#not overnight and day in the fridge to try and minimize over proofing

[abluescarfonwaston]

I see why people like working from home. I don't think I'm responsible enough to be trusted with this but it's definitely nice.

Gonna make some fucking bread tomorrow.

[tobylerohn]

Lemon Curd Cookies

edited from the loopy whisk. this recipe was originally gluten free. find her version here.

These are THE BEST lemon cookies you’ll ever make. They’re perfectly zesty, buttery and so tender that they simply melt in your mouth, and they’re baked with a generous dollop of tangy, creamy lemon curd in the centre. And in addition to their incredible flavour, they look gorgeous as well! If you love lemon desserts, you need to try this one.

Ingredients: 

Lemon Curd: 

100g (½ cup) granulated sugar

Zest of 1 lemon

3 egg yolks

¼ tsp salt

60g ( ¼ cup) freshly squeezed lemon juice

55g (½ stick) unsalted butter, cubed

Lemon Cookies: 

150g (¾ cup) granulated sugar

Zest of 2 lemons

115g (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled until warmed

2 eggs

30g (2 tbsp) freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 tsp vanilla extract

240g (2 cups) flour

½ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

90g (¾ cup) powdered/icing sugar, for rolling the cookies before baking

Instructions:

Lemon Curd: 

It's best to minimize contact with metal when preparing the lemon curd to prevent it from developing a metallic aftertaste. Therefore, I don't recommend using a metal bowl, metal utensils (such as a metal whisk) or a metal/metal-coated saucepan.

Instead, use a glass or ceramic bowl, a rubber spatula or a wooden spoon, and a non-metal saucepan such as one with a ceramic coating.

Add the sugar and lemon zest to a bowl, and use your fingertips to rub the zest into the sugar.

Tip: This helps to release more essential oils from the zest and it will make your lemon curd extra fragrant.

Add the egg yolks and salt to the lemon-sugar, and mix or whip them until pale and slightly fluffy.

In a saucepan over medium-high heat, cook the lemon juice until it only just comes to a boil.

Add the hot lemon juice to the egg yolk-sugar mixture in a slow drizzle, mixing constantly until you've added all the juice.

Tip: This tempers the egg yolks and reduces the chances of your lemon curd splitting or curdling when you cook it.

Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook it over low heat with constant stirring until thickened so that it thickly coats the back of a spoon or spatula. This should take about 4-5 minutes. Don't allow the lemon curd to come to a boil – you shouldn't see any bubbles forming.

Once thickened, remove from the heat and stir in the butter until it's fully melted.

Pass the lemon curd through a fine mesh sieve to remove the lemon zest – this will make it perfectly smooth and creamy (but you can skip this step if you don't mind the texture of the lemon zest).

Tip: I don't recommend using a metal sieve, as contact with metal can give your lemon curd a slight metallic aftertaste. If possible, use a sieve with a plastic or silicone mesh.

Pour the finished lemon curd into a bowl or heat-proof container and cover it with a sheet of plastic wrap/cling film. Make sure that the plastic wrap/cling film is in direct contact with the surface of the lemon curd – this will prevent skin formation. Allow to cool completely to room temperature. (You can also prepare the lemon curd a day or two in advance and keep it in the fridge until needed.)

Dough

Add the sugar and lemon zest to a large bowl, and use your fingertips to rub the zest into the sugar.

Tip: This helps to release more essential oils from the zest, and it will make your cookies even more lemony and aromatic.

Add the melted butter, eggs, lemon juice and vanilla, and whisk well until combined.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, baking powder and salt, and add them to the wet ingredients. 

Mix with a wooden spoon or a rubber spatula until you get a smooth, batter-like cookie dough.

Tip: At this stage, the cookie dough will really be more like a batter – it will be very loose, soft and sticky, bordering on runny. That's how it should be. Don't add more flour!

Chill the cookie dough in the fridge for at least 2 hours before proceeding to the next step. You can also keep it in the fridge overnight if you want to bake the cookies the next day.

