When I was in “home economics” class back in the day, I learned the water displacement method for measuring shortening, or as we commonly called it, “Crisco.” Yuck.
I always wondered about that measurement. We were taught that leveling off the dry ingredients was imperative to the recipe. You couldn’t have that extra flour or smidgen less in there, so you sliced through the measuring cup to make sure it was settled, you leveled it with the flat edge of a knife, and then gently tapped the measuring cup. At least we had pre-sifted flour! Remember the old sifters? That was kind of fun though. Anyway, here you are, carefully measuring dry ingredients, and then you are getting uncalled-for droplets of water on your shortening!
Well, I wasn’t a rebellious chef, so I followed the recipe to the letter-of-the-law, another funny thing, as most hand-written recipes handed down from generations skip a few things. It’s assumed you already know temperatures, time, and half of the ingredients – if you’re reading some of the gems I have.
Oh, all of this came to mind as I awoke at 5:30 and remembered I promised to bring my famous homemade cookies from the church cookbook to my class in a mere four hours. Thank you God and the JM Smucker company for pre-measured Crisco sticks.
The house sure smells nice this morning.
for Flappy Bird – Hi Rene; in my book you are Queen of all Games!!!! To hell with Flappy bird. XOJ