HOW TO ACHIEVE GREAT BAKING RESULTS FROM PROPER MIXING TECHNIQUES

I’m not very good at baking, so I asked my friend Chef Jenni, a fantastic baker and even better teacher, to go through the various mixing procedures for ingredients in order to get the greatest possible baking results with bakery mixer.

It’s vital to grasp how individual components work in the baking process before attempting this, so I recommend that you read Bread Making Ingredients and then return here to learn how to combine them all together.

I’ll post the Two-Stage Method and the Egg Foam Technique as separate entries because Chef Jenni goes into such vivid detail with them.

INGREDIENT TEMPERATURES

The most crucial point to keep in mind about the bread, biscuit, and cake methods is that all ingredients should be at or near cool room temperature (about 68-70 degrees Fahrenheit), or around 68-70 degrees Fahrenheit. Solid fats and proteins will become more “plastic” (more “stretchy”) if they’re kept at the correct temperature.

• If your proteins are too cold, they will take longer to combine and foam up.
• If your fat is too cold, it won’t be stiff enough to allow for optimum air absorption.
• If your fat is too hot, it will lose its malleability and become hard, so be sure that your fat is soft and moldable, similar to Play-Doh.
• It shouldn’t be as fluffy as a cloud, but it should be soft enough so that you can run your finger through it without creating a furrow.
• It should be pliable, not melt.

CREAMING METHOD

The temperature of the fat and eggs should be cool in order to achieve maximum creaming efficiency. Fat is whipped with sugar in this method, causing tiny wounds or pockets in the fat where bubbles may develop and expand. It’s critical to properly cream the fat (a new, technical phrase).

The egg is the next component we add in the creaming procedure. You’ve labored so hard to cream the fat and sugar until they’re creamy or fluffy (depending on the recipe). What do you think will happen if you add 39 degree eggs to a fattened fat?

Am I the only one who finds it odd that they’re talking about “plastic fat” when, in reality, all we have is real fat? It’s important to keep liquid under 140°F to prevent crystallization. All we have is real fat; there’s no such thing as plastic fat! When your dough or batter cools down, the fat will harden. If your butter is too warm it will have an oily consistency, so I recommend using real butter not margarine unless you’re making a cake because margarine contains water.

THE MIXING TECHNIQUE

Many cookies, as well as cakes, are produced by creaming. I’m not sure whether you noticed a difference in texture between cookies and cakes, but I do notice a difference. Cookies have a thinner, finer texture than cakes.

It’s true that cookies generally have more liquid than cakes, and some of this texture distinction is due to the higher amount of liquid components. Differences in creaming account for a portion of the variation.

To produce a chewy cookie, you must first make a soft fat/sugar paste on low speed. You’re done when the distinct pieces of fat and sugar no longer appear in the mixing basin with bakery mixer. Creaming should begin slowly and finish on medium speed to create a lighter cookie with a cake-like texture (or to make a cake).

The goal is to have light and fluffy dough, not dense and paste-like as for chewy cookies. The longer creaming period allows for more air pockets to be formed in the fat, ensuring maximum leavening.

THE MUFFIN METHOD

The muffin method is a less involved technique of combining ingredients. You must still make sure that your components are at room temperature, but as long as you use a light touch when combining the wet and dry ingredients together, you should be fine.

Breaking apart a baked muffin to inspect the crumb is an easy test for seeing whether you’ve incorporated enough. You assembled too energetically if you see lengthy tunnels in the crumb.

The air bubbles (created by chemical leaveners, in this case) that rise to the surface of a batter with plenty of gluten in it are what create these tunnels. Remember—flour + liquid = gluten.

Another factor to consider when utilizing the muffin technique is that there is no “pre-leavening,” as with the creaming method. I refer to these as tiny pockets of sugar and fat, like those formed while creaming, in this case.

In the muffin method, the fat will mix with the wet ingredients in a liquid state (either oil or melted butter).

If you’re trying to make a healthier version of something like brownies, cookie dough or cake pops, spelt flour is worth considering. Because it has no gluten and absorbs moisture extremely well (unlike wheat flour), this type of flour is great for making low-carb breads.

• it will disperse chemical leaveners throughout your dish to produce an equal rise.
• Over time, flour sifting aerates the dry ingredients, providing tiny air pockets for the chemical leaveners to expand into.