Tip: In addition to firming up the cookie dough into something you can actually handle and shape into balls, chilling also ensures that the cookies won’t melt into puddles during baking.

Assembling & Baking The Cookies:

Adjust the oven rack to the middle position, preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC) and line two large baking sheets with parchment/baking paper.

Tip: You will bake the cookies in two batches, so you can line two baking sheets if you have them on hand. Otherwise, just re-use the same baking sheet, but make sure to cool it completely before you place the next batch of unbaked cookies onto it.

Use a 2-tablespoon cookie or ice cream scoop to scoop out a portion of the cookie dough. Drop it directly into a bowl of powdered/icing sugar and roll it around until it’s evenly coated. The sugar coating will allow you to handle the cookie dough without it sticking, so you can roll it between your palms to form a perfectly round ball.

Repeat with the rest of the cookie dough, you should get 16 cookies in total.

Place the sugar-coated cookie dough balls onto the lined baking sheets, with plenty of space between them, about 8 per baking sheet (as the cookies will spread during baking).

Use a ½-tablespoon measuring spoon to make an indent in the center of each cookie dough ball (make sure that you press only halfway through each cookie dough ball, not all the way through).

Fill the cookies with about 1 (generous) teaspoon of lemon curd.

Bake one baking sheet at a time at 350ºF (180ºC) for 9-12 minutes or until the cookies have spread and cracked around the edges and the lemon curd center is slightly puffed up but NOT visibly bubbling (this will ensure that it stays beautifully smooth and creamy).

While the first batch of cookies is baking, keep the second baking sheet with the cookies in the fridge until needed.

The cookies will be very soft and delicate immediately out of the oven. Allow them to cool on the baking sheet for about 5-10 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.

These lemon curd cookies are amazing both warm and at room temperature, but I find them to be at their very best when they're chilled from the fridge.

[milk-lover]

Easy Ass Bread

During this void in space/time we refer to as Quarantine, I have decided to tackle my greatest baking fear: yeasted bread. Now, after a few months of sporadic baking frenzies, I have come here to this hell site to share my findings. I am in no way a bread baking expert; there are a lot of variables that go into good bread, and I’m honestly not that good of a baker to begin with, but I have made a few discovers that have led to me being more or less satisfied with the resulting loaves. So without further ado, here is Aud’s Recipe for Easy Ass Bread. (Under the cut to avoid LONG POST tm)

3 cups (360 g) Bread Flour

1.5 teaspoon salt 

2 teaspoons (7 g) Instant Yeast (or 2.5 t (8.5 g) Active Dry Yeast)

2 Tablespoons (27 g) Olive Oil (I sometimes use Avocado instead)

1 cup (250 g) water

somewhat specialized things that make it easier, but aren’t 100% necessary: pizza stone, cast iron skillet, spray bottle, wire rack

Combine the flour and the salt. Dissolve the yeast in the water (if you are using Active Dry Yeast, warm up abt 1/4 cup of the water to 110F (43C), or to about bath temperature, add in a small teaspoon of sugar, stir in the yeast, and leave 10-15 minutes, until the yeast starts bubbling, then add that to the rest of the water and continue as normal). Add the yeasty water and the oil into the flour and stir it together with a wooden spoon (or, like, your hands, it doesn’t matter). Once it starts coming together, dump it out on your (clean!!!) work surface, and knead it together until it is more or less smooth (i do 8 minutes but it might be more or less depending on your level of rage). Then, shape it into a ball and put it in a bowl or tuppaware large enough for it to expand by about 1.5 times its size. Cover it tightly and put it in the fridge at least overnight, and up to about 4 days, opening the lid once a day to let out the built up CO2. 

