Recipes
Miscellaneous - Equipment
What happens when a baker goes backpacking...
Measuring
I have splashed out on some very cheap measuring cups, which is how Australian recipes work anyway. But the whole cups thing is a proportional volume-based system, so as long as the measures you're using relate properly to one another it shouldn't make any difference. One thing you can't divide into fractions, though, is an egg.
You can also get away with quite a lot by measuring proportionally to the total of the packet you're using. This one is a weight-based system, but it's reasonably easy to get 125g butter by cutting a 250g packet in half, and to guestimate half a 100g packet of ground almonds to get 50g-worth. A useful marker for mental comparison/guestimation is a jar of jam, which is 1lb/450g. It's more art than science, perhaps, but it can work.
Sifting flour
I've tried a few things here and found the best method to be: measure the flour into a plastic bag and smooth thoroughly with the back of a spoon or the palm of your hand.
Rolling pastry
Use a glass bottle (with or without contents!). I used to do it this way anyway. It can make the label a bit greasy, so be careful when borrowing housemates' precious bottles of wine...
Cake testing
In the absence of a skewer or toothpick, I've found that spagehetti works pretty well! The time it snapped off in the cake I managed to extract it from the bottom when taking the cake out of the tin, and nobody suspected a thing.
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