Ina Garten's Tip For Anyone Who's Forgotten Ingredients While Baking

We've all been there. You've got the dry ingredients mixed together in a bowl for a birthday cake and you go to prep the wet ingredients when you find you only have two eggs instead of three. Now you're faced with the tough decision of trying to figure out an egg substitute, running to the store, or just scrapping the whole thing and buying a premade cake for the celebration.

It can be extra frustrating to find yourself in this situation if you thought you did your due diligence and read the recipe beforehand and then checked to make sure the required ingredients were in the cupboard or fridge. But don't feel bad though, we've all misread a recipe or accidentally overlooked an item on the ingredients list before. Even professional chefs have run into this problem and have had to learn from their mistakes, hence, why Ina Garten has some tips on how to avoid the problem of not having the right ingredients when you go to make your recipe.

The secret to having a stress-free cooking experience might be in doing ingredient prep before you get started. While getting the ingredients out of the pantry and placing them on your table can help, Garten recommends going a step further and having the ingredients measured and ready to be combined. This way you can figure that while you may have sugar, you are a half-cup short for the recipe. 

Professional chefs even have a word for this type of food prep: mise en place. While traditionally it has meant portioning out each ingredient into its own little bowl so it is ready to be added into the recipe, there is an alternative that helps to cut down on the cleanup. A muffin tin is the perfect way to organize smaller portions of ingredients that can be picked up and added to the dish, such as vegetables or cheese. 

So give prepping your ingredients like this a try for yourself. It will help you stay organized while baking or cooking and it will make sure you don't neglect to add an ingredient into your recipe. Who wants to bite into cake missing eggs or sugarless chocolate chip cookies?