Baking Ingredients, Generally
This page at Joy of Baking is a great resource if you need to substitute for some ingredient in a baking recipe. America's Test Kitchen also has a page listing a variety of substitutions for common baking ingredients.
Baking Pans
If you don't have the particular baking pan called for in a recipe and need to substitute a different size pan, try to use a pan with an identical volume and a similar height to the pan you're supposed to use so baking time won't be affected. The volumes of many pans, and tips for substituting, are provided in these articles in The Washington Post and Joy of Baking. Alice Medrich also has a useful article on how to adapt your recipe to fit the size of pan you do have.
Buttermilk
The standard directions for substituting for 1 cup of buttermilk are to stir 1 tablespoon of an acid (lemon juice or white vinegar) into 1 cup of milk (skim, low-fat, or whole) and let it sit for 10 minutes. But the resulting mixture is too thin for pancake, waffle, and muffin batter, which is the most common thing you need buttermilk for anyway (other than Brown Soda Bread). Cook's Illustrated tested this and came to the conclusion that it's better just to swap in a 1:1 mixture of plain whole or low-fat yogurt and water (e.g., ½ cup yogurt + ½ cup water = 1 cup buttermilk). On the other hand, Stella Parks says plain yogurt thinned with milk is somewhat problematic, while plain unsweetened kefir "perform[s] flawlessly as a 1:1 swap for buttermilk." Of course, you're even less likely to have kefir around than buttermilk.
Cake Flour
Cake flour has a lower protein content (usually about 6 to 8% versus 10 to 12% for all-purpose flour), which means less gluten development and a more tender baked good. Cake flour is also usually bleached, which is not very appealing, unless you buy King Arthur Unbleached Cake Flour. If you're not baking much with cake flour, you can make a reasonable substitute by measuring out 1 cup of all-purpose flour, then taking out 2 tablespoons of the flour and replacing it with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch. (If you want to weigh it out, which is always easier, this works out to about 105 grams of all-purpose flour and 15 grams of cornstarch per cup of cake flour.) Whisk or, ideally, sift the flour and cornstarch together before using.
Chili-Garlic Sauce
Substitute 2 teaspoons of sriracha for 1 tablespoon of chili-garlic sauce.
Chinese Rice Wine (Shaoxing)
Substitute dry sherry 1:1 (the cheap stuff is fine for cooking).
Chipotle Chile Peppers in Adobo Sauce
Once you open a can of chipotle chile peppers in adobo sauce, you can transfer what you don't use to a glass jar and keep them in your fridge for quite a while, so you should usually have them on hand when you need them. But if you run out, Cooks Illustrated says you can substitute for each whole chipotle chile in adobo called for in a recipe a mixture of ¾ teaspoon chipotle powder, ¼ teaspoon red wine vinegar, and ¼ teaspoon tomato paste. For every teaspoon of adobo sauce, substitute a mixture of ⅛ teaspoon chipotle powder, ½ teaspoon red wine vinegar, and ½ teaspoon tomato paste. If you don't have chipotle powder, you can try using equal parts smoked paprika and cayenne pepper instead.
Cream Sherry
Many Asian recipes call for dry sherry, but not many recipes use cream sherry. If you don't want to keep cream sherry around, you can make a reasonable substitute for ½ cup of cream sherry by whisking 2 teaspoons of dark brown sugar into ½ cup of dry sherry.
Eggs
If you are out of eggs or want to make a vegan dish, you can substitute a flax "egg." For each large egg you need, whisk or shake together 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed meal and 3 tablespoons (44 grams) of cold water. Let the mixture sit until thick and gelatinous, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes. It won't taste too good on its own but it will get the job done for most baking projects.
