Recipe FAQ’s

These Recipe FAQ’s are common cooking and baking questions I get asked! From oven temperatures to pan sizes, substitutions and more.

Recipe Ingredient Tips

  • What type of butter do you use in your recipes? I always use salted butter. The reason being is that it’s what most people have in their kitchens already. If you want to use unsalted butter, you will have to adjust the amount of salt in the recipe.
  • What type of flour do you use in your baking recipes? I always all-purpose flour, unless stated otherwise.
  • Brown Sugar. When a recipe calls for brown sugar, I’m referring to golden yellow sugar.
  • Salt to taste. I often will say ‘salt to taste’ in a recipe, because saltiness is such a personal thing. Some people like their food salty, and some do not. So I will just sprinkle salt, or start with 1/8 or 1/4 tsp of salt and go from there. It’s best to taste test as you go!
  • What size of eggs to use? For my recipes, I always use large eggs.
  • Can I use active dry yeast instead of instant yeast in your bread machine recipes? No, you have to use instant yeast. Because of the shorter proofing time in a bread machine, you need to use a yeast that is ‘instant’ and ready to go.
  • In your cake recipes, can I substitute the yogurt for sour cream and/or vice versa? Yes, you can use sour cream and yogurt interchangeably. BUT just make sure you are using a thick yogurt, like a Balkan or Greek yogurt.

Cooking and Baking Tips

  • Oven Temperature: I always, always use degrees FARENHEIT.
  • Do I have to preheat my oven for baking? Yes, unless stated otherwise.
  • How can I double or triple a batch? You can adjust servings/scale right in the recipe card 1X, 2X or 3X.
  • Do I have to use parchment paper when baking cookies/loaves? I swear by parchment paper. Cookies and loaves don’t stick to a pan lined with parchment paper. Also, if you grease a cookie sheet, after a couple of batches the oil/grease can affect the flavour of the cookies, so I prefer not to do this.
  • Best cookie sheets to use for cookies. I like to use light cookie sheets like these ones I have in my ‘Shop’ tab. I don’t like to use dark pans because they make cookie bottoms too dark.
  • Can I make _______ recipe gluten-free? Here’s the thing, I am not an expert at gluten-free baking, so my recipes really aren’t meant to be made gluten-free. My advice is to find an expert/website that specializes in gluten-free baking and cooking.
  • What size of loaf pan do you use for your loaves? I use a 1.5 L loaf pan. You can see my favourites in my ‘Shop’ tab here.
  • What size of Bundt pan do you use? I typically use a 10-12 cup size pan for my recipes.
  • Should I freeze cookies before or after baking them? I prefer to freeze cookies after I bake them. But you can do both. When I freeze cookie dough, I freeze it in balls, then bake them from frozen, but I lower the oven temperature about 15 degrees so they don’t bake too fast.
  • Making chewy cookies. The best way to get chewy cookies, is to bake them for the lesser time indicated in a recipe. For example, if a recipe says 8-10 minutes, bake them for 8 minutes for chewy cookies.