The Baking Answer Book (15 page)

Supermarkets, natural foods stores, and baking catalogs have an array of flours of different protein contents. Remember that protein content can vary from season to season (wheat grown at certain times of year is lower in protein than at others) and by brand. Processing impacts protein content — bleached all-purpose flour is weaker than unbleached. The way a flour is labeled can also vary by region. Because of regional baking traditions and tastes,
Southern brands of all-purpose flour will have less protein than national and Northern brands.

Following is a chart of how much protein each type of flour generally contains, to help you choose the right ones for your particular baking needs.

Fat, whether from butter, oil, shortening, or egg yolks, contributes to tenderness by coating the proteins in flour so they can’t easily link together to form gluten. This is why yeast breads that contain butter or other fat, such as croissants and brioche, are much more tender than fat-free baguettes. For fat to work most effectively as a tenderizer, it is added to the flour before any liquid is added, to coat the protein strands. “Shortened” baked goods — piecrust, biscuits, scones — are ones in which the butter is cut into the flour in this way, very effectively coating the proteins with fat and thus “shortening” the gluten strands that do manage to develop.

Sugar is also a tenderizer. During mixing, sugar absorbs liquid in a dough or batter, preventing a portion of it from combining with the flour in protein and thus preventing some gluten from forming. Thus, sweeter doughs and batters will generally be more tender than doughs and batters with little or no sugar.

It’s not just ingredients, but how they are handled that will affect the tenderness of baked goods. In general, gentle handling results in less gluten formation, which results in a more tender product. This is why a biscuit recipe will instruct you to mix until the dough “just holds together,” rather than
until it is a “smooth, round ball.” It’s also why experienced bakers, who are able roll pie dough in just a few motions, wind up with a more tender crust than novices who roll over the dough dozens of times, thus strengthening the gluten and toughening the crust.

Apple Tart with Cream Cheese Crust

Acid, fat, and sugar are a recipe for tender pastry. Acidic cream cheese, along with a generous amount of sugar and a load of butter, gives this simple dough exceptional tenderness. The dough is sticky and soft because it contains so much fat, so it is best to roll it out on parchment paper before sliding it into the tart pan.

SERVES 6

¾ cup sugar

teaspoon salt

½ cup (4 ounces) chilled cream cheese, cut into small pieces

½ cup (1 stick) chilled butter, cut into small pieces

2 large, tart apples such as Granny Smiths

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

1.
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Flour a 12-inch square of parchment paper.

2.
Combine the flour, ½ cup of the sugar, and the salt in a medium bowl and beat with an electric mixer on low speed until just combined. Add the cream cheese and butter and mix on low until the dough just comes together in a ball.

3.
Press the ball of dough into a 6-inch circle on the parchment. Flour the top of the dough. Roll out to an 11-inch circle, sliding an off set spatula under the dough as you roll to keep it from sticking to the parchment.

4.
Slide the dough from the parchment into a 10-inch tart pan with a removable bottom, gently pressing it into the sides of the pan. Run the rolling pin over the top of the pan to trim the excess dough. Place the pan in the freezer for 15 minutes.

5.
Peel, halve, and core the apples. Cut each apple half into ¼-inch-thick slices. Combine the sliced apples, the remaining ¼ cup sugar, and the cinnamon in a bowl, tossing to coat. Let it stand, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is dissolved.

6.
Arrange the apples in concentric circles on top of the chilled shell. Bake until the crust is browned and the apples are golden, about 35 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack.

7.
Heat the jelly on the stove or in the microwave until liquid. Brush the hot jelly over the hot apples. Cool slightly and serve warm.

Q
What effect does an acidic ingredient like lemon juice or buttermilk have on a pastry dough or batter?

A
Acidic ingredients like lemon juice, buttermilk, and sour cream are called for in recipes as various as piecrust, biscuits, coffee cakes, and cookies for the tangy flavor they add.

Acidic ingredients also affect the texture of baked goods. Acids break down strands of protein created when flour is mixed with liquid, helping to prevent toughness in biscuits and cakes. In fact, cake flour will make a more tender cake than all-purpose flour not only because it has a lower protein content, but because it has been bleached, which makes it slightly acidic.

Bread and pastry doughs need enough acid for flavor and tenderness, but not enough to compromise structural integrity. The classic example is sourdough bread, which gets its name from the acids that build up in a culture of natural yeast used to raise it. The yeast raises the bread, and the acids contribute flavor. It is a delicate balance, because if too much acid builds up, it will begin to kill off the yeast, inhibiting the rise of the bread. Periodically, fresh water and flour must be added to a sourdough culture to keep its acidity in balance.

Q
Flakiness is a valued characteristic in many baked goods — croissants, puff pastry, piecrust. What are the ingredients and techniques responsible for flakiness?