Fish Sauce
Fish sauce is rich in glutamates, which are one of the main sources of savory umami flavor. If you're vegan or vegetarian, there are several options for substituting fish sauce in a recipe (see this Food52 article). The easiest is mixing together equal parts of soy sauce or tamari and vinegar (rice, white, cider, or red wine, but not balsamic or sherry) with a little pinch of salt, then using that as a 1:1 substitute for fish sauce. Cook's Illustrated has a more complex solution that amps up the savoriness by combining two different umami sources (glutamates and nucleotides). You make it by simmering
3 cups (708 grams) water,in a saucepan until reduced by half. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve, cool, and store in the fridge in a glass jar for up to 3 weeks. Use as a 1:1 substitute for fish sauce.
56 grams salt (3 tablespoons table salt, ~¼ cup fine sea salt, or 6½ tablespoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt),
2 tablespoons (34 grams) soy sauce or tamari, and
¼ ounce (7 grams) dried sliced shiitake mushrooms
Lemon Juice
In recipes where you're using lemon juice just to provide brightness or acidity, rather than complex lemon flavor, Cook's Illustrated says you can substitute ⅛ teaspoon of citric acid dissolved in 1 tablespoon of water for every tablespoon of lemon juice you need.
Milk
A fair number of baking recipes call for the use of whole milk. If you don't keep whole milk around, you can find the exact percentages for every possible combination of dairy product to make a substitute for whole, 2%, or 1% milk here. One cup of milk weighs 242 grams, so just multiply the percentages by 242 to figure out how much of each dairy product that you have on hand you need to make 1 cup of what you're after. For example, if you need 1 cup of whole milk, but only have 1% milk and half-and-half, you can use 200 grams 1% milk (242 x 83%) and 42 grams half-and-half (242 x 17%).
Mirin
For 1 tablespoon of mirin, substitute: 1 tablespoon of white wine + 1 teaspoon of sugar; or 1 tablespoon of dry sherry + ½ teaspoon of sugar.
Popcorn Salt
Popcorn salt is a super-fine salt used to season popcorn because it sticks better to the nooks and crannies of the popped kernels. You can make your own popcorn salt by pulverizing 1 cup of kosher salt in a food processor using 10 three-second pulses.
Self-Rising Flour
For every cup of self-rising flour called for in your recipe, substitute 1 cup (120 grams) all-purpose flour, 1½ teaspoons baking powder, and ¼ teaspoon salt.
Sour Cream
Just swap in an equal amount of plain whole-milk yogurt for the sour cream. Sour cream has a lot more fat than whole-milk yogurt, so baked goods made with yogurt will have a slightly drier texture, but it'll get the job done.
Table Salt, Kosher Salt, and Fine Sea Salt
When I include more than a pinch of kosher salt as an ingredient in a recipe, I try to remember to specify that I use Diamond Crystal kosher salt, because the difference between Diamond Crystal and Morton's kosher salts is quite significant. The New York Times weighed 1 cup of different kinds of salt and came up with these figures: Morton’s kosher salt = 250 grams/8¾ ounces; Diamond Crystal kosher salt = 135 grams/4¾ ounces; table salt = 300 grams/10⅝ ounces; and Maldon sea salt = 120 grams/4¼ ounces. I also weighed 1 cup of Trader Joe's Sea Salt Fine Crystals and came up with 215 grams/7½ ounces. That means that when you're converting a recipe from table salt to fine sea salt or kosher salt, 1 unit of table salt = 1.4 units of fine sea salt or 2.2 units of Diamond Crystal kosher salt. For example, for 1 teaspoon of table salt, you would substitute 1⅜ teaspoons of fine sea salt or 2¼ teaspoons of Diamond Crystal kosher salt (or 1¼ teaspoons of Morton’s kosher salt). If you're going from fine sea salt to Diamond Crystal kosher salt, 1 unit of fine sea salt = 1.6 units of Diamond Crystal, so 1 teaspoon of fine sea salt = 1½ teaspoons of Diamond Crystal.
Vanilla
One tablespoon pure vanilla extract = one tablespoon vanilla bean paste = one 6-inch vanilla bean.
Yeast
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