Steps to Home Baking Food Safety
The recent recall of 10 million pounds of home baking flour products is a wake-up call for us to do our part to “groove” essential home, community and classroom baking practices to insure food safety problems are not us. Food safety should ALWAYS be part of food, nutrition and STEM learning objectives.
Steps to home baking food safety include
FIRST: Review “Core Four” food safety practices and download teaching resources
SECOND: Apply and teach home baking core food safety practices
CLEAN: Replace kitchen cloths and towels daily; change baking mitts or hot pads after use.
BEFORE BAKING: (do in this order)
- Tie back long hair, remove jewelry
- Wash hands with warm water and soap
- Wear a clean apron…clothes carry dirt and germs from where you’ve been
- Wash counters, assemble ingredients and tools needed for recipe
- Re-wash hands before beginning to measure, mix or portion products
AFTER BAKING:
- Wipe flour and batter from stand or hand-held mixers, counters
- Scrape mixing tools and bowl of excess batter, discard and load dishwasher
- Wash hands before packaging baked and cooled products in food-safe packaging
SEPARATE: Follow storage and use rules for fresh eggs or egg substitutes and all perishable ingredients.
- Shell eggs in a separate small bowl to avoid shell in batter
- Separate the bowls and utensils used for eggs or other perishables from dry ingredients and dry measuring tools.
- Cool baked goods on wire racks placed separately from mixing counter and tools
BAKE/COOK: It’s the facts…unbaked ingredients, dough or batter should not be consumed…Salmonella and E.Coli are NOT a treat…no “licking” spoons, beaters or bowl.
- Use a toothpick to check center of pancakes, waffles, quick breads, and cakes for raw batter. Brown crust color does not mean the middle is done.
- For oven-baked products, place food thermometer probe in center of product and pan Internal temperature guide:
Cheesecake – 150°F. (remove from oven—temperature will rise to 160 ° F.)
Meringue pies, quiche and bread pudding – 160 ° F.
Custard pies, flan, crème brulee – 170-175 ° F.
Yeast breads: Soft rolls -190 degrees F.; Crusty bread – 200-210° F.
Cakes, quick breads, scones: 200 to 205 ° F.
(Temps courtesy of Crafty Baking)
- Mix egg wash and apply just before placing product in a heated oven; discard remaining egg wash.
CHILL: Keep refrigerator at 40 degrees F. or below
- Cool products on clean wire cooling racks, not counter tops
- Refrigerate after two hours at room temperature: Unbaked batter or dough,
pies, cheese-filled breads or baked goods with perishable filling ingredients (eggs, custards, cheese, pizza, meats, casseroles, cream pies and puffs)
THIRD: Download the newly revised Home Baking Food Safety 101 Fact Sheet
Lauren Parks, Bloomington, IL entered “The Tortoise and the Hare” baking activity in the HBA Educator Award program after attending the HBA Baking Workshop at National 4-H Congress, Atlanta, GA. Parks won a special Youth Award from HBA! 
Want more? Step-by-Step instructions and 30 video demonstrations with an additional 12-page lesson is included on the Dough Sculpting 101 DVD. Recipes for yeast and cookie dough along with Play Clay for creating turkey, turtle, alligator, bunny, spider, teddy bear & even a wheat sheaf! Cost: $25 (1h 53 min DVD) 
Including kids in making dinner can teach them lessons about food and responsibility that will last a lifetime – and it can also be the most fun part of the dinner. 
Ask your diners to guess the ingredients in a new dish. Throw in an offbeat spice or flavor element into a meal with a dash of cinnamon, a splash of lime juice or a squirt of fish sauce. And don’t be surprised if children are better at this game than the adults, since we lose half of our taste buds by age 20!
Consumer: A person who buys goods or services for his or her own needs and not for resale.