The next day (or whenever you decide to bake it), take out the dough, shape it into a ball, and place it on a piece of parchment paper. Oil a piece of plastic wrap and cover it, then let it come up to room temperature. Preheat the oven to as hot as it can go (mine does 500F), with a pizza stone on a bottom rack, and a cast iron skillet on the top, with plenty of space in between the two. Let the dough rise for about half an hour, while the oven preheats, then remove the plastic wrap, and spritz the dough with water. Slide the parchment paper directly onto the pizza stone (with the dough still on it, obviously). Pour about an inch of water into the cast iron skillet, and spray more water on the walls and floor of the oven, and then close the oven, and reduce the heat to 450F (230C). Bake until the sides of the loaf start browning, then CAREFULLY!!! remove the cast iron, and switch the oven to broil, and bake until the top of the loaf is deeply browned. Remove the loaf from the oven and cool on a wire rack. Once cooled, ENJOY!!

Now, this is definitely not the best bread recipe in the world. But it does definitely scratch the “I really want crusty, chewy bread” itch that I was feeling, and its also hecka satisfying to make (plus, kneading bread is a great way to get out some excess rage at the state of the world). This recipe specifically is the result of me trying out a ton of recipes and figuring out all the cut corners and short cuts I can take and still have a decent loaf at the end of it.

If you don’t have a pizza stone, you can bake it on a regular baking sheet, but it won’t cook as nicely. You can also use a different container than a cast iron skillet for the water, but I like to use one bc it can get nice and hot all by itself in the oven without cracking or warping, unlike say a glass or aluminum container. 

(Some explanation for why some things are like they are if you’re curious:

You want to wait for Active Dry Yeast to bubble up (aka ‘Proof’ it) before using it bc you need to check that its still alive. You can technically do that with Instant as well, but Active Dry Yeast is put through a harsher treatment to make it shelf stable (? I think) so its more popular to proof it just in case. 

If you don’t put this dough in a big enough container, it Will Explode all over your fridge trust me I Know From Experience.

The longer the dough is in the fridge, the more time the yeast has to Get Busy and make the Funky Yeast flavors. The low temp + long rest = many fun flavor. A quicker (1.5 ish hour), warmer (room temp) rest would also be fine in a pinch, but it would be less fun yeast flavor. I don’t do more than 4 days, however, bc it also changes the texture of the dough a lot, and makes the loaf flatter. I don’t know the Real Science why, though, I only know bread.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You gotta put the pizza stone in the oven BEFORE preheating bc that heats it up gradually. Rapid temperature change can cause it to crack. (also dont like.. put it directly into the fridge after bc it Will crack and also why would you do that?? basically no rapid temp change ok)

The pizza stone helps the oven retain a lot more heat (you basically make a mini oven within the oven its great) and more heat = better bread. I don’t know the real science but it happens ok trust me. 

The reason for all the cast iron w water and spraying the loaf w water and spraying the oven is bc Bread needs STEAM! Real bread ovens have steamers in them but we don’t have one o those so we gotta improvise! Steam causes the hard cronchy crust on the bread which is practically the best part so if you can maximize the amount of steam you introduce to the environment while minimizing the amount of heat the oven loses, thats poggers. 

Also I know we all wanna eat that chhronchy bread straight outta the oven, but you gotta let it cool down for like at least 20 minutes bc if you tear/cut into it while its still hot you’ll ruin the texture and like the yeast did so much work to make the bubbly texture don’t ruin it for them.

Alright gamers i’m out have fun w bread lov u) 

[chamerionwrites]

@renaissance-aeroplane asked for my (actually my grandmother’s) basic bread/pizza/focaccia recipe, so here it is! It looks involved, but I promise you most of the work is just planning ahead of time and then leaving the dough to rise; you don’t actually have to touch it while the yeast is doing its thing. For minimal scheduling conflicts it’s best made over the weekend (mix the dough on a Friday evening and you’ll have bread ready in time for lunch on Saturday), but if you don’t mind staying up kinda late you can make it work during the week, too - and if you’re only making pizza (and/or focaccia), you can store the dough in the fridge for a couple of days, pull it out when you get home from work, and have dinner ready in maybe half an hour.

I know USAmericans generally hate this, but the flour and water measurements are in grams because that’s the best way I know to get consistently good bread until you’ve made the recipe enough times to know how it’s supposed to look/feel at various stages. You can google conversions to volume, though it will be less exact. The recipe makes enough dough for 3 small pizzas (baked in a 12-inch cast iron skillet), for 1 loaf of bread + 1 pizza, or for 1 large pizza (baked on a pizza stone or a sheet pan) + 1 small pizza.

