13 Giada De Laurentiis Hacks That Will Make You A Better Baker

With her bubbly disposition and catalog of hearty American Italian recipes under her belt, Giada De Laurentiis is an excellent chef to watch if you want to improve your cooking skills. From handy ways to repurpose leftover spaghetti to brilliant hacks for organizing your pantry, the previous Food Network host and social media icon covers all kitchen bases. However, one of the areas where De Laurentiis' luxurious cooking style really shines is baking.

Italian cuisine is famous for its mouthwatering desserts like gelato, creamy tiramisu, and jiggly panna cotta and De Laurentiis makes the most of this tradition. If you want to wow your friends at a dinner party or whip up something special for a birthday, you can find recipes for sponges, pies, and cookies among De Laurentiis' repertoire. And let's not forget festive panettone bread pudding — something no Italian Christmas would be complete without. No matter what type of dessert you'd like to master, these Giada De Laurentiis kitchen tips will make you a better baker.

Giving viewers a kitchen tour on TikTok, Giada De Laurentiis reveals that she "considers her freezer part of her pantry" and that she keeps her flours frozen. While most people store flour in the bag, or at most in a Kilner jar in the cupboard, keeping it in the freezer can help it stay fresh and lengthen its shelf-life. Flour is shelf-stable and can last for six to eight months at room temperature. While you can safely eat flour that is older than this or that is past its expiration date, when flour goes rancid you may notice an unpleasant taste or see mold or discoloration throughout the pack.

Opting to put your flour in the freezer can extend its shelf life up to two years. That's a substantial jump and great if you're someone who doesn't bake often. When you do want to use your flour, just remove the amount you need and let it hit room temperature before starting to cook. During her pantry tour, De Laurentiis also adds that she stores nuts in the freezer to help them stay fresh.

There's something effortlessly homely and comforting about fresh-baked pies. Giada De Laurentiis offers a whole host of pie recipes across her social media platforms, from cheeky sweet treats like a chocolate caramel crunch pie to classic fruit varieties. While many avid bakers use a beaten egg wash to seal the pie crust around the edges and to help give the pastry a golden finish, De Laurentiis suggests using something else: apricot jam.

Explaining the hack in a video posted on her Facebook, De Laurentiis notes that "apricot jam tastes better but does the same job as egg and doesn't affect the flavor of the pie." She adds that she learned the technique while at culinary school in Paris. If it's good enough for French patisserie, it's bound to be worth a try.

Coating the top crust of your pies or pastries with apricot jam will give them a glossy, glazed appearance. However, you can also brush the inside of your pie base with jam to help prevent it from going soggy when your liquid filling is added. Apply the jam just the way you would egg wash, smoothing it on lightly with a pastry brush until the surface is covered.

If you're beating egg whites for a meringue or to add to a cake recipe, you want to make sure they have a fluffy, aerated texture that won't deflate quickly. This is especially important if your recipe calls for egg whites whipped into firm or stiff peaks. In a recipe for Italian chocolate cake (torta caprese), Giada De Laurentiis demonstrates how she adds a pinch of salt to her egg whites halfway through mixing.

De Laurentiis explains that this "helps the beating and [...] stabilizes them a little bit," leading to frothier, more luxurious peaks. The added salt stiffens long protein strands in the egg, making them harder to break down, and meaning you need to whip them for longer. This longer mixing time causes the egg whites to take on board more air and helps them hold their shape. However, it's important not to add your salt before you start beating — wait until the eggs are somewhat foamy — as this can damage the integrity of the whites and prevent them from clumping. You can also use cream of tartar instead of salt to create the same effect.

One of the big mistakes that can ruin scrambled eggs and other egg-based dishes is cracking your eggs under pressure. Breaking your eggs on a sharp edge or with a knife forces tiny shell fragments inwards, which can lead to unpleasantly crunchy shards ending up on your plate. However, sometimes you're in a hurry and sometimes you don't want to risk smashing an egg on your sideboard, so you go ahead and use the edge of the bowl anyway. Maybe a little piece of eggshell falls in.

