Home › The Principles of Cookery › Bake, To

Bake, To

Baking is a most convenient, economical, and satisfactory mode of cooking certain dishes to which it is suited, otherwise it is most unsatisfactory and unprofitable. For pastry, cakes, and various puddings an oven is indispensable, and many meat dishes are as well cooked in it as before the fire. Amongst these may be mentioned the following: a hare, a leg of pork, a breast or fillet of veal, a goose, a duck, a sucking-pig, a shoulder of mutton and potatoes, and many kinds of fish. Gravies, too, soups, beef-tea, and stock for calf's foot jelly may be advantageously cooked in a slow oven, if put into a jar with a closely-fitting lid, and allowed to remain long enough. There is, however, no doubt that ordinary joints of meat, if baked in an oven which is not well ventilated, and which is not so constructed that the fumes are carried away up the chimney, have a peculiar taste which is not palatable. It has been said that meat loses less in weight and more in flavour by baking than by any other mode of cooking. A little extra seasoning should therefore be added if a dish is to be cooked in this way. A baking-dish ought to be deep enough to cover the joint to the extent of an inch, and thus keep the juices from drying up. If the oven be very hot, cover the meat with a piece of white paper well greased, and take it off in time to let the outside brown before serving. It is well to adopt this plan with large pies and cakes also, so that they may not be browned before they are sufficiently cooked, remembering only to let the pastry in pies set before the paper is put on. Pastry requires a tolerably quick oven to prevent its becoming heavy. If too quick, however, the steam cannot escape. All large cakes should be baked in a moderate oven, or the outside will be hard before the middle is ready. In order to ascertain whether these are sufficiently cooked put a skewer or knitting-needle into the middle, and if when this is drawn out any moisture adheres to it the cake must be baked longer. All light cakes, such as sponge-cakes, cheese-cakes, etc., should be put into a brisk oven until they have risen. The heat may then go down a little. Never open the door of an oven in which anything is being cooked in order to lessen the heat; rather decrease the fire.