Also, be aware that you probably need to use the largest bowl in your kitchen here if you don’t want doughzilla to overflow and attack your kitchen counters; it triples in volume overnight.

To mix the night before:

–600 g flour

–400 g lukewarm water

–1/8 tsp active dry yeast

To add the following day:

–150 g flour

–160 g warm water

–1 scant Tbsp salt

–3/8 tsp active dry yeast

For ease of planning:

First rise: ~12 hours

Second rise: ~2 and a half hours

Proof time: ~1 hour

Bake time: ~40-50 minutes (for bread), and probably another twenty minutes of cooling before it’s ready to cut. Basically, it’s around 17 hours including the mixing/folding (less in hot weather) from the initial mix to the bread coming out of the oven; start at 6pm and the bread should be ready to eat by around noon the next day.

Process:

The night before (if you’re baking bread in the morning) or early in the morning (if you’re baking bread in the evening), put the flour, water, and yeast into a large bowl. Mix by hand until you have a very wet dough (very wet. If you’re used to making bread with a short rise, this is going to look somewhere midway between the drier bread dough that you’re used to and cake batter. It’s supposed to look that way. I promise you have not screwed it up), then cover and leave at room temperature for about 12 hours, until the dough has roughly tripled in size.

12 hours later, add the remaining ingredients and then mix them into the dough by hand, trying to be relatively gentle (you want to break up the gluten as little as possible). The dough will be VERY sticky; keep a bowl of hot water handy, and dip your hands in at intervals to keep the dough from sticking to you.

Once all the ingredients are incorporated, cover and let it rise for about 2 and a half hours at room temp, until roughly tripled in volume. During the first hour or so, you need to fold the dough over on itself several times, let it relax, and then fold it again; it’s less like kneading (don’t punch it down) and more like stretching until the gluten pulls taut, and then doubling it back on itself at each corner as if you’re wrapping a present. This will gradually tighten it up until it looks less wet and more like bread dough, though it will still be pretty sticky. Keep wetting your hands in hot water.  

After the dough has risen, dump it carefully onto a floured surface and use a very sharp knife to cut about a third of it away (you can put this in the fridge and use it to make pizza or focaccia later). With floured hands, fold the dough again and pull it across the counter/cutting board until it tightens into a ball (do the same with any leftover dough for pizza before you put it into the fridge). Use plenty of flour; at this point it should start being less sticky and really looking and feeling like (relatively loose and soft) bread dough. Flour a new bowl, place the dough ball inside, cover, and leave on the counter to proof for about 45 minutes to an hour. 

While the dough is proofing, preheat your oven to 475 degrees F and place the rack in the center. If you have a pizza stone or a dutch oven, preheat that in the oven too (just please don’t burn yourself when you pull it out! use very good oven mitts and possibly an extra towel). Otherwise you can bake the bread on a cookie sheet or a large cast iron skillet. 

When the oven is preheated and the bread is proofed (the dough should spring back very slowly when you poke it with a finger), place on the center rack of the oven and bake for ~40 minutes. I tend to make my bread in a dutch oven, so I bake it for about 20 minutes with the lid on and 15+ minutes with the lid off, depending on how dark you want the crust (personally I usually let it go 25 minutes, because I like very thick dark crust on my bread). If you’re baking it on a pizza stone or a cookie sheet it may take less time than that, so check to make sure it doesn’t burn. 

For pizza/focaccia, let the dough proof for at least an extra hour, or leave it in the fridge for up to a couple of days. Preheat the oven to 500 F, punch the air out of the dough, drizzle some olive oil into a 12-inch cast iron skillet and spread the dough gently to the edges. Add toppings and bake roughly 15 minutes (for pizza, it helps to put the oven rack high in your oven to melt the cheese). I honestly don’t usually set a timer, because it cooks pretty quickly, so I can’t give you an exact time. You’ll definitely smell it when it’s approaching done.

