an unnamed great princess.

The first recorded apple pie recipe, in the 14th-century Forme of Cury, comes from which country?

England had apple pie in the 1300s, long before America adopted it. The Forme of Cury filled a pastry case called a cofyn with apples, figs, raisins and pears.

Which glass bakeware brand did Corning launch after a scientist's wife cooked in a battery jar?

Pyrex began with glass made for railroad lanterns. Bessie Littleton tried a sawn-off jar of it after her ceramic casserole dish shattered in the oven.

Which fruit tops the upside-down cake that boomed after a canned-fruit company's 1920s recipe contest?

Pineapple won out when Dole asked for recipes: more than 2,500 entries were for the inverted cake, and the company ran an advertisement about it.

Which country's traditional shortbread is cut into triangular wedges nicknamed petticoat tails?

Scotland claims shortbread, and the wedge shape is tied to Mary, Queen of Scots, who is popularly credited with refining the recipe in the 16th century.

German chocolate cake, named after chocolate maker Samuel German, first appeared in which US state?

Texas is where the recipe surfaced, in Dallas-area newspapers in the 1950s. It called for a sweet baking chocolate that Samuel German had devised for Baker's about a century earlier.

Chicago baker Charles Lubin named the Sara Lee brand, launched with a cream cheesecake, after whom?

His daughter Sara Lee Lubin was eight years old when the cheesecake took her name, and Lubin then renamed the whole business Kitchens of Sara Lee.

The baker's dozen is often traced to medieval bakers who feared harsh penalties for selling what?

Underweight bread could bring a fine, a flogging or a wrecked oven under the Assize of Bread and Ale, so adding one extra kept a batch safely over the minimum.

Which noble title comes from an Anglo-Saxon word usually taken to mean 'bread-kneader'?

Lady began as hlaefdige, built on hlaf, a loaf. Lord has a matching origin in hlafweard, the loaf-ward or bread-keeper who fed his followers.

Which long-handled, shovel-like tool do bakers use to slide loaves and pizzas into a hot oven?

Peel probably comes from the French pelle, a word that also means shovel. Bakers dust it with flour or cornmeal so the loaves slide off cleanly.

Stollen, the Christmas fruit bread, is most closely tied to which German city?

Dresden stollen carries a special seal showing King Augustus II the Strong, and the city holds a Stollenfest every year.

Veterans of which 1890s gold rush were nicknamed 'sourdoughs' after the bread starter they used?

Klondike old hands earned the name because ordinary yeast was far less reliable in the conditions prospectors faced. Robert Service titled a verse collection Songs of a Sourdough.

Which Great British Bake Off winner was asked to bake Queen Elizabeth II's 90th birthday cake?

Nadiya Hussain, the 2015 champion, made the Queen an orange drizzle cake with orange curd and orange buttercream.

Ace of Cakes followed Duff Goldman's custom cake shop in which American city?

Baltimore is where the shop's staff built everything from the official NFL cake for Super Bowl XLI to a cake marking the 100th episode of Lost.

Wonder Bread's name was inspired by a race of what at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway?

Balloons filled the sky at the International Balloon Race, leaving executive Elmer Cline full of wonder. The colourful spots on the loaf's logo recall them.

Brown sugar gets its colour, softness and deeper flavour from which added ingredient?

Molasses is usually just blended back into refined white sugar: about 3.5 percent of it for light brown and 6.5 percent for dark.

What do bakers brush over pastry before baking to give it a shiny, golden-brown finish?

Egg wash is simply beaten egg, sometimes thinned with another liquid. It doubles as glue, helping toppings stick and binding pastry parts together.

Which natural gelling agent, abundant in apples and citrus rind, sets jams and dessert fillings?

Pectin is a structural part of plant cell walls. Citrus rind is about 30 percent pectin, while soft fruits such as strawberries and cherries contain far less.

Cream of tartar, the white acidic powder in many kitchens, is a by-product of making which drink?

Wine leaves the crystals behind in the cask, and the same harmless deposit can form on the underside of a cork.

Which spice colours Sweden's St Lucia buns and Cornwall's tea-treat buns yellow?

Saffron is the world's most expensive spice by weight, so many commercial bakers add food dyes to boost the natural yellow.

Which old leavener, originally made from ground deer horn, raises crisp Scandinavian cookies?

Baker's ammonia, once called hartshorn, breaks down in the oven into carbon dioxide, water and ammonia gas, which is why it suits only thin, dry bakes.

Which gum, made by microbes rather than plants, gives wheat-free doughs the stickiness they lack?

Xanthan gum takes its name from Xanthomonas campestris, the bacterium that makes it. It is also a common thickener in salad dressings and sauces.

Which canned dairy ingredient lets Key lime pie filling thicken once acidic lime juice goes in?

