Some technical notes from my class at the San Francisco Baking Institute (SFBI): Pastry Arts: Exploring Ingredients and Techniques

Cookies
There are four basic mixing methods for cookies (“small cakes”): one-stage, creaming, sponge and sabler. Essentially, for cookies (and most baking for that matter) the order of ingredients matter, as does the temperature of those ingredients. For example, in cookies, if you add ice cold eggs to room temperature butter, you’ll cause the butter to seize up and then you’ll get butter chunks in your batter and even if it blends well you’ll get tunneling or channels in your end product.

Leavening
Leavening is basically the production or incorporation of gases in a dough or batter that will give the end product volume, texture and shape. There were a lot of misconceptions about what is leavener and the teacher clarified that salt and buttermilk are not leaveners and used for flavor or moisture.

(1) The types of leavening:
a. biological (yeast – not covered in this course)
b. physical (oxygen aka air or steam), and
c. chemical (baking powder, baking soda, and baking Ammonia)

Eggs
In professional bakeries everything is done in grams. A large egg weighs, on average, 50 grams. Lecithin is found in egg yolks and it helps create a stable, good emulsion. Emulsion is basically the combination of fat and water. Fat and water like to separate and so something is needed to encourage them to combine. When we homogenize milk we use something physical to make the emulsion happen. When you use an emulsifier – it has molecules that are both hydrophilic and hydrophobic – they both attract and repel water. Xantham gum, often used in gluten-free recipes, is a stabilizer but it can help in emulsion by making something thicker.

Starches from the flour gelatinizing and eggs coagulating sets the structure for your baked good. You don’t want to blast through any instructions that say to cream by using your mixer on high speed. You will get a high volume really quick but the structure will be less stable – uneven-sized cells will be produced and sometimes the results of this won’t be seen until you see the finished product and it looks like it has caved in on itself, has a poor crumb or has “tunneling.”

Fat
Tenderness in baking comes from fat and sugar and it’s hard to mimic. There are four different types of fat: butter, margarine, shortenings and oil. European style butter or “low moisture” butter just means it has more fat. Sometimes literally, see Plugra. There’s also Lurpak (Danish), Kerry Gold (Irish) and Vermont butter. Unsalted butter is used in baking in order to better control the flavor. In general, you don’t want to use butter that has been frozen but it’s okay for pie dough.

Butter tends to be 78% to 84% fat and the rest is water and milk solids. Oil, obviously, is 100% fat. Oil also has what is called an “extreme shortening effect.” “Shortening” in this context means tenderizing. Cakes are tender and therefore “short.” The sugar and fat does the shortening in the case of cakes. Cookies are also tender and it’s why they are often called short bread. Oil spreads through the batter easily and this means the flour particles can’t meet up with each other and create gluten (which makes something chewy). This is also why gluten-free recipes mainly use oil. Finally, you can exchange a solid fat for a solid fat in a recipe but if you go from a solid to a liquid fat you need to adjust the steps and the ingredients in your recipe. Remember though that liquid fat doesn’t hold air and so your mixing method will have to compensate accordingly.

Quick Breads
Quick breads are pastries that are leavened by chemical leaveners and steam, like muffins, scones, biscuits and coffee cakes. The mixing techniques are the blending method, the biscuit method (similar to the sabler method) and the creaming method. The main difference between the three is the timing of when you add the fat and the way you do it – either by just throwing it in, cutting it in or mixing it in. Be sure to sift all dry ingredients before incorporating when making quick breads and avoid over-mixing after adding flour. If you over-mix you’ll create more gluten and get a very chewy muffin. Also, it’s good to remember that anything with baking powder can be held in the refrigerator for up to 2 days, after that the powder will lose its oomph. If your recipe only has baking soda, you need to bake it right away. Finally, you don’t want quick breads to cool too long in the pan because the steam will make them too moist and they will fall apart when you try to serve them.

Meringues
Always start meringues with room temperature or warmer egg whites – this will cut down on the whipping time. In meringues, the earlier you add your sugar, the less volume you have. There are four types of meringues: common, French, Swiss and Italian. Common and/or French meringues are the most sensitive, least stable meringues. You really don’t want to use these to decorate with – yet they’re found the most often in recipes for pies with meringue toppings. You only use these types for when the meringue you’re making is going to be a part of a batter. The best way to keep your meringue from shrinking? Use a good on the fly meringue that’s pretty stable, the Swiss meringue.

