Money saving baking tricks

There are so many reasons to love this time of year: crisp, clean weather, vibrant fall leaves, roaring fireplaces and BAKING!  Now is our favorite time here at Peas HQ to reinvent classic holiday desserts by making them healthier and more cost effective. On this week’s Peas Perspective, we’re sharing some simple recipes to make homemade baking essentials. Making vanilla extract, baking powder, brown sugar and vanilla sugar at home will not only save you money but it is a great way to ensure that all your baking products are natural and free of any additives.

Vanilla Extract

(In order to have your vanilla extract ready for holiday baking we recommend you start this project ASAP.)

Ingredients:

• 1 bottle small bottle of vodka (750 ml)
• 15 vanilla beans (cost effective hint: the best place to get inexpensive vanilla beans is at an Indian Grocery store)  

Method:

Cut the vanilla beans length wise and gently open the pod. Fill vodka bottle with all of the beans. Shake and store in a cool, dry place until your holiday baking party.  For best results shake once a week. 

Baking powder

Ingredients:

• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp cream of tarter

Method: Mix cream of tarter and baking soda together thoroughly and use immediately in place of baking powder.

Brown Sugar

Ingredients:

• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tbsp Molasses

Method:

Measure one cup of granulated sugar and one tablespoon of molasses into a mixing bowl.

Vanilla Sugar

Method:

Simply place to vanilla beans (cut length wise and opened) in the container you store your granulated sugar in (sugar bowl, the bag the sugar came in or a sugar canister).  Let beans sit for as long as you have sugar.  This makes for delicious baked goods as well as for your morning cup of joe!

Sugar 9 Ways!

We, at Peas of Mind, like to avoid adding sugar whenever possible, but there are some situations where added sweetness is necessary. For example, let's say your child has a few friends over and you decide to make lemonade. Might you consider using a 'raw' type cane sugar or maybe even agave syrup to stand in for the good ole' white standard?

Refined white sugar is 99.9% pure sucrose, which means it is almost entirely absent of any vitamins or minerals. When considering alternative sweetners, natural food stores offer such an overwhelming selection that its tough to know what to choose. Below is a chart we created to help differentiate among several natural sweetners:


Note the sweetners that are "sweeter" than white sugar (honey and agave). These naturally contain fructose which, molecule for molecule, tastes sweeter than the sucrose in table sugar. That means that you can use a smaller amount of honey or agave to acheive the same sweet taste as sugar!

Sources:
On Food and Cooking - Harold McGee
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agave_nectar