If I could ice every cake in whipped cream, I would. But, because it is whipped with air alone, it doesn’t stay thick over many hours. One way to keep it stable is to dissolve 1 teaspoon of gelatin in 2 tablespoons of boiling water, cool it to room temperature and drizzle it into your whipping cream when it is halfway thickened. Then, whip it a little longer than usual — until it holds medium-firm peaks.

Updated in 2019: I’ve been remiss to add the simpler stabilization method I’ve used for the last several years. It’s adapted from Nancy Silverton and it never fails. For every cup of heavy cream you whip, beat in 1 to 2 tablespoons of sour cream or creme fraiche. It won’t make it tangy (or not in any truly notable way) but it does keep the whipped cream stable. I have had jars of this in the fridge for 4 to 5 days and found them just as fluffy as they were on the first day.

Homemade whipped cream leaves the canned, and god forbid, bucket stuff in the dust (being actually whipped and cream), and takes less than five minutes to make. The trick: a cold bowl, clean beaters, and a ratio of about 1 cup of heavy or whipping cream to 1 tablespoon of powdered sugar, beaten until it holds soft peaks. Start low, so you don’t splash yourself when it is still liquid. Add a splash of flavoring (vanilla, almond or a liqueur) at the end for extra awesomeness.

Flash freezing — the process of spacing items out on a tray, freezing them until they are firm and then storing them in more space-efficient freezer bags — is the single most revolutionizing concept I have adapted into my cooking repertoire, because it allows us to freeze uncooked dumplings, gnocchi, biscuits, scones and even scooped cookies without them become one doughy mass.

After years of struggling to perfectly poach an egg, I discovered I could get much of what I liked about them from soft-boiled eggs, with a zero percent failure rate to boot. My technique is just like that of my hard-boiled eggs, except I drop the boiling time down to 6 minutes. This assures a solid white and soft yolk, and the pinnacle of deliciousness spread over buttered toast and topped with a pinch of salt.

[Updated] There are about as many techniques for hard-boiling eggs as there are eggs out there, but until 2017, I used the method my mother taught me because it never fails: Submerge a large egg in enough cold water to cover it and bring the water to a boil over medium-high heat. Once it begins to boil, set a timer for 10 minutes. Plunge the egg into cold water to get it to stop cooking. Plus, cold eggs are much easier to peel.

However, the trickiest part was always knowing when the water starts to boil. How would you if you weren’t standing over watching it, and we all know how that goes. In 2017, I realized that I could gently lower an egg into already boiling water and do almost exactly what’s written above — cook it for 10 minutes then plunge it into cold water, except now I use ice water and let it rest in there until it’s completely cold through, about 15 minutes — and it not only perfectly boils and egg, no pot-watching required, but it seemed to peel even more easily. I wondered if there was any science to it and whoa, there is.

Both my mom’s method and this new one work splendidly, and I promise will work for you, but I’m now fully converted to the newer method, because it’s easier and easier to peel.