Happy bread-making!

[nemolian]

If I can make the best pizza dough of my life, you can too

Jeff Lutzow at Pizzeria Bebu in Chicago

Photo: Tim McCoy, Illustration: Libby McGuire

Welcome to Pizza School, in which pizza-making amateur Gwen Ihnat learns the secrets from pizza-making pros.

Pizza is one of those foods that chefs on TV are always like, “Oh, just make your own! It’ll be quicker than delivery!” And we all know that a homemade pizza, carefully crafted to your individual specifications, can be an object of beauty, even better than whatever would be brought to us by the friendly driver from our favorite 30-minutes-or-under.

But what’s the best way to go about constructing one? What’s the secret behind those successful pizzerias? Those of us who have suffered gummy or soggy doughs, not-quite right sauce, and too much or too little toppings at home would like to know the secret behind perfect homemade pizza. Also, do we really need to invest in a pizza stone?

So I—being a hopeless pizza maker but eager to learn—sought out the experts, in my hopes of breaking down pizza into its primary components so that I can one day craft the perfect pie. This week: dough. Next week: sauce. Hold on to your garlic knots.

In my attempt to understand pizza dough, I headed to Pizzeria Bebu, a year-old restaurant in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. The restaurant’s artisanal pizzas are known for their crust, which deviates from the usual Chicago thin/pan/thick crust formats. It’s thin, but a notch above that typical “cracker crust.” As chef Jeff Lutzow puts it: “It’s definitely still a thin crust, but it’s different from a New York thin crust or even a Chicago-style thin crust where it’s like, pressed into a cracker.”

A Pizzeria Bebu pie: half-potato, half-pepperoni

Photo: Gwen Ihnat

Lutzow’s love for pizza goes way back, as growing up, he was a notoriously picky eater, subsisting mostly on cheese pizza and mac ‘n’ cheese. (This is music to the ears of those of us with picky-eater offspring.) “By my teenage years, I started to realize how much money I was spending on really bad food. I started trying to make pizza… Turns out after a while, I could do it better.” During his years of pizza experimentation, Lutzow experimented with different doughs, different surfaces, even creating his own oven out of a grill.

Naturally, after all this trial and error, Lutzow has a few tips for us. First, “Always weigh out your ingredients for it. Don’t do it by volume. Percentage-wise, [dough should be] around 65 percent water. Flour is your 100-percent ingredient. 1000 g flour, 650 g water.” About that flour: “King Arthur all-purpose flour is very nice, very consistent.” (King Arthur’s has a higher protein level than most all-purpose flour, which gives it a good gluten structure.) Even before that step, though, many pizza doughs start out with dissolving a packet of yeast in warm water. This step intimidates some people, like a chemistry experiment that’s bound to go awry. Lutzow reassures us all: “You just have to dump the yeast in the water and let it sit there. It’ll be fine.”

After five minutes of watching the yeast dissolve, you need to spend some more time letting your dough rise. Lutzow says that the greatest mistake of the home pizza maker is not giving it enough time. Sure, he says, you can make pretty good pizza in an hour. “But if you give it the time to sit overnight and proof, you actually create all that CO2 in the dough, and you end up with a result that mimics more like what you would get in the pizzeria.”

Once you’ve let your dough double in size over several hours, you still may want to wait a bit. Says Lutzow: “When you’re about to make your pizza, pulling the dough out [of the fridge] an hour or two ahead of time lets it temper, makes it a lot easier to handle. You ever run into an issue where you’re trying to roll out the pizza and it just keeps snapping back?” Lord, yes. “Let it get to room temperature and it’ll roll out a lot easier.” Also, he suggests adding some olive oil to your hands—“don’t be afraid if it’s sticky.” He also suggests flouring your board and rolling pin, if you’re using one.

What about flipping the dough up in the air like a classic pizza maker? Lutzlow says no to that: Keep your working of the dough minimal. “I like to keep these air bubbles inside, so the less you knock it around the better.” So why do people throw pizza dough in the air in the first place? “For show. Who doesn’t like seeing the guy throwing dough in the air?”