Cakes
There are 2 major types of cake: fat based and foam based. Each has several different mixing methods you can use. For fat based cakes – there is the creaming method (modified creaming method), liquid shortening sponge, and the flour-batter method. For foam based cakes there is the sponge method (separated egg sponge and whole egg sponge), chiffon method, and angel food method. The method used is linked to the ingredient composition.

Pâte à Choux
This is a pastry base for things like éclairs, chouquettes, gougère (cheesy thing), Paris-Brest (donut like thing) and Gâteau St. Honoré. It’s basically a thick paste made with milk, water, butter, flour, salt, sugar and eggs. The real trick is how many eggs to put in. The technique is to mix in eggs until you get a shiny consistency that is smooth and forms a clean, non-ragged “V.” This is hard to explain – but here’s a good shot of it. When you’re ready, you load it into a piping bag and pipe the desired shapes. Right before you are ready to put your shapes into the oven (and no sooner) you give the shapes an egg wash (meaning you brush egg on top of it). You don’t want the egg wash to sit for too long before it goes into the oven otherwise you might create a skin on the choux and reduce the volume of the pastry (its puff). At home, one should start a choux at 400°F and then after 10 minutes turn the oven down to 350°. You definitely need intense heat at the beginning. The visual clue that choux is baked well is a crackly top, browned with crevices. You want these crevices to be darker than a golden color. They should also feel light and hallow inside; if it’s too eggy inside, you’ve messed them up. Also, if you squeeze them and it has some give (and doesn’t just crackle), then that’s a sign that they are probably still too wet inside. Be sure the choux is totally cool before filling. Finally, cake flour shouldn’t be used for Pâte à Choux; it’s too weak for it. You can use all purpose flour but you will probably need more egg – pastry flour is ideal.

Pie Dough
You know what pie dough is, right? When you see recipes that call for lemon juice, this is just to help retard oxidation or that graying that happens when you store dough. Lemon juice can also make it easier to roll (also known as its extensibility). Because pie dough is very susceptible to over-working, pastry flour is highly advised. New bakers have a tendency to touch pie dough way too much.

The flakier the dough, the more liquid you’ll need. You get flakier dough with larger flat chunks of butter you leave in the dough. So you’ll get to a flaky batter before you get to a mealy one (more crumbly pieces of butter) and then if you keep mixing you’ll get to shortbread.

While you can use a mixer, it’s best to make small production by hand. It shouldn’t come together like a dough before you’ve added your liquid. If it does – you over mixed it. If it does, just add sugar and turn it into shortbread. You cannot save it. Don’t even try. Pie dough should rest for at least 4 hours after mixing (over night is even better) and it should be very cold when handling. Also, for those of you out there who love fat like I do, you can substitute lard for butter without any adjustments to the recipe. You might also want to check out Leaf Lard – it’s like pig Crisco! Finally, pie dough freezes very well if well wrapped (because the fat will absorb any freezer smell – so wrap well) – for months. It can also go right from the freezer to the oven.

Pâte Sucrée
Pâte Sucrée is a rich, sweet pastry dough used for tarts. To give it extra flavor, try substituting almond meal (almond flour really) for a portion of the flour in the recipe. You can make it with either the creaming or sabler method. However, you don’t want to incorporate air when mixing, so don’t whip it, just mix. This dough should also be rested for at least 4 hours. With pie dough you shouldn’t re-work any scrap you have but with Pâte Sucrée dough you can.

Custards
Custards contain whole eggs or egg yolks, sugar, milk and/or cream and sometimes starch. Quiche is considered custard but does not contain sugar. There are two types of custard: (1) cooked or stirred custard (e.g., pastry cream) and (2) baked custard (e.g., Crème Brûlée). Under-cooked pastry cream will be too soft and have a starchy mouth feel. Pastry cream can be prepared ahead of time up to three days, but not frozen. A baked custard is baked in a water bath around 300°-325°F, usually covered with foil or another sheet tray to maintain even temperature and a humid environment. They are almost always served chilled and can be served in a mold or unmolded. You know custard is ready when you touch the top and it jiggles. It shouldn’t spring like a cheesecake, just jiggle.