Baking Ingredients: Flour, Milk, and Chocolate

Ingredients in Baking

• Flour is finely ground meal from cereal grains or root crops. It is the primary ingredient in baking
• Wheat flour provides structure, thickening, and nutritive value to baked goods.
• Hard wheat contains more glutenin and gliadin, making stronger flours.
• Strong flours are used in breads and yeast products
• Soft wheat makes weak flours used in cakes, cookies, and pastries.
• North American wheat varieties: hard red winter, hard red spring, hard white, soft white, soft red winter, and durum.
• Bran is the hard outer covering of the kernel, rich in fiber, B vitamins, fat, protein, and minerals.
• Germ is the part of the kernel that can sprout, containing protein, vitamins, minerals, and fat.
• Endosperm is the white, starchy part of the kernel. It remains after bran and germ are removed.
• White flour is composed mainly of starch (68–76%), protein (6–18%), glutenin & gliadin make up 80% of the protein, moisture (11–14%), gums (pentosans 2-3%), fat (1%), ash (mineral content 0.3 to 1.5%), and pigments (carotenoids, orange-yellow).

Types of Flour

• Bread flour: 12–14% protein, high gluten strength, used in breads
• All-purpose flour: mixture of soft and hard flours, 8–11% protein, widely used.
• Cake flour: 7–9% protein, fine texture, high starch content, used in cakes
• Whole wheat flour: contains the whole grain (bran, endosperm, germ). 13% protein

Protein in Flour

• Gluten is a mixture of wheat proteins (glutenin and gliadin), forming a tough, elastic substance when flour is mixed with water.
• Glutenin gives dough strength to hold the leavening gases
• Gliadin provides stretchability to gluten

Hand Test for Flour Strength

• Bakeries typically keep three white flours on hand.
• Bakers can identify flours using sight and touch.

Other Wheat Flours

• Durum flour
• Self-rising flour
• Whole wheat flour
• Bran flour
• Cracked wheat

Other Flours, Meals, and Starches

• Rye, Corn, Spelt, Oats, Buckwheat, Soy, Rice
• Starches: Cornstarch, Waxy maize, and Instant

Sugars

• Sugar is a simple carbohydrate, adding sweetness and flavor.
• Sugar creates tenderness, improves texture, and provides crust color.
• Sugar increases moisture retention.
• Sugar is used as a creaming and foaming agent.
• Sugars provide food for yeast.
• Sucrose (cane or beet sugar)
• Lactose (milk sugar)
• Maltose (malt sugar)
• Fructose (fruit sugar)
• Invert sugar: equal parts of dextrose and levulose, 30% sweeter. Holds moisture, helps cakes stay fresh and resists crystallization.
• Types of granulated sugars: regular granulated sugar, caster sugar, sanding sugar, pearl sugar.
• Other types of sugars include powdered sugar, dehydrated fondant, brown sugar, Demerara sugar
• Non-nutritive sweeteners (sugar substitutes) are available

Syrups

• Syrups are solutions of sugar dissolved in water.
• Simple syrup: dissolved sucrose in water
• Molasses: concentrated sugarcane syrup
• Glucose Corn Syrup: made from cornstarch
• Malt syrup: extracted from barley
• Honey

Fats

• Fats increase tenderness in baked goods by preventing sticking of gluten strands.
• Fats add moistness, richness, and flavor to baked goods.
• Fats assist leavening (as creaming agents) and contribute to flakiness.
• Types of fats: Shortenings (solid fats, usually white and tasteless, devised for handling high-sugar batters), High ratio liquid shortenings, Butter (80% fat, adds flavor and melts at body temperature), Margarine (animal/vegetable fats plus emulsifiers/coloring), Oils (liquid fats), Lard (rendered hog fat).

Advantages of Butter

• Butter has a desirable flavor while shortenings are flavorless.
• Butter melts in the mouth, while shortenings tend to leave a film in the mouth.

Refrigerated Margarine

• Made from various hydrogenated animal and vegetable fats.
• Contains flavoring, emulsifiers, coloring agents.
• Maintains solid form at room temperature.
• Contains fat (80-85%), moisture (10-15%), and other components (salt, milk solids).

Oils

• Oils are liquid fats.
• Oils are not commonly used as shortenings because they spread thoroughly through the dough or batter.

