1,510 easy and fully explained recipes, with +66K photos and 78 videos

How to avoid lumps

You've probably come across this unpleasant phenomenon where, when you try to incorporate an ingredient (usually a solid or powder) into a preparation (usually a liquid), the mixture doesn't mix properly and you end up with little "balls" or little lumps of the solid part that refuse to mix with the liquid part.

A classic example is when you add flour to a pancake batter (for example), and you end up with lots of little white dots in your batter. It's very annoying, and you need a lot of elbow grease to get rid of them, if you manage at all.

19 K 4.8/5 (18 reviews)

Keywords for this post:Lumps Dough Apparatus Mixing Whisk

Last modified on: October 9^th 2020

For this post: Comment Follow Send to a friend

How to avoid lumps

How can you avoid those famous lumps?

Here's a list of possible actions:

tamisage poudres 1) If you're incorporating a powdery ingredient (flour, almond powder, etc.), you need to sift the powder in question before incorporating it.

In this way, you'll eliminate the "pellets" that inevitably form over time in a powder due to humidity. For some flours, such as chestnut flour, this is essential.
Don't hesitate to sift together several or all the powders in a recipe, for example for a cake: flour + sugar + yeast.

fouet grumeaux 2) For mixing, use a whisk instead of a maryse, spoon or spatula, as it mixes much better.

grumeaux mixer 3) If, despite this, you're still faced with lumps, as a last resort, the mixer is your friend: giving your dough in preparation a good blow will liquefy it in a matter of seconds.

But don't use it on dough containing whipped cream or egg whites, as you'll destroy the airiness of the mixture.

What if it's not a powder you're mixing in?

grumeaux chocolat

You could have the same kind of trouble with a preparation where you incorporate butter or chocolate, for example, but it's a question of fat: you get lumps, of a different kind, but just as irritating.
You can use the same lifesaving gestures, but your problem probably stems from too great a temperature difference between the dough you're mixing in and the butter, and the latter congeals and clumps together.
The trick is to keep mixing, placing your dough in a bain-marie that's not too hot, or if possible, putting it in the microwave for 20-30 seconds.

To sum up: to avoid lumps with powders: sift, whisk, mix, and with fats: the same, but pay attention to temperature differences.

Lasts posts

Thinning out herbs

If you need to add a long-stemmed herb (tarragon, mint, verbena, thyme, etc.) to a recipe, you'll probably only need the leaves and not the stem, so you'll need to remove the leaves. Leaf removal means keeping only the beautiful leaves, and eliminating the ugly stems and leaves, but how do you do...
August 8^th 20258165

Add a bay leaf

Bay leaf: small in size, but big in flavor. You'll find it in hundreds of recipes, and it's often added to cooking meat, in a sauce or broth, usually accompanied by other herbs or products. It's a staple of Provençal, Mediterranean and Oriental cuisine, but not the only one. Usually, in a...
July 31^th 20251,1875

Parsley stems

Parsley, whether curly or flat, is a delicious ingredient in many recipes, where it is used both raw and cooked. When used raw, in a salad for example, where it always provides, alone or with other herbs, a remarkable freshness, only the leaves are kept. And when used cooked?
July 28^th 20251,234 13

A drizzle of olive oil

Often in a recipe, you have to "baste" vegetables, for example, before sending them to the oven. What the author means by this is that you need to put oil on top of the vegetables to cook them in the oven. Typically, we just quickly drizzle oil over the vegetables, hoping not to miss any, but...
July 13^th 20251,4455

Always secure your cutting board

When using a cutting board, it's very important that it's stable and doesn't move while you're cutting, for safety's sake. Boards have a natural tendency to slide on the work surface, but here are 2 ways to block them effectively.
July 1^st 20251,5265

See all posts Random post RSS feeds

Other pages you may also like

Thinning out herbs

A few tips for effective kneading at home

When you have to knead dough for bread or some other recipe, you may well use a food processor or the type of machine known as a stand mixer. The best-known brands are Kenwood and KitchenAid. They are useful tools, but here are a few tips to help you get the best out of them.
June 23^th 2021277 K 23.7

Butter doesn't make you fat, unless you eat too much of it.

Whenever I'm discussing cooking and recipes, there is one idea which comes up frequently, like this: "Oh no! But that's got butter in it" (I should add, for the sake of accuracy, that this is something I hear more frequently from women, who are almost all concerned with keeping their figure). ...
March 26^th 201241 K4.5

How to zest a fruit?

You will have no doubt noticed that many recipes call for the zest of citrus fruit. The zest is that outer layer of the skin which adds so much flavour to a dish. There are many different ways to peel off the zest and various tools are available. Here is a summary of the “dos and don'ts” of...
November 5^th 201344 K3.8

Candied fruits: don't get ripped off

Do you like candied fruit? You might like to nibble a handful or add it to a recipe, like a classic fruit cake or delicious Italian specialities like panettone or sicilian epiphany pie.
June 21^th 201763 K 24.2