Household Food Tips

Cake Flour Substitute

• Forgo buying specialty cake flour next time you make a cake. A mixture of mostly white flour and corn starch provide a quick cake flour substitute. Measure out 1 cup white flour into a bowl. Take out 2 tbsp. of flour and replace it with 2 tbsp. of corn starch, then sift. The mixture provides the equivalent of 1 cup cake flour.

Keep Cookies Soft

• A slice of bread placed in a container with homemade cookies keeps cookies from getting hard. Bread helps eliminate moisture and cookies, so they never dry out. Although the bread hardens, the cookies remain soft.

Eliminate Refrigerator Food Odors

• It's not unusual to open your refrigerator and encounter smells from last night's leftovers or food that might be exposed or rotting. Before unpacking your groceries, get rid of old, uneaten food. Clean and deodorize your refrigerator by mixing a solution of equal parts water and distilled, white vinegar and using it to wipe down shelves and storage bins with a clean cloth. Place a container of freshly ground coffee in your refrigerator to help combat odors; the grounds help remove smells.

Banish Unpleasant Microwave Odors

• Most people are familiar with the unsavory smell of microwavable popcorn that was left in the microwave oven too long and burned. Not only does burnt popcorn produce a bad odor, but the smell often lingers for days and sometimes weeks. You can eliminate burnt popcorn and other unpleasant food smells from your microwave with vanilla extract. Put a microwave-safe container filled about 1 inch deep with vanilla extract into the microwave for about 30 to 45 seconds until the extract starts to boil, then shut off. Leave the vanilla extract in the microwave overnight, so the extract has plenty of time to alleviate odors. By morning, the bad food smell should be gone.