TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Consumers Ask

ADVERTISEMENT

By MARY A. KEITH

Tribune correspondent

Published: June 4, 2008

I have a pan for making baked doughnuts. Can I use regular cake mix instead of doughnut mix?

You can use cake mix, but you won't get doughnuts. The result will be little round cakes with holes in the middle. Cake batter is less dense than doughnut batter and therefore will rise higher. But if you do use cake batter, don't fill the pan as high. Otherwise, it will spill over, spread and burn.

We have more yellow squash than we can eat. Should it be frozen raw or cooked before freezing?

The flavor will be much better when you to take the time to blanch or par-boil the squash first. To do that, cut the squash in half-inch slices. Dip them in boiling water, then dip in ice water to chill. Once drained, they can be packed and frozen.

I want to make sugarless soft-serve ice cream in my home machine but can't find a recipe. Can I use any recipe and substitute Splenda for the sugar?

I doubt you would like the results because Splenda will change the texture. The ice cream won't be soft and smooth. Sugar holds a lot of moisture and prevents big grainy ice crystals. Also, substituting Splenda will make far less ice cream than sugar.

Does "overrun of ice cream" mean it was frozen too long?

Overrun doesn't involve how long the ice cream was frozen but how air is beaten into ice cream as it freezes. That keeps ice cream from freezing until it is hard. It also makes the ice cream expand. For instance, beating air into one cup of ice cream mixture could produce 1 1/2 cups of ice cream. That extra half cup is called a 50 percent overrun. Most ice cream has a 70 percent overrun.

Why do you say tomatoes have to be kept in the refrigerator? I've been keeping tomatoes on the counter for years,

It's OK to keep whole tomatoes on the counter. But they need to be refrigerated after being cut or chopped. The Food and Drug Administration recently added cut and chopped tomatoes to its list of foods that should always be refrigerated. There have been several outbreaks of food poisoning from cut tomatoes left on the table.

I couldn't find pickling lime in the grocery store to make pickles, so I got a bag of 4 percent lime from the seed-and-feed store. How do I adjust my pickle recipe?

You don't. It's dangerous! Agriculture or builders lime should not be used in food. Pickling lime is food-grade lime, made to use in food. Few stores still carry pickling lime but you can order it from Mrs. Wages. Call 1-800-647-8170 or go to www.mrs.wages.com. Or instead of pickling lime, it's safe to use the calcium-chloride products made for crisping cucumbers.

We canned tomatoes and added basil. Almost every jar spoiled. Was that because of the basil?

It's possible the basil carried enough bacteria that some survived the heat of canning and spoiled the tomatoes. But it's more likely the processing time wasn't right for how densely the tomatoes were packed. Typically, pint jars of tomatoes need to be processed in a pot of boiling water for 40 minutes. But if the tomatoes were squashed tightly into the jar to make it really full, the jar will need to be boiled 85 minutes. It takes longer to heat the center in densely packed jars. Also, when canning tomatoes, you have to add lemon juice or citric acid. They need enough acidity to make them safe.

Is it OK to can green paper tomatoes like red tomatoes?

If you're talking about the tomatillos used for Mexican salsas, they can be canned. You'll need to boil them until tender before packing into jars. Like red tomatoes, they will also need added lemon juice or citric acid.

Mary A. Keith, a nutrition and health agent at Hillsborough County Extension, can be reached at (813) 744-5519 or mkeith@ufl.edu.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT