This Is the One Cooking ‘Rule’ Everyone Breaks, According to Reddit
There are countless unofficial rules when it comes to cooking. Let your meat rest before slicing and serving, start with a preheated oven, slowly whisk in the oil, spoon and sweep your flour; and so on and so forth. Sometimes we follow these rules because we fear the alternative — an inedible finished dish. And sometimes we say “the heck with it” and just wing it.
A recent thread on Reddit tackled this very issue, beginning with the prompt “What is one cooking “rule” that you choose to always ignore?” With over 2,400 comments, plenty of “rules” were challenged and discussed, with a clear winner from @solarmama: “I never bother to sift flour. I haven’t had a sifter in over 40 years.”
Let’s be honest: how many of us have ignored a sifting step in a recipe, too? Say you’re whipping up a cake last-minute while doing five other things and you get to the step that says “sift the dry ingredients together.” I know I’ve skipped this step before and nothing blew up. In fact, the cake was perfectly fine!
Several commenters chimed in to say they also skip sifting with no ill effects, with one reply suggesting that simply whisking the dry ingredients works just as well. A few commenters did point out that they’ve noticed a difference in the texture of their cakes when sifting, and one noted that it’s especially necessary with delicate baked goods, like macarons. Another added that they didn’t used to sift, but it’s been helpful since switching to gluten-free flours.
One element that came up in the sifting discussion was equipment. A commenter mentioned that they don’t own a sifter and instead use a fine-mesh sieve. I also haven’t owned a sifter in years, having replaced it with a multi-tasking sieve that can also be used for straining and draining ingredients.
Overall, I agree with the discourse on this thread. Sifting will produce a fluffier cake, but with most recipes it’s not strictly necessary. A quick whisk will do, unless you’re making an especially delicate item and/or want to make sure your dry ingredients (especially fine, clumpy items like cocoa powder and powdered sugar) are well-distributed and well-mixed. Rules are meant to be broken, right?