The very nature of most pastries is to be light, airy, flaky, and buttery. All pastry starts out as a combination of ingredients, such as flour, water, salt, butter or other fats, and is made by using different ingredients, mixing and baking techniques.
Wheat Flour
Pastry depends heavily on the types of flour used, its amount and how it is handled. When moistened and stirred, wheat flour develops strands of gluten, which are what give an elastic structure to the baked good that stretches and rises. Too much flour results in a tough, dry and flavorless recipe, and too little results in a flat, tough and flavorless baked good.
Gluten strands make it tough to roll out for flaky pie crust dough, to stretch it for phyllo or strudel dough, or to make more layers for puff pastry, but on the other hand, gluten strands make it possible to stretch a pastry recipe for flakiness and texture. Gluten is like a rubber band, and when stretched from rolling or pulling, they want to snap the dough back into their original shape. To counteract this, it is essential that the pastry dough relax for 1 to 2 hours or more in the refrigerator to relax the gluten, making it easier to stretch or roll it further. If done properly the dough will shrink less and will be flakier.
Fats
In the case of a pastry, you add large amounts of fat to coat and separate the flour particles from each other, but you then add just enough water to make dough. Since much of the starch in the flour is not in contact with any of the water, the resulting cooked dough is crumbly and flaky. The role of the fat in making a pastry is to give texture to the final product. Depending on the kind of fat used, the pastry will also have a certain flavor. Pastry chefs use various types of fats, like vegetable shortening, butter, or lard. Though they are all are fats, they have major differences. The differences in textures of many pastries have to do with the type of fats and how it’s introduced. Fats contribute to the tenderness (shortness) and especially flakiness of pastry. Pure fats, such as shortening and lard, produce flakier pastry than those that contain water such as butter. Pastry is often a trade-off between flavor and texture, much of which comes from the fat in the recipe. Some bakers use both butter and shortening to capture the best qualities of each, but I prefer to use all butter because of its better taste.
Fats contribute to the flakiness and tenderness of pastry by being layered in between sheets of thin dough. It can also be cut in or rubbed into the flour as pea-sized shapes before the final dough is made. The fat melts during baking, leaving air spaces. When placed in the oven, the flour starches set around the fat, leaving a layer or space when the fat melts which is reabsorbed back into the dough. The longer the fats take to melt in the oven, the more well defined the air cells. The melting point of shortening is higher than that of butter, and it stays solid longer. As a result, it forms better flaky pastry, but without the butter’s wonderful flavor.
Cold butter or fats and the flakiness of the pastry are intricately connected. Because butter has such a low melting point, it must be well-chilled to ensure that it can withstand being rolled and handled without melting to produce flakiness. Butter that is too soft surrounds the flour particles rather than forming spaces, and the final texture of the pastry is flat and greasy.
Don’t use low-fat or reduced-fat products in your pastry recipe. Their water content is too high for pastry making.
Leavners
Steam acts as the raising agent in puff and flaky pastries. In choux pastry the raising agents are eggs plus steam. Baking powder and baking soda can be used to leaven. The yeast in Croissants and Danish depend upon the thin layers of butter to “help” the yeast; the fat particles produce steam from the water in the butter (butter is 81 % fat and 19 % water) when baked, and that from yeast, gives them their light and flaky texture.
Liquids
A minimum amount of cold water or liquids, such as milk, should be used. However, too little water in pastry causes the pastry to be crumbly and dry; too much, plus overmixing, develops too much gluten which causes a tough pastry.
Sugar
Either referred to as crystalline or table sugar or liquid sugar contributes to leavening, depending upon how it is introduced and the type used, browning, flavor, tenderizes, keeps the crust moist and of course, sweetens. When a recipes calls for “sugar” it means white “table” sugar.
Salt
Salt improves and enhances the flavor of all the foods; don’t leave it out.
Use only fresh, large eggs in baking recipes. The yolks emulsify the dough, and which all add fat, giving the crust a tenderness, richness and browning. Fat found in egg yolks also tenderizes by coating the flour proteins and then preventing them from becoming moistened when water is added, hence preventing long, interconnecting gluten strands from forming.
