How to Make Perfect Cookies Every Time

 

Burned Bottoms?

As we told you in our podcast about baking cookies, if you’ve ever burned the bottoms of your cookies when baking a number of batches, the baking sheets may be to blame. When you start with a too-hot surface, the cookies may burn. Let the baking sheets cool between batches; 2-3 minutes is usually long enough. Or you can line the baking sheets with parchment paper. When the cookies are done, simply lift them, still on the parchment, onto the cooling rack.

What to Do if Your Cookies Aren’t Brown Enough

If your cookies typically don’t brown enough, bake them on a higher rack in the oven. Other tricks you can try are substituting a tablespoon or two of corn syrup for the sugar, using egg for the liquid, and using unbleached or bread flour in the recipe.

Bring Out the Oatmeal Flavor in Oatmeal Cookies

Our favorite part of oatmeal cookies, is—naturally—the oatmeal! Boost oatmeal flavor by toasting it lightly before adding it to the batter. Simply sprinkle the oatmeal on a baking sheet and heat it in a 300° oven for about 10 minutes. The oats should turn a golden-brown.

Keep Cookie Dough from Sticking to the Spoon

Is your cookie dough sticking to everything? It’s easy to get a spoonful of cookie dough to drop onto your baking sheet if you first dip the spoon in milk.

The Easy Way to Dye Sugar Cookies

Dye your cookie dough, not your hands, by dropping food coloring into a bag with the dough. Knead a bit and roll around to even out the color. You can use right away or keep in the freezer. Either way, you’ll have fun, colorful cookies, and save lots of hand-cleaning time.

For the Best Edges on Cookie Shapes

To get a sharp edge on your shaped cookies, dip the cutter in flour or warm oil occasionally during the cutting.

Fixing Flat Cookies

Do your cookies come out thin and flat rather than thick and chewy? Sprinkle some flour on the baking sheet after you grease it but before you put the cookie dough down on top of it. The flour will keep your cookies from spreading out, which can be caused by the slickness of the greasy baking sheet.

How to Get Dough to Stop Sticking to the Rolling Pin

If you’re having trouble rolling out cookie dough, it may be too warm; cold dough will not stick to the rolling pin. Refrigerate it for 20 minutes for the best results.

How to Keep Cookie Dough Off Beaters

Making cookies? Spritz the beaters with a little vegetable oil or non-stick...

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How to Make Your Christmas Tree Last Longer

How to Make Your Tree Last Forever

As we shared in our podcast about getting ready for the holidays, using a humidifier is one of the best ways to keep your tree fresh all December long (and into January!). Why? The heating system in your home can dry out your tree, dulling its color and piney fresh scent. To give your Christmas tree a healthy boost of moisture, place a humidifier in the room to counteract the drying heat—it’ll stay fresh, and you can soak up the holiday spirit as long as possible. If you have a vaporizer (like for colds), you can also run that near the tree once a day to put more moisture into the air.

The Best Water for Your Christmas Tree

What kind of water you feed your tree matters! While tap is fine, it’s the temperature that you should be concerned about. The ideal temperature when you’re watering your tree is 80 degrees—the warmth helps your tree absorb water more efficiently, meaning it will get absorbed all the way up to the very top! Add a pinch of sugar once a week, which is a perfect substitute for tree food.

How to Keep Your Tree Healthy

One of the things that causes a tree to start dying out is bacteria—so keep it away with this handy trick. Just add a shot glass of liquor, a capful of mouthwash, or a drop of rubbing alcohol to the water each time you water your tree. The alcohol will keep bacteria away.

Keep Your Christmas Tree Fresh with LED Lights

If it’s time for new Christmas lights this year, choose mini LED lights over the traditional kind. Not only do they save energy (and cut the cost of electricity), they’re also not as hot, preventing your tree from drying out as quickly.

For more holiday tips, follow our Christmas Tips and Ideas board on Pinterest! And don't forget to sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Facebook and Instagram!

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

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Who Inspired Sherlock Holmes? Turns Out, the Author Himself

Today we’re lucky enough to have groups like the Innocence Project, Advocates 4 the Wrongly Convicted, and A Just Cause, among others, whose mission is to fight the corner on behalf of the wrongfully imprisoned. A century or so ago, it was down to the ingenuity and tenacity of a few brave individuals like Arthur Conan Doyle to take up what was often a deeply unpopular cause.

In June 1889, the police in Great Wyrley, near Walsall in the English midlands, came to arrest 17-year-old Elizabeth Foster, who worked in domestic service for the local Anglican minister Revd. Sharpurji Edalji and his family. She was accused of sending her employers a series of threatening letters, eventually pleaded guilty to a lesser charge, and was bound over to keep the peace. The story rated a single paragraph towards the back of the local newspaper.

