Step 1: Choose a Yeast Bread Recipe The first step in learning how to make bread is to choose your bread type. Are you a fan of soft-textured white bread, mixed-grain loaves, or slices of sourdough? Perhaps you’re looking for a sweet bread recipe or even one with chocolate. You can also start with specialty bread like a French bread recipe or a recipe for yeast bread rolls. Each style of bread has a slightly different method, but all start with the same key ingredients—flour and yeast....

Like learning how to slice and dice an onion or how to peel a mango, learning how to chop (or mince) garlic just takes patience and practice. Garlic cloves are rather small, so improving your knife skills here, particularly if you’re working toward a mince, will help you out with any recipe, no matter what you’re chopping. What You’ll Need Cutting boardChef’s knifeGarlicGarlic press How to Peel Garlic Peeling garlic is a must: The papery skins are not pleasant to eat....

“To understand color fading you need to understand the anatomy of the human hair shaft,” says Aaron Brandford, a colorist at Cedric Salon in New York City. “The outermost layer is the cuticle, which resembles a scaly snakeskin under the microscope. The inner layer, protected by the cuticle, is the cortex, where pigment resides. The concern for hair color relates to both the cuticle and the cortex, and how these two layers interact with three variables: heat, water, and sun....

Luckily, most chocolate stains can be easily removed from clothing, upholstery, and carpet by using a stain pretreatment product. While there are many good stain removers on the market, there is one, in particular, that is excellent at treating chocolate stains. However, there are times when a more intensive stain-removal process is required. This guide will explain how and when to use a stain treatment product versus a deeper cleaning method for removing chocolate stains....

There are many delicious methods for how to cook mushrooms, but we think roasting them is one of the best—the high and dry heat can bring out all their savory, meaty, deeply complex flavors. But even roasting can lead to soggy-textured mushrooms. Thanks to their spongey structure (similar to eggplants), mushrooms are highly prone to emitting a lot of moisture as they cook. It’s near impossible for mushrooms to brown until this water has evaporated, because the moisture makes it difficult for them to reach a high enough internal temperature....

Canned cranberry sauce is made with fresh cranberries that are cooked in water, sweetened, cooked again until the berries have broken down, and poured into cans. Ingredients typically include cranberries, corn syrup, water, and citric acid (a preservative). Interestingly, canned cranberry sauce does not contain gelatin or pectin because cranberries themselves have a high pectin content. Read on for tips on prepping canned cranberry sauce and how to impress guests when you serve it....

However, living with others is not always easy—especially when it comes to talking about money. A survey by Apartment Guide on roommate experiences found that more than one in five people had argued with their roommates regarding finances. “Having a roommate can help someone save money, but finances can make or break the experience,” says Khari Washington, broker and owner of 1st United Realty in Southern California. It’s hard to talk about money with friends (much less people you don’t know very well), but it’s necessary to have an honest discussion when you’re going to be living with them....

And why not leave the harsh chemicals behind while you’re at it? Crack open the windows, press play on a new audiobook, and read on for a room-by-room breakdown of DIY cleaning concoctions you can whip up using many of the essential ingredients found right inside your home (more all-natural solutions in our comprehensive guide). Not the DIY type? Discover our top picks for green cleaning products that can be purchased at a store near you....

First, you’ll need to become familiar with the main adversary to any cookie’s freshness: air. Prolonged exposure to open air makes starchy foods stale. Air exposes these foods to greater evaporation (even if through just a slit in a plastic bag), making them dry. Think of a drink left out overnight: There will be less of the liquid in that cup in the morning, and cookies work in a similar way....

First, you’ll need to become familiar with the main adversary to any cookie’s freshness: air. Prolonged exposure to open air makes starchy foods stale. Air exposes these foods to greater evaporation (even if through just a slit in a plastic bag), making them dry. Think of a drink left out overnight: There will be less of the liquid in that cup in the morning, and cookies work in a similar way....

Perfume Degradation Perfume degradation starts the moment you open the box. Even though primarily decorative, perfume boxes actually serve a super important purpose in keeping the fragrance away from light, preventing oxygen from getting inside the bottle, and maintaining a stable temperature. While boxed, the fragrance doesn’t have much exposure to oxygen until the first whiff, and so any internal changes will start from there (like a wine after it is uncorked)....

When you’re inactive for long periods—think sitting at your desk, commuting, or watching TV for hours—the muscles that move and stabilize your hips can get tight (or, more technically, short). A large muscle group called the hip flexors—which originate in your low back and cross over your hips and are largely responsible for hip flexion (any knee-to-chest movement)—can tighten and constrict when they aren’t stretched, strengthen, and utilized (or moved) frequently enough....

Aside from my collection of workout-ready leggings, my go-to stretchy pants are a pair of lounge leggings from Alo Yoga. While you could certainly tackle a yoga or Pilates class in these moisture-wicking tights—they’re made of a softer version of the brand’s performance fabric—I prefer wearing them to run errands and relax at home. The high-waisted leggings have a thick ribbed waistband that feels comfortable, not restricting, around the lower part of the stomach....

As a general statement, I am an anxious, not-at-all-chill, never-relaxed person. This personality type works for me. It’s how, within minutes of being commissioned this article by my editor, I agreed to try CBD in my coffee, got my hands on some unflavored CBD oil, and experimented with my own mental state. CBD, short for cannabidiol, has become nearly synonymous with wellness in the past year. Derived from hemp, CBD is the compound thought to make users feel relaxed....

To buy: From $255 (was $300); amazon.com. This hybrid mattress combines the comfort of memory foam with the support of an innerspring, featuring multiple layers of both. At its base, a perimeter of 360 individually wrapped coils provides body contouring and lumbar support, while atop, three layers of upholstery-grade support foam, soft quilt foam, and temperature-regulating high-density gel memory foam combine to form 3.25 inches of cushioning. The result is a padded mattress that provides the firmness you need and the comfort you seek, together setting the stage for the type of restful sleep you deserve....

Eccrine sweat, the sweat we’re talking about here, is the salty kind sourced from the watery parts of blood and is released from the 2 to 5 million eccrine sweat glands across your skin’s surface. “This is the stuff that floods out when our body temperature rises to help cool us down,” notes Sarah Everts, a science journalist and journalism professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and author of the new book, The Joy of Sweat: The Strange Science of Perspiration....

For example, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), many homes that were built before 1978 used lead-based paint—and even the dust from the paint can be hazardous to your health. And that’s not the only potential problem you might in a home built before 1978. If you live in an old house, these are the things you need to check—or call in a professional to check for you....

The year 2020 was unique. For one, it was the start of a new decade. But more significantly, it will be forever remembered as the beginning of the COVID pandemic—which, of course, the color experts couldn’t have predicted when they chose their swatches in late 2019. What they did consider when making their picks: pop culture, architectural trends, and technological advancements. These factors influence the way consumers think about color, shifting the aesthetic mood and orienting us toward certain looks....

With more than 100 items, the new Container Store x KonMari collection covers everything from closets, to kitchens, to home offices. There’s even an adorable selection of baskets and bookshelves for kids’ rooms. You can shop the collection online now (you’ll have to sign in to or create a POP! account to see all the products), and in stores on January 15. “When I was looking to develop products, I wanted a sustainable line that would spark joy and deliver the versatility and expertise The Container Store is famous for,” says Marie Kondo in the press release....

The Kate Spade Summer Sale allows you to take 20 to 40 percent off of just about everything on the site, excluding home items and select products, depending on how much you spend. To break it down, if you spend more than $200, you can save 20 percent; if you spend more than $400, you can save 30 percent; and if you spend more than $600, you can save 40 percent....