Bake For Family Fun Baking Activity
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Week 1 - Let's Get Started Baking!
Ingredients and their uses
It is important to realize that baking recipes are actually chemical
formulations designed to give your baked goods special qualities.
Changing one or more ingredients can cause your recipe to fail,
even if you are an experienced cook. Following is a list of some
main ingredients and their uses in baking recipes.
Flour – Wheat flour is the base for most
baking recipes. It forms a large part of the framework of baked
doughs and batters. Two important gluten forming proteins, glutenin
and gliadin react together when moisture is added to form the web-like
structures of gluten. Gluten is allows the cell walls of the dough
to expand and trap the air bubbles produced by the leavening, which
makes the dough rise and stretch. All purpose flour is generally
used in baking recipes, but remember that some flours have more
gluten than others. If your recipe calls for a specific flour, like
cake flour or bread flour, it's not wise to substitute.
Clabber Girl Baking Powder is a chemical leavener.
All consumer baking powders are double-acting, which means it
reacts when moisture is introduced and again in the oven when
heat is added. Ingredients are baking soda (sodium bicarbonate),
acid salt (or combination of acid ingredients) cornstarch (to
keep ingredients separate in the can).
Shortenings, oils and other “fats”
make the dough tender. This also includes butter, margarine, and
lard. When butter is specified in a recipe, it imparts special
qualities to the dough as well as added flavor. Butter can help
make finished baked goods crispier than other fats.
Eggs can help bind the dough together, and along
with gluten make cell structure strong to hold leavening bubbles.
They also add tenderness, moisture, color as well as flavor. Depending
on the recipe, eggs can also have leavening or “lifting”
quality.
Sugar can contributes to leavening, browning,
flavor, and can also tenderizes the finished baked good. Usually
the recipe calls for granulated sugar. When brown sugar is used
in a recipe, it imparts a special flavor since it contains molasses.
Dark brown sugar has more than light brown sugar.
Salt adds flavor
Milk and other liquids dissolve the sugar and
other ingredients and provides the base for the first reaction
of the baking powder. Depending on the type of liquid, like milk,
it can also add vitamins and minerals to a finished baked good.