Some years later, there was a second outbreak of anonymous letters to Revd. Edalji’s home. They came in a variety of handwriting styles and under a number of pseudonyms. If the correspondence could be said to have had a unifying theme, it was that Edalji and his family (highly unusual at that time and place in being a mixed Anglo-Asian household) were Satan-worshipping infidels of particularly bizarre personal habits who would roast eternally in hell.

“Do you think, you Pharisee, that because you are a parson God will absolve you from your iniquities?” inquired one note. Another characterized Edalji as a “confirmed lunatic”—surely a case of projection—and promised his three children and their mother Charlotte an afterlife distinguished by perpetual fire and brimstone. Much of the language employed was intemperate, quite often embellished by crude graffiti, and some of it was positively demented. The blameless Mrs. Edalji, for example, was “a kunt, liar, divil, confounded hypocrite, silly blasted bloody fool.”

Stung by what he perceived as the 'immortal injustice' of it all, Conan Doyle took up the proverbial deerstalker cap and pipe to investigate the case.

The local police eventually came to believe that these new letters were not the work of Elizabeth Foster, but of the teenaged George Edalji, the reverend’s oldest child, who for some unexplained reason was harassing his own family. George was a precociously clever boy who did well at school, but who was bullied because of his Indian background. He had few close friends, and no known girlfriends. His mother later observed that her son was “never one to travel in crowds.” The general theory among the police was that George was writing the letters because of some sort of psychological compulsion—that he was what we might now call a functioning sociopath, who developed a bitter and...

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4 Ways to Improve Your Posture and Lose that Slouch

Simply put, good posture means that each of your body parts is in the correct spot, relative to other body parts, and relative to the gravitational pull of the earth. Make sense? Can you do that? Great! Then we are done here. Ha! If only it were that easy.

What is your Good Posture?

When you read the words “good posture” you probably instinctively and immediately assumed your version of “good posture.” If you didn’t, then go ahead and straighten up now. What did you do to improve your posture? Did you thrust your chest up or did you pull your shoulders blades together? Perhaps both? Well, doing that may give the impression of good posture but more accurately all you did was lift your rib cage forward by sheering your vertebra and mashing your shoulder blades together. Doesn’t sound good, does it? When you are slouching forward, simply misaligning your ribs like this does not actually create the movement in your (thoracic) spine in the way that you think or feel that it does. All it does is take that slouching forward curve of your upper spine and tilt it into an upward position. The curve is still there, it is simply pointing in a different direction.

You see, many of us stand at least slightly lazily at all times, trying to conserve energy and feel relaxed. To do that we stand with our neck jutted out, our shoulders slumped, our rib cage collapsed, our weight shifted into one hip or the other (or thrust forward into both), and our feet flared out like a duck. Take a look down at your body, are you standing like that right now?

The problem is that when you stand that way on a regular basis, your body gets very used to that posture and you get stuck like that, or at very least this becomes your default stance.

The problem is that when you stand that way on a regular basis, your body gets very used to that posture and you get stuck like that, or at very least this becomes your default stance.

Not only is this an issue of bad geometry, in combination with gravity, creating unhealthy forces on your bones, joints, tendons, and ligaments but when you hit the gym or engage in your favourite sport in this type of misalignment, you are in real trouble. And this trouble will result in lowered performance, fewer strength gains, and an increased risk of injury.

The Right Way to Stand

The easiest way to create a nicely aligned body is to imagine there is a plumb line (like carpenters use) attached to various parts on your body. If each one of the plumb lines is not heading toward, if not directly to, your mid-foot or heels, you are out of alignment.

A nicely aligned body is a nicely stacked body. Ankles over heels, knees over ankles, hips over knees, ribs over hips, shoulders over ribs, neck straight and tall...

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2 Easy Ways to Manage Multiple Email Accounts

Today’s topic is how to deal with multiple email inboxes. Listener Jodie Kirby, the recruiting yogini, writes in:

I’m struggling! I’m a consultant managing multiple Google and Office 365 accounts. I’m making it work and yet there’s gotta be an elegant solution. Help! - Namaste

Jodie, when you want elegance, the place to turn is, of course, England. Because they have such delightful accents and castles. And the Buckingham Palace guards. 

Fortunately, we’re in luck! Grandma Cuddles’ Day Care center is welcoming Claire, their newest employee. She’s come over from England, where she claims she was a landscape architect. She was known for designing parks and charming little lanes in the English countryside. Whether it’s a riverbank that resists global warming, or an innocent little park that corrals zombies into dead-end paths and...neutralizes them, Claire is up to any challenge. 

Best of all, Claire just loves little children! 

Claire: I do! Especially with chocolate sauce. That’s how I got my nickname, Chocolatey Claire.

Oh, my! Chocolatey Claire has quite a sense of humor! She’s coming on board to be Director of Procurement. 

Claire: I’m looking forward to the job. It’s right up my alley. Literally. The Pied Piper of Cuddles is how I like to think of it.

Cuddles plans to have Claire design a pleasant garden for the kids to play in. It will, of course, be bordered by Audrey IIs, so the little tykes don’t accidentally wander astray. And if one does, there won’t be any evidence. 