Milk and Milk Products

• Milk and cream increase richness in baked goods.
• They add moisture, enabling gluten development, texture, flavor, and color.
• Milk adds keeping quality and nutritive value.

Eggs

• Eggs contribute structure to baking by emulsifying fats and liquids, aiding leavening, adding moisture, flavor, color, and nutritive value.
• Egg composition: yolk (high in fat and protein, iron, vitamins), white (albumin protein), shell (porous), chalazae (holds yolk), membrane, air cell.
• Market forms of eggs: fresh, frozen, dried

Egg Sizes

• One whole egg = 1.67 oz (47g)
• One egg white = 1 oz(28g)
• One yolk = 0.67 oz (19g)
• 9 1/2 whole eggs = 1 lb
• 16 whites = 1 lb
• 24 yolks = 1lb

Leavening Agents

• Leavening is the incorporation of gases in a baked product.
• This increases volume and forms shape/texture.

Yeasts

• Fermentation by yeast changes sugars to carbon dioxide.
• Yeast is a living organism, vulnerable to temperature changes.
• Temperature affects yeast activity: 34°F is inactive, 60-70°F slow action, 70-90°F best growth, above 100°F reaction slows and above 140°F kills yeast
• Types of yeast: fresh/compressed (preferred by professionals, lasts 2 weeks), active dry, instant dry

Chemical Leaveners

• Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate): releases carbon dioxide gas when moisture and acid are present.
• Baking powder: a mixture of baking soda and acids.
• Double-acting baking powder releases gases with moisture and heat.
• Baking ammonia: a mixture of ammonium carbonate, ammonium bicarbonate, and ammonium carbonate

Air

• Air is incorporated into dough/batter during mixing.
• Air cells are crucial in leavened products made with yeast or baking powder because they collect/hold gases.

Methods of Incorporating Air

• Creaming: beating fat and sugar together to trap air.
• Foaming: beating eggs (with or without sugar) to trap air.

Steam

• Water transforms into steam, expanding to 100 times its volume.
• Moisture in baked goods makes steam a vital leavening agent.

Gelling Agents

• Gelatin: water-soluble protein from animal connective tissue, used as a gelling agent in recipes.
• Two forms of gelatin: powdered and leaf/sheet.
• Gelatin usage in recipes: soaks up 5 times its weight in water, adds to recipes with hot ingredients, and is chilled to set.
• Pectin: vegetable gum, absorbs water, thickens or gels, needs high sugar content and acid for gelling fruit preserves (jams, jellies)

Fruits and Nuts

• Nuts commonly used: almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, pecans, pine nuts, pistachios, and walnuts.

Nut Products

• Almond paste, Kernel paste, Macaroon paste, Marzipan, Praline paste

Chocolate and Cocoa

• Chocolate and cocoa come from cocoa/cacao beans and are processed (fermented, roasted, ground).
• Cocoa liquor is the dry powder left over after removing cocoa butter.
• Dutch-processed cocoa is processed with alkali which makes it darker and easier to dissolve in liquid.
• Unsweetened chocolate is straight chocolate liquor.
• Sweet chocolate is bitter chocolate with sugar and cocoa butter.
• Milk chocolate is sweet chocolate with milk solids.
• Cocoa butter is the fat pressed from chocolate liquor.
• White chocolate is made of cocoa butter, sugar, and milk solids (no cocoa solids)
• Cocoa absorbs moisture, so flour needs to be reduced by 3/8 of the weight of cocoa added.

Salt, Spices, and Flavorings

• Salt: strengthens gluten, extends gluten's stretchability, and inhibits yeast growth.
• Spices/seeds: Allspice, anise, caraway, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, mace, nutmeg, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, zest of lemon/orange.
• Vanilla: often crucial flavoring in pastry shop using vanilla beans and extract.
• Extracts: are flavorful oils/other substances dissolved in alcohol.
• Emulsions: flavorful oils mixed with water using emulsifiers (like vegetable gums)
• Two types of flavorings are present, natural and artificial.
• Alcohols: added for flavor (sweet alcohols/liqueurs-cassis, orange; and non-sweet alcohols-rum, cognac; and wines-Marsala, Madeira).