When I began baking from Maida’s book, I quickly realized I needed a strong supply of fine, dried bread crumbs. So far, for every cake I’ve made, the pan is prepared with butter and a dusting of bread crumbs, not flour. I wondered why and found that bread crumbs are actually better to use when a batter is thin, that they help to absorb liquid and make for more even baking. They are either absorbed into the cake or can be lightly brushed off as the cake cools.

The only time I’ve run into a problem with using bread crumb pan coating so far is my own fault. They brown if a cake is baked a bit too long or too high temperature.

For these cookies bread crumbs become a main ingredient when they with walnuts replace flour. I could not find much about using bread crumbs in baking except that it does make sense. Perhaps in times when people did not have access to flour, it was a likely substitute.

These cookies came out well, moist and rich, not too sweet. I think it would be extremely hard to guess about the bread crumbs.