But what to spread the dough out on? Turns out that pizza stone might be a good investment after all. Lutzow advises using “either a baking steel, cast-iron pan, baking tile, or pizza stone.” Smith says he leans toward “masonry” (stone over steel), because it “draws the moisture out to make it crispier.” You can find a really decent pizza stone in finer cooking stores for under $50.

Once the dough is spread out, to avoid a soggy pizza bottom, adhere to Lutzow’s rules of topping a pizza: “The way I always top pizza is that you should be able to see everything on the pizza just looking down on it. You should be able to see the sauce, all the cheese that’s on it, all the toppings that are on it.” Too much cheese covering everything, too much sogginess.

Once your pizza is all set, crank your oven up to as high as it can possibly go: 500 degrees, if possible. Then bake from 10 to 15 minutes until the cheese is melted and the crust is browned.

I was excited to try out Lutzow’s tips at home, and they definitely kicked my pizza up to the next level. I carefully rolled out the raised dough. I didn’t have a pizza stone, but fortunately, my husband loves cast iron almost as much as he loves me, so we had a giant cast-iron skillet on hand. As Lutzow suggested, I flipped the skillet over and used it to lay out my pizza dough on. (The super-heavy rolling pin the kids got me for mother’s day after my various pie experiments worked extremely well.) The result was hands-down the best pizza that has ever been crafted in my kitchen.

After all, as Smith told me, “It’s not rocket science. It’s basically bread shaped differently than a loaf.” So as long as you don’t rush your yeast or dough rising, you should be good to go. And even if you’re not, take it from a pizza master like Lutzow, who maintains: “I strongly stand by the statement that even bad pizza is good pizza.”

Homemade Pizza Crust

one packet yeast

200 g warm water (about 3/4 cup)

300 g King Arthur all-purpose flour (about 2 cups)

1 tsp. salt

olive oil and extra flour

(Editor’s note: I can’t stress how important it is to buy an electronic scale. It’s one of the best $20 investments you can make for your kitchen.)

Dissolve yeast in warm water and let stand for 5 minutes. Then mix into flour. Form the dough into a ball, and place in a bowl brushed with olive oil. Put dough in large plastic bag and let refrigerate overnight.

The next day, take dough out and put in bowl topped with tea towel for a few hours. Then roll out the dough with a rolling pin or your hands to desired thickness (put some olive oil on your hands, and extra flour on the rolling pin and table where you’re rolling out). Use your fingers to pinch a crust at the outside edge. Add sauce, then cheese and toppings, taking care not to overload. Bake at 500 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes, until the cheese melts and the crust is browned.

Next week: Secrets to sauce.

via:Lifehacker, July 25, 2018 at 04:33PM

[kidsviral-blog]

Check Out These 10 Simple Ways You Can Make Your Home Smell Fresh.

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/check-out-these-10-simple-ways-you-can-make-your-home-smell-fresh/

Check Out These 10 Simple Ways You Can Make Your Home Smell Fresh.

Making your home, apartment, or office a positive place to be is sometimes as simple as making it smell good. Scents can affect a person’s mood or work performance, as crazy as that sounds. Think about walking into your home after a day of work and smelling fresh cinnamon and baking cookies… How could you not be in a good mood and love everyone you see after that? It makes sense why consumers spend thousands of dollars on candles, oil diffusers, scent sprays and more. A fresh smelling space makes us much happier than a stinky, gloomy one (just think of how you felt in your gross college apartment). However, you don’t have to run to the store if you want to make sure your place is smelling great. These simple DIY projects are not only cheap, but they’ll leave your house smelling great in no time.

1.) Lemon-Rosemary Simmer Pot

To make this simple concoction, all you need is: -A small stockpot -Water -Rosemary -1 lemon -Vanilla extract Fill the pot about 2/3 full with water. Add 1 lemon (sliced) and a few sprigs of rosemary. Then, add the 1/2 tsp of vanilla. Let this mixture simmer all day, it’ll fill your rooms with a heavenly scent. You can use the same mixture for about 2 days, but you’ll want to change it after that or else it’ll smell a little weird.  