Acidic Ingredients
Cider Vinegar/Lemon Juice as well as buttermilk, sour cream or other acidic ingredient can be found in pie crust recipes. They tenderize the flour’s gluten, formed in the dough when wheat flour is moistened and stirred, as well as when rolling and handling the dough. Gluten is a toughener and acidic ingredients weaken the gluten that forms, making the crust tender and less likely to shrink. (Keeping well chilled ingredients and dough also helps with preventing shrinkage).
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Key baking ingredients include wheat flour, granulated sugar, shortening, fresh milk, cream, baking powder, vanilla, chocolate, and nuts. The major functions of ingredients are structure, tenderness, flavor, moisture, and leavening through chemical or biological processes during baking.
pastry, stiff dough made from flour, salt, a relatively high proportion of fat, and a small proportion of liquid. It may also contain sugar or flavourings. Most pastry is leavened only by the action of steam, but Danish pastry is raised with yeast.
Flour lends structure to baked goods, like cakes, biscuits, pastry and bread, with a range in protein content to suit the purpose and desired outcome. Higher-protein flours provide a greater proportion of gluten and a stronger dough for products like bread and the reverse is true for use in cakes and biscuits.
Ingredients will have a number of functions in a recipe, such as adding flavour, colour or texture, or performing a particular purpose, e.g. as a thickener or setting agent. Ingredients may also be selected for their nutritional composition or used for traditional or cultural reasons.
A Pastry Chef is responsible for preparing and baking various goods, such as cakes, cookies, pies, and bread, following traditional and modern recipes. They also create new and exciting desserts to enhance menus and engage customers.
Yeast has two primary functions in fermentation: To convert sugar into carbon dioxide gas, which lifts and aerates the dough. To mellow and condition the gluten of the dough so that it will absorb the increasing gases evenly and hold them at the same time.
Flour provides the structure in baked goods. Wheat flour contains proteins that interact with each other when mixed with water, forming gluten. It is this elastic gluten framework which stretches to contain the expanding leavening gases during rising. The protein content of a flour affects the strength of a dough.
Milk is used in baked products to improve texture and mouthfeel. The protein in milk also gives a soft crumb structure in cakes, and contributes to the moisture, colour and flavour of a baked product. Cakes that contain milk also tend to have a longer shelf life.
Yeast not only helps baked goods rise, but also it adds flavor. When yeast reacts with the sugar and flour in a bread recipe, for instance, a fermentation process begins, resulting in the release of carbon dioxide and alcohol. The bread dough traps the gas, and due to its elasticity, expands.
Take cakes, for example. Each ingredient has a job to do. Flour provides the structure; baking powder and baking soda give the cake its airiness; eggs bind the ingredients; butter and oil tenderize; sugar sweetens; and milk or water provides moisture.
Sugar helps to retain water, reduce gluten development and delay starch gelatinization. The setting of the structure of a cake takes place when carbon dioxide production from leavening agents is at its maximum, the gas is held in the air cells of the structure. This produces a fine, uniform, tender cake.
The functions of salt in baking include stabilizing the yeast fermentation rate, strengthening the dough, enhancing the flavor of the final product, and increasing dough mixing time.
Fat can blend flavors of ingredients together or enhance the flavor, such as butter. In baked goods, fat also contributes to the tenderness of a product as it prevents flour from absorbing water. Muffins or biscuits with reduced fat are often tougher because the gluten is more developed.
Flour. There are no more Essential Ingredients for baking than Flour. Without it - and the gluten it creates - your baked goods won't get the right structure: it is the ingredient that binds everything together. To start baking, simply use All-Purpose Flour.
Flour provides structure, water hydrates flour for gluten formation, and sugar adds sweetness and tenderizes. Leavening agents like baking soda and powder produce carbon dioxide to make products rise. Yeast is a living organism that produces carbon dioxide and alcohol during fermentation to allow dough to rise.
Sugar helps to retain water, reduce gluten development and delay starch gelatinization. The setting of the structure of a cake takes place when carbon dioxide production from leavening agents is at its maximum, the gas is held in the air cells of the structure. This produces a fine, uniform, tender cake.
Fats have a shortening effect in pastry. Fat coats the flour particles preventing absorption of water (and therefore preventing gluten developing) which results in a crumbly texture. The higher the amount of fat used the crumblier (shorter) the texture. Butter adds colour and flavour; it is high in saturated fat.
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