Well, don't panic — Giada De Laurentiis has a hack for that. In one of her YouTube shorts, De Laurentiis explains you should use the broken shell, rather than your finger, to fish out any pieces of eggshell from your dish. De Laurentiis says that "the reason [this] works so well to get the extra eggshell out is because it has a bit of a rough edge [...] so [it] cuts through the egg white part." This ability to slice through slimy liquid allows you to fish that spiky shard out in one clean scoop.

While demonstrating a versatile cookie recipe on the Food Network, Giada De Laurentiis shared a key baking tip with her viewers, noting that "you want to make sure that when you bake, you use room temperature ingredients." This rule specifically applies to wet ingredients, like eggs and butter. With eggs, bringing them to room temperature before baking will help them blend better with dry ingredients. This stops your mixture from getting a lumpy texture and helps ensure your cake or cookie dough rises.

With butter, it's a lot easier to stir into your mix once it's softened as, again, cold butter tends to clump. There are a few exceptions where you'll want to add chilled butter to your mix — for example, biscuit recipes call for cold butter to be added in chunks. When these chunks melt, the air pockets left behind give biscuits their flaky, crumbly texture. A great hack to prepare butter for biscuits is to use your potato masher in an unexpected way to break the block into small lumps.

To bring wet ingredients to room temperature, you can allow them to sit on the counter for a while before you start — although if your kitchen is very warm or humid, this is not recommended for food safety reasons. Alternatively, you can run your eggs under hot water for a few minutes or simply warm butter slightly in the microwave.

Everyone loves super puffy breakfast pancakes and Giada De Laurentiis is no exception. Of course, being a pro chef, she goes the extra mile for the perfect consistency and shares her tips with her followers. In a decadent recipe for tiramisu pancakes, De Laurentiis includes two beaten egg whites on her ingredient list, along with mascarpone, Greek yogurt, espresso, and egg yolks to create a creamy, coffee-flavored dish.

By separating the eggs and pre-aerating the whites through beating, De Laurentiis gives us an effective hack for sneaking more air into our pancake mix. And more air means more air bubbles, giving your dish a light, silky quality. While tiramisu pancakes do sound gorgeous, you can also add beaten egg whites to boxed pancake mix or plain drop scones. The end result is a beautifully fluffy stack you can enjoy at any time of day.

Lemon zest is a surprisingly important ingredient when you're baking all manner of citrus-based treats. You can use it to garnish lemon tarts, mix it into easy 2-ingredient lemon bars, or use it to add some texture to a rich citrusy cheesecake. But, according to Giada De Laurentiis, we've been grating lemons wrong, all because of a little mistake with our handheld zesters.

In a TikTok, De Laurentiis points out that, instead of pressing the lemon down onto the grater and then rubbing it to take the skin off, we should place the grater on top of the lemon. This way, De Laurentiis says, "You can see how much you're actually grating." This handy tip stops you from zesting off too much peel and accidentally cutting into the fruit, causing juice to spurt out. It also means you'll get just the amount of zest you need, meaning you can set your lemon aside in the fridge and use it again later.

Although she loves authentic, homemade recipes, Giada De Laurentiis is not afraid to whip out boxed cake mix from time to time. In fact, De Laurentiis has plenty of hacks to help you elevate boxed cake mix and save time in the kitchen. In one recipe on her blog, De Laurentiis provides instructions for a hazelnut crunch cake with mascarpone – sounds divine yet time-consuming to make, right? However, the base of the recipe is boxed chocolate cake mix with chopped hazelnuts sprinkled through it and a rich mascarpone and heavy cream filling. Sign us up! 

In another adorable YouTube video presented by De Laurentiis' daughter, Jade, she shares a hack for making cookies out of boxed cake mix. In the video, Jade tests the theory that you can "take any cake mix and two eggs and a half cup of oil and it will make cookies."

As Jade then demonstrates, this ingredient combo forms a sturdy mixture that can be scooped onto a tray and baked in the oven for 11 minutes. The result? Perfectly chocolatey cookies for a fraction of the effort.