2.) Scented Wood Blocks

Making scented wood blocks is easy. Just make sure you have: -Wood blocks -Scented oil or perfume -Small paint brushes By either painting or spraying it on, cover the wood blocks in the oil/perfume. After covering them, you can even put them in a closed container with extra oil. Shake it up to make sure they are coated. Let it sit in the oil overnight so that everything is absorbed. Then you’re done! You can even refresh your wood blocks over time by simply adding more oil to them.

3.) Orange Peel Candles

You thought oranges were just for eating? Think again. You can make simple candles out of them (without wasting the fruit). -An orange -Knife -Oil (canola, vegetable or olive) -Candle lighter The steps are simple, too. 1.) Begin by cutting your orange in half. 2.) Take your knife and run it around the edges of the orange. This will loosen the fruit from the peel. 3.) Take a fork and scrape out the inside of the orange. BE CAREFUL to NOT remove the inside stem. This is the white piece that rests in the center of the orange. It is rather tough, so just continue to scrape away the fruit around it. 4.) Once the inside of your orange is nice and clean, you can fill it �� of the way full with oil. Remember you can use any oil of your choosing. 5.) Let the oil sit in the orange for about 45 minutes. It is important to let the oil sit and the stem of the orange (the white piece) absorb it. This is what will help keep it burning well. 6.) In 45 minutes, you can try lighting your orange. You will need a candle lighter to do this as a match or cigarette lighter does not stay lit long enough to get the job done. Hold the lighter to the stem and let it heat up the stem. You will need to do this for 2-3 minutes. 7.) Let the stem rest for a moment. It should be nice and brown/black at this point. To the touch, it should feel dry now. 8.) Try relighting the stem. This may take a few seconds. You should hear a little crackling and then the flame should take off on its own.

4.) Gel Air Freshener

If you love air fresheners but don’t want an open flame in your home, this DIY gel air freshener may be just for you. You’ll need: -Heat proof jars (like mason jars) -4 packages of unflavored gelatin -Food coloring -Salt -Essential oils/fragrance 1.) Clean and prepare your jars. (This entire recipe filled up one pint jar, but you can use several smaller jars.) 2.) Add a few drops of coloring and approximately 30 drops of essential oil or fragrance (the more you add, the stronger it will be). 3.) Boil 1 cup of water on the stove. Pour in your gelatin packets into the pot. 4.) Make sure to keep whisking or the stuff will clump up. 5.) Once dissolved, add 1 cup of cold water and 1 tbsp of salt. Stir it all in. 6.) Pour into your prepared jars and stir. 7.) Let it sit overnight until the gel is set. 8.) Time to decorate your scented gel jar any way you choose!  

5.) DIY Reed Diffusers

Oil diffusers are also a simple solution to scenting your home without using heat or an open flame. You don’t need much, either: -Vase -Baby Oil -Essential Oil -Bamboo Skewers (or rattan diffusing sticks for better scent) -Ribbon & Washi Tape (optional) 1.) Fill your vase with essential oil (as much as you want) 2.) Fill the remainder of the vase with baby oil 3.) Place washi tape at the end of the skewer and fold over (for decoration) 4.) Place skewers in the vase and tie a ribbon around to finish The oil will diffuse into the room up through the skewers. You’re done!

6.) Cinnamon Stick Candles

You might think all Martha Stewart crafts are too intense to try yourself, but this one is so simple. -Pillar candle, at least 3-inches in diameter -Cinnamon sticks -Floral shears -Hot-glue gun -Dish or coaster 1.) Measure candle height; cut cinnamon sticks to size with floral shears. You’ll need about 20 lengths per candle. 2.) Run hot glue along cinnamon stick; affix it vertically to side of candle. (Use low-temperature setting to minimize melting.) 3.) When first stick is dry, glue next stick snugly against it; repeat to cover candle. 4.) Place finished candle on a dish or coaster. Not only will it be pretty, but you can also smell the glorious cinnamon!