A
Flakiness depends upon how butter or another solid fat is incorporated into dough. To achieve flakiness,
relatively large and unevenly sized pieces of unmelted fat have to be distributed throughout the dough. Then, when the fat melts in the oven, space is created for expanding gases (from the steam evaporating from the butter or from the reaction between a chemical leavener and the liquid in the recipe), which create the large air pockets associated with flakiness.

There are degrees of flakiness. Piecrust and biscuits depend on the uneven distribution of butter or shortening for flakiness. When the butter is distributed too evenly, it coats the flour and prevents it from absorbing liquid, resulting in a crumbly and tender (because of the shortened gluten strands) rather than flaky texture. Making baked goods of this type is, in fact, a balancing act: Do you prefer your biscuits and crust more on the flaky side or more on the tender side? If flaky, then be careful to leave both large and small pieces of butter unevenly distributed throughout the flour before adding the liquid; if tender, then a more even distribution of fat is required. Finding the right balance will take practice.

Croissants and puff pastry are defined by their flakiness without the same consideration for tenderness. In fact, the repeated rolling and folding required in these recipes encourages gluten formation, so much so that many recipes instruct you to refrigerate the dough between rolling sessions, not only to keep the butter cold but to let the proteins relax temporarily for easier rolling. It is very important at every step to keep the butter from melting (not a concern when working with shortening), because the flaky effect depends on the fat remaining solid. Melted butter will soak into the dough, so there will be no distinct layering, and thus no large air pockets between layers.

Q
What is the difference between solid and liquid fats? What are their different uses in baking?

A
All fats, solid or liquid, add moisture and tenderness to baked goods and prolong their shelf life by helping them retain moisture after baking. Beyond this, solid and liquid fats can add flavor to baked goods. Butter will give baked goods that incomparable fresh cream taste, but certain oils such as hazelnut, walnut, and even olive oil can lend their own aromatic flavors to both sweet and savory baked goods.

Butter and shortening, which are solids, can aid in leavening, while liquid fats can’t. They can be creamed with sugar to retain air, helping cakes rise. They can be cut into flour to make flaky pastries. They can be layered with a dough made of flour and liquid to make puff pastry and other super-flaky doughs. Liquid fats (including melted butter) can’t retain air so they can’t be used for any of these purposes.

Q
Why do baked goods get stale?

A
Water will evaporate from finished breads, cakes, and cookies as they sit over several days, leading to dryness. Fats lend moisture to baked goods and won’t evaporate over time. That’s why rich baked goods generally keep longer than lean products. A pound cake, well-wrapped, will keep for several days at room temperature, while a baguette will be hard as a rock after 24 hours.

But loss of moisture is just a part of the reason why baked goods stale. According to experiments described by Harold McGee in
On Food and Cooking
, even when a loaf of bread is hermetically sealed to prevent loss of water, it still becomes hard over time. Interestingly, these same experiments show how reheating the bread to a temperature of 140°F (60°C) restores its fresh texture. So what is going on?

Starch gels at 140°F (60°C). When baked goods cool, water molecules migrate from these gelated starch granules, rendering the bread or cookies hard.

Some water migration is good. When cookies are very hot right out of the oven, they will fall apart if you try to pick them up. Cooling them on a baking sheet for 5 minutes allows some of the starches to harden, making the cookies easier to handle. But as the cookies cool completely and then sit at room temperature, the starches continue to harden until the cookies are no longer chewy, but hard instead. The same thing happens to bread, cake, and any other baked goods containing starch. If you have stored your baked goods in airtight containers or wrapped in plastic, so that they retain their water, reheating them can restore some of their freshness. Reheating will cause the water molecules to reinsert themselves in between the starch molecules, making your bread, cake, or cookies tender once again.

Staling occurs most quickly at temperatures just above freezing, but very slowly below freezing. So refrigeration is actually worse for most baked goods than freezing. (Baked goods with a lot of butter should be refrigerated if being kept for more than a few days, to avoid rancidity.) The best defense
against staling is to freeze your uneaten baked goods when possible. Wrap them tightly in plastic before freezing so that air from the freezer won’t come in contact with the surface of the baked goods and affect their flavor, and moisture from the freezer won’t form ice crystals on their surface. Bring frozen bread and refrigerated baked goods to room temperature and then reheat to restore freshness.

Q
Why do commercial baked goods have such a long shelf life?

A
Commercial baked goods contain preservatives such as sulfur dioxide to inhibit the growth of mold. Most home-baked breads, cakes, cookies, and pastries disappear pretty quickly and become stale before they would grow mold, so home bakers don’t have to worry too much about this. Food scientist and author Shirley Corriher recommends adding some softened ground raisins (which are themselves treated with sulfur dioxide) to inhibit the growth of mold if it is something that you are worried about.