Claire: Audrey IIs are an attractive-yet-functional addition to any landscape.

Email Accounts Propagate

Claire’s first task is to get all her tech set up. She’s at the center of a vast web of communication. Her work on global warming happens at claire@dontfrytheworld.com. Her private clients email her as claire@shrubberythatslays.com, and of course, she’s now claire@grandmacuddles.com as well. It’s a mess! Every day she has to remember to check three email accounts, and things fall through the cracks on a regular basis.

You can use several different clients with one server. If you have email that comes in to a Gmail account, you could read and reply from that same account in Gmail, from Apple Mail, or from Outlook.

The human race uses many email systems. Too many. They have different capabilities and don’t necessarily all play nice with each other. We’re going to get Claire sorted by using one of two solutions...

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The Science of Snowfall

In the northern hemisphere, winter is upon us and for those living far enough from the equator, that means snow, and lots of it. According to the long-range weather forecast from the Farmer’s Almanac, the 2019 winter will be “colder-than-normal” with plenty of snow. According to the National Snow & Ice Data Center, snow can cover up to 46 million square kilometers (that’s almost 18 million square miles) of the globe each year, and nearly every location in the U.S. has seen snowfall at some point (even you, Florida!).

So let’s take a look at the science of snowfall. Where does it snow and how? Is it really true that no two snowflakes are ever alike? What does snowfall tell us about the Earth’s overall climate? And for those, like me, who live somewhere without snow, I’ll tell you how to make your own.

How does snow form?

For snow to form, two conditions have to be met. First, there has to be some amount of moisture in the air. This is why some deserts, like the Dry Valleys of Antarctica, can have no snow despite being very, very cold. This dependence on moisture also leads to what is often called “lake effect snow” or heavy snow fall near a large lake. Cold, dry air passing over a lake will gain moisture from the warmer water below. Colder air also has a harder time holding onto water vapor, which means that snowfall is rarer at very cold temperatures but more common at temperatures that are just below freezing. Which brings us to the next requirement…

Second, the temperature has to be cold enough, or below 0 degrees Celsius or 32 degrees Fahrenheit.   That temperature refers to atmospheric temperature, or the temperature in the layer of atmosphere above us where that snow will form. If the temperature on the ground is also cold enough, snow will reach the ground and accumulate. Otherwise, it can melt when it reaches the warmer layers of air, which usually happens if the ground temperature is more than 5 degrees Celsius (or 41 degrees Fahrenheit).

Are two snowflakes ever alike?

Snow can fall as either single snowflakes, which are themselves clusters of ice crystals, or clusters of snowflakes clumped together. Snowflakes are always symmetric and six-sided.

When a droplet of water meets a pollen or dust particle in the atmosphere, they merge to create an ice crystal. Water vapor in the air will then freeze onto this original ice crystal building outward into the arms of a snowflake. The symmetric and six-sided nature of...

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6 Ways to Handle a Defiant Teen (Without Yelling)

Remember when you first looked lovingly into your sweet baby’s eyes? When his newborn coos could melt your heart in an instant?

And now, 15 years later, as you try to stay patient through his attitude and smug, hurtful remarks - are you left wondering what the heck happened?

If you’ve got tweens and teens in your life, you’ve most likely been the recipient of backtalk or other defiant actions.  Unfortunately, this type of behavior is the norm of the teen parenting package. But don't despair! Positive change can happen in your family if you’re willing to invest some time dealing with it. 

Sponsor: This episode of Mighty Mommy is brought to you by…BookBub, a service that helps readers discover high quality eBooks they'll love at a great price.  Go to Bookbub.com/mommy to get alerts on free and discounted eBooks.

For parents, the key is to handle that nasty and exasperating behavior in a way that calmly and consistently shows your child that you are in control and that you will not tolerate it.  Mighty Mommy has 6 teens in her life right now, so here are 6 ways that you can respond positively to your defiant teen and keep the peace at home:

Tip #1:  Never Assume the Reason Behind a Teen's Bad Behavior

Your child’s defiant behavior is actually the symptom of the actual problem. Don’t guess or assume that your child is acting out based on what you see.  If your son is belligerent towards you when he returns from school, it might not be that he hates algebra and is taking it out on you. Maybe he’s finding it hard to make friends and is feeling like an outcast.  That doesn’t excuse his poor behavior, but when he’s in the comfort of his own home, he can let his guard down and therefore targets his frustration toward those closest to him, usually his parents and siblings.

Try tracking your child’s behavior for a short period of time and notice what situations or feelings seem to trigger the aggression or defiant outbursts.  If you notice a pattern where he’s unloading his anger every day when he comes home from school, once he calms down later that evening ask him if you can talk about what you’ve noticed.  “Hey, it’s pretty obvious that when you get home from school you’re miserable and you’re taking it out on Dad and me. What's up...

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