7.) Custom Potpourri

Potpourri isn’t just for outdated offices and homes. It can be a simple and brilliant idea. Just follow FreePeople’s steps: -Dried flowers -Essential oil -Any herbs, spices or other trinkets you want to include (have fun with it!) 1.) Prior to making your potpourri, you’ll need to dry out your flowers. Gather a bouquet and tie the stems together with some twine. Hang them upside down and give them a couple of weeks to fully dry out. 2.) Once your flowers are dry, put them in a container and add a few drops of essential oil. It’s recommended that you close the container and allow the flowers to absorb the oil for a couple of weeks. 3.) Then, arrange all of your ingredients in a bowl or jar. You can add any extra oils or scented ingredients that you’d like.

8.) Baking Soda Air Freshener

Baking soda isn’t just good for making your fridge smell fresh! This recipe can make any room fresh, too. -1/2 cup baking soda (per jar) -Essential oil of your preference (8-12 drops) -Mason jar -Scrapbook paper -Tapestry needle -Scissors and pen 1.) Take the scrapbook paper and trace out the inner lid of the mason jar (not the screwable ring). Cut out that piece of paper. 2.) Pierce the small piece of paper with the tapestry needle, making holes so the scent can waft through. 3.) Pour about 1/2 cup of baking soda into the mason jar and add in 8-12 drops of essential oil of your choice. (Start off by adding less oil and if you find it’s not strong enough to scent your room add in a bit more. A bigger room will need more oil and a smaller room like a bathroom will use less.) 4.) Place the scrapbook paper inside the mason jar ring and tighten it onto the jar. Gently shake up the baking soda/essential oil mixture. This air freshener is more natural than chemical sprays… and it’s flameless.

9.) Pouch Air Freshener

You can keep a car, small room or closet smelling fresh with just small sachets or pouches of scent. Plus, this is easy. -Light weight fabric -Thick hemp or thread -Makeup pads or cotton balls -Scented oils/spices/incense cones -Items to decorate the pouches such as stamps, paint, or dried flowers -Scissors -Sewing machine (or needle and thread) 1.) Begin by cutting rectangles of fabric 5×10 inches. 2.) Then, start the sewing process by sewing a loop on each end of the rectangle. 3.) Then, with the edges of the loop facing outward, fold the fabric in half and sew each side up to the loop. 4.) Next, flip the pouch right side out and begin decorating. 5.) Then, thread a large piece of hemp through both loops to where both ends come out of each loop, facing the same direction. 6.) To add scents to your pouches, pour in spices, incense cones, and oil soaked makeup pads or cotton balls (you’ll want to change out the spices regularly to keep them fresh). And that’s it. The most difficult part will be sewing the little pouches, but it’s still not hard.  

10.) Lemon-Basil Spray

  Room sprays keep your place fresh, but many contain harmful chemicals. This one, however, does not (and it’s just as effective). http://hellohomeshoppe.com/blog/2013/8/22/lemon-basil-linen-spray -16 oz spray bottle -1 1/4 cups water, divided into 3/4 cup and 1/2 cup -4 tablespoons of dried basil -Coffee filter -Funnel -1 tablespoon vodka -5 drops of lemon essential oil 1.) In a small pot, bring 1/2 cup water to boil. Add your 4 Tablespoons of dried basil to the water and let steep for a few minutes. 2.) In another pot, bring 3/4 cups of water to a boil. 3.) Line your funnel with a coffee filter and place funnel in your opened spray bottle. 4.) Pour in your steeped basil water mixture into the funnel, making sure that the coffee filter catches the tiny pieces of basil. Remove the filter. 5.) Pour in the boiling water, vodka, and essential oil. 6.) Put on the spray bottle top and shake to mix.  (H/T Mashable) On average, a large store-bought scented candle will cost you about $20-30. Instead of throwing your money down the drain for a week of pleasantly scented flickering, why not scent your home the same way MacGyver would? Share these DIY crafts with others. Making your home or office awesome doesn’t have to be expensive.

Read more: http://viralnova.com/diy-air-fresheners/