Any excuse to add more protein to baked goods is excellent in our book. After all, if it's healthy we can eat more of it. Giada De Laurentiis' tip for beefing up your brownies with plant-based protein is a must-try for anyone who wants a moist, dense texture with some extra fiber and nutrients stowed away inside.

De Laurentiis posted the recipe on her blog with the title Better-For-You Espresso Peanut Butter Brownies. It's a fairly standard brownie mixture, except for the addition of the drained black beans and 1 tablespoon of espresso powder, both of which get blended into the batter using a food processor. The salty element comes from the peanut butter baking chips that are sprinkled on the bottom of the pan to give the brownies some salty crunch.

Black beans are extremely high in protein, as well as other nutrients, like potassium and iron. According to De Laurentiis, they also give these brownies a rich, fudge-like texture, without adding extra fat from cream or cream cheese.

Making your dough from scratch gives pizza night a real Italian feel and Giada De Laurentiis has plenty of recipes and pizza-making tips to get you started. Of course, you can buy premade pizza dough, but if you want to push the boat out, homemade crust really can't be beaten. De Laurentiis' recipe for pizza dough is rustic and easy to follow. She adds yeast, water, honey, and salt to flour and then uses the dough hook setting on her blender to combine.

Once your dough is mixed, it should have a sticky, slightly tacky texture. To form your dough into a ball, De Laurentiis suggests you coat your hands with a thin layer of olive oil as this will stop the dough from snagging while you shape it. You can also line the bowl with a small amount of olive oil ready for when you put your dough ball back into it to rest. You don't need to use much — just a very light drizzle will do and will help your base to turn crisp and golden as it bakes.

Maybe when you think of alcoholic desserts ... bitter brandy chocolates or stodgy fruitcakes are all that come to mind. Well, Giada De Laurentiis proves that using alcohol in your baking is actually a great idea.

Italy is well-known for its amaro culture and has a wealth of traditional digestif and aperitivo liqueurs you can try. While they are usually enjoyed as a drink before or after a meal — you can also turn them into tasty cocktails such as a classic negroni or a refreshing Aperol Spritz – Giada De Laurentiis takes things in a new direction and often incorporates sweet amaro into her baking.

One Giadzy recipe uses lavish helpings of Aperol to create soft dough cookies topped with gorgeously glossy peach icing. Another recipe featured on De Laurentiis' TikTok uses Campari to create a fluffy meringue-topped bundt cake. De Laurentiis also has a mouth-watering recipe for iced limoncello cake.

Sometimes things go slightly wrong even for the best bakers. If your cookies spread too much and come out thin and flat, Giada De Laurentiis suggests repurposing them, so you don't miss out on a tasty snack. In a video on her YouTube channel, De Laurentiis shares one of her favorite cookie hacks: She uses flattened cookies to make an ice cream sandwich bar. The crumbly, crisp cookie texture gives a toothy contrast to the soft ice cream.

You can also crumble cookies up and sprinkle them on ice cream scoops for an irresistible sleepover treat or a movie night. If you want to avoid cookies spreading in the first place, watch out for common baking mistakes like having the oven heat too low or putting too much grease on your baking sheet. Using baking paper or spray is a better option for cookies.

If you're chopping up nuts to sprinkle on a cake or slicing up fruit for a pie, the last thing you want is your cutting board sliding about underneath you. Giada De Laurentiis has a brilliant hack to essentially stick your board to the counter. This tip is super easy (seriously, it takes seconds) and all you need is a piece of kitchen paper towel and water.

De Laurentiis showcases the hack in a short YouTube video featured on SELF. In it, she demonstrates how you can run a couple of sheets of paper under the tap water and, "Put it flat on the counter so that it sticks and then the cutting boards sticks right on top [with] no movement." Cutting on a stable surface is a lot easier and safer, especially if you're using a very sharp or serrated knife. This is a great trick to use if you want to save yourself some frustration and avoid accidents in the kitchen.