Cooking Tip #4 - Vanilla Sugar--what the...?

I stumbled upon a recipe for sesame seed cookies the other day and was curious as to what vanilla sugar was and how to substitute it. Just wanted to share it with ya. But really, who has five hours to wait for it to dry when I want to bake now...?

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Taken from WikiAnswers.com

To make Vanilla Sugar without having to use Vanilla Beans (Which are rare and expensive in Grocery Stores) just use Vanilla Extract and Sugar in a ratio of one teaspoon of Vanilla Extract to every two cups of regular granulated sugar. Then spread the well mixed vanilla sugar on a baking pan lined with wax paper to dry.

*Note* To make Vanilla Sugar with a Vanilla Bean, just crush a Vanilla Bean and mix with Sugar. Then store until needed. When needed, sift out all large bits of ean, until just sugar is left. Store bean with sugar until bean looses flavor.

Cooking Tip #3 - Cake Flour Substitute

I don't know about you, but I definitely have neither the room nor inclination to buy cake flour, pastry flour, unbleached flour, wheat flour, whole wheat unbleached flour, whole wheat pastry flour, whole wheat cake flour, etc...that's just too many. So I came across this great tip on Seriouseats.com on a wonderful recipe that I'll be making later this week, hopefully, and I am sharing it with you now. Yay!

1 cup cake flour = 2 tablespoons cornstarch + 7/8 cup all-purpose flour.