Condensed milk curdles on contact with the acid, so the filling sets without cooking. Pies are usually baked anyway, which firms them further.

Which traditional fat is prized for making pie crusts flakier than those made with butter?

Lard at its best is leaf lard, which has little pork flavour. British cooks also work it into mince pies and lardy cake.

Malt, used to flavour bagels and malt loaf, is most commonly made by sprouting which grain?

Barley is favoured partly for its high enzyme content. As the grain sprouts, those enzymes turn starch into simpler sugars that yeast can easily eat.

Which process turns heated sugar brown on its own, with no amino acids taking part?

Caramelization is sugar breaking down under heat alone, giving the brown colour and butter-like flavour of a crème brûlée crust.

Contrary to popular belief, bread goes stale fastest when it is stored where?

In the fridge, bread stales fastest, because the process peaks at temperatures just above freezing. The cold does slow mould, and freezing a fresh loaf works well.

What do bakers call the last rapid rise of a loaf during its first minutes of baking?

Oven spring is the expansion a loaf makes when it first meets the heat. Dough left to rise for too long or too little shows less of it and bakes up denser.

Besides carbon dioxide, what does yeast produce as bread dough rises, most of it lost in the oven?

Alcohol, in the form of ethanol, is the other waste product of yeast eating sugars. Baking drives most of it off, leaving less than 2 percent ethanol in the finished loaf.

Sugar is hygroscopic, a property that helps keep cakes moist; what does a hygroscopic substance do?

A substance that attracts water from its surroundings is hygroscopic. One added to food specifically to hold moisture in is called a humectant.

What is the process called when starch granules absorb water and swell as they are heated?

Gelatinization cannot be undone: the granules break down and the starch dissolves for good. Some starches begin swelling at 55 °C, others not until 85 °C.

Which enzyme, often added to flour, breaks starch into simple sugars that yeast can feed on?

Amylase occurs naturally in yeast cells too, but they make it slowly, so extra is added to speed things up. It is often listed on a bag of flour.

What did French bread scientist Raymond Calvel name the rest he gave just-mixed flour and water?

Autolyse is a hydration rest early in mixing that relaxes the dough, making it more extensible and easier to shape. Calvel is also credited with reviving French-style breadmaking.

The dull whitish coating that appears on poorly stored chocolate is known by which name?

Bloom comes in two kinds: fat bloom, from shifting cocoa butter crystals, and sugar bloom, caused by moisture. Bloomed chocolate is still safe to eat.

Baker's yeast, the living leavener that makes bread rise, belongs to which kingdom of life?

Fungi include the yeasts, which grow as single cells and multiply by budding, unlike the thread-like moulds.

Which button on a kitchen scale resets the display to zero with an empty bowl on the platform?

Tare is the weight of the empty container. Zeroing it out means the display shows only what is added, so a baker can weigh straight into the bowl.

A liquid measure is read at the bottom of the curve its surface forms; what is that curve called?

Meniscus readings should be taken with the eye in line with the liquid, which removes parallax error. Glassware makers calibrate their marks to allow for the curve.

In baker's percentages, the notation bakers use for bread formulas, which ingredient always counts as 100 percent?

Flour is the yardstick: every other ingredient is weighed against it, so the figures always total more than 100. Water at 60 percent means 600 g per kilo of flour.

In the United States, butter is usually sold in wrapped sticks that each weigh how much?

Four ounces, a quarter of a pound, is the standard American stick, and four of them fill the usual one-pound package.

In American bakeware sizing, what name is given to a rimmed baking tray measuring 18 by 13 inches?

Half sheet pans are half of the 26-by-18-inch full-size sheet pan, which is too big for most home ovens.

American recipes that simply call for an egg usually assume which US size grade?

Large is the most common size sold in the United States. Official sizes are set by weight per dozen rather than by the single egg.

On a British oven dial, gas mark 4 corresponds to roughly which Fahrenheit temperature?

350 °F, or about 180 °C, is the setting the scale labels moderate. Gas marks appear on cookers in the UK, Ireland and some Commonwealth countries.

In a recipe, what does a 'scant' cup or teaspoon of an ingredient mean?

Just short of full is the idea: scant marks a measure slightly diminished from the amount named. A heaped spoonful, by contrast, carries a mound above the rim.

Unless a recipe says heaped or rounded, how should a spoonful or cup of flour be measured?

Scraped level is the default: fill the spoon, then scrape it flat. A heaped spoonful varies too much with the spoon and the ingredient to count as a precise measure.

One US customary cup, equal to half a US pint, holds how many fluid ounces?

8 fluid ounces make a US cup, about 237 ml. The metric cup used in some other countries is a slightly bigger 250 ml.