The basic knowledge of baking is unavoidable when we learn baking, because only by laying a good foundation can the superstructure be built higher. However, according to what I have learned and my own understanding, I will share it with you in a simple and easy-to-understand form, so that you can understand it as long as you have passed the primary school Chinese exam, haha ~
Let's look at the types of desserts first. At present, our common desserts are cakes, bread, pies, tarts, puffs, cakes, Chinese cakes and so on. Although they have various forms, there are actually several basic raw materials used (basic raw materials, not all raw materials). The same raw materials can be made into desserts with completely different tastes through different proportions and production methods. If the basic materials are compared to different scales, then baking is like composing music. Looking at the works we created, what a composer's sense of accomplishment!
All kinds of desserts
Having said that, let's take a look at the basic raw materials commonly used in baking. Generally speaking, there are flour, eggs, grease, sugar, salt, milk (milk powder), whipped cream, water and swelling agent. With these nine basic raw materials, plus various dairy products, cocoa products, fruits, nuts, spices and so on. You can make hundreds of desserts. Let me introduce these raw materials to you in turn. Please correct me if there is anything wrong.
flour
Flour is one of the staple foods of human beings and provides us with the most basic energy. Its main components are starch (about 70%), protein (about 10%) and a small amount of water, minerals, grease and so on. Flour in China is generally classified by gluten, including low-gluten flour (protein content is below 9.5%), medium-gluten flour (protein content is 9.5%- 1 1.5%) and high-gluten flour (protein content 1 1.5%). Flour with different gluten has different uses.
Low-gluten flour, also called cake flour, has low protein content and is not easy to produce gluten. Suitable for making soft desserts such as cakes, biscuits, puffs and tarts. Medium gluten flour with moderate gluten content is suitable for making most Chinese cakes, such as moon cakes, steamed stuffed buns and jiaozi. High gluten flour is also called bread flour. High-content protein can produce a large amount of gluten tissue by kneading dough, and retain the carbon dioxide produced by yeast in dough to the greatest extent, which is very suitable for making all kinds of bread.
There is also a French flour classified by ash (ash refers to the minerals contained in flour), such as T45, T55 and T65. T45 indicates that the ash content in flour is 0.45%, and the protein content of flour with the same label is different in different brands. When we make stick, praise and brio, the taste made directly from French flour is more authentic. However, due to the few brands and high price of this kind of flour sold in China, the general bakery will use high-gluten flour and low-gluten flour to make it, but the flavor is slightly worse.
The common flour brands in China are Gold Medal, Nanshun (its brands are Golden Elephant and Meimei), Queen, Bob Moulin Rouge, Xinliang and COFCO. Among them, Gold Medal, Queen and Moulin Rouge are all foreign brands, which basically use imported wheat with good quality but slightly higher price. Golden Statue and Meimei should be regarded as the best domestic brands and the most popular among the public. Xinliang has always been famous for its cost performance, but recently it launched a black gold version of flour, which has a good reputation and the price is slightly higher than the ordinary version. There are too many brands owned by COFCO, and I haven't used them very much. Although it is a well-known state-owned enterprise, its reputation in the baking industry is really average.
Eggs (of hens)
Egg itself is a delicious food and the most commonly used raw material for baking. It can provide attractive fragrance and golden baking color for dessert (Maillard reaction). By adding sugar, it can produce countless small bubbles, and then it can make soft and delicious cakes. Protein will solidify when heated, providing a supporting skeleton for dessert. Egg yolk has a strong fragrance, and the lecithin it contains is a very good natural emulsifier (the function of emulsification is to mix the originally immiscible oil and water very evenly).
Eggs, like clothes, are divided into three types: large, medium and small, and medium-sized eggs (weighing about 50-60 grams) are usually used in baking. The eggshell of a complete egg accounts for about 10% of the total weight, with egg white accounting for 60% and yolk accounting for about 30%. With this ratio, it is easy to roughly calculate the weight of egg white and yolk. At night, the water content of the whole egg is about 75%, which provides a good method for us to calculate the liquid when making bread.
oil
Butter, shortening, lard and various vegetable oils are commonly used in our baking.
Butter can be divided into salted butter and unsalted butter, as well as non-fermented butter and fermented butter. When baking, salt-free butter is used as raw material. Salt butter is generally used to coat bread and eat it directly. Fermented butter has a more unique flavor than non-fermented yellow, but it has a lower melting point and is not suitable for making crispy bread.
Common butter brands include Anjia, Uni-President, Yin Bao, Weishibao, Angback and Ailewei. The president's fermented butter tastes mellow, but the price is higher. Yin Bao imported high-quality butter from Denmark. Anjia butter has high cost performance and complete weight specifications, and is also suitable for commercial use. Like Anjia, Weishibao and Embrack are imported from New Zealand with high cost performance, but it is said that the fragrance is not as good as the previous brands. Alevin is famous for its whipped cream, and the quality of butter should not be bad.
Anjia salt-free butter
Shortened oil is synthesized by artificially refining vegetable oil, which has strong plasticity, high melting point and good shortening effect. However, it contains many additives, which are mainly used in commercial baking and generally avoided in healthy home baking.
Artificial shortening
Lard has a very special smell, which some people like and some people hate. Mainly used in Chinese dim sum, the production of egg yolk cake, old woman cake and peach cake can not be separated from lard, because lard has a very good crisp effect and is cheaper than butter. It is not recommended to buy ready-made lard, which is fresh and healthy and can be refrigerated or frozen for a long time.
Vegetable oil is rarely used for dessert, except for these fixed combinations, such as making Qifeng cake with corn oil, making pizza with olive oil and making moon cakes with peanut oil.
sugar
Sugar is perhaps the most beautiful thing in the world. It can heal the hearts of countless people. Sugar is synonymous with sweetness, and no one will not like it. Many baking beginners think that sugar is only the role of seasoning. In fact, in baking, in addition to increasing sweetness, sugar also has the functions of making desserts easy to color, keeping desserts moist, making eggs easier to send, and providing nutrition for yeast. Therefore, the role of sugar is very important. It is not recommended for novices to reduce sugar at will on the basis of the original formula, especially Qifeng and sponge cake. As for the appropriate proportion, I will publish an article in detail in the future, so I won't say much here.
Sugar is made from sugarcane, which can be divided into white sugar, fine sugar, powdered sugar, soft candy, brown sugar and brown sugar according to different processing methods. Among them, what we usually use for seasoning is white sugar, so I won't introduce it here. Fine sugar is commonly used in baking, which is finer and more soluble than sugar. Sugar powder, also called icing, means grinding white sugar into powder. In order to prevent caking, some starch is added, which can be easily mixed with other materials. It is often used to make cookies, cakes and decorative desserts. Soft white sugar has higher sweetness than fine sugar due to the addition of invert syrup, and has better water retention and baking coloring ability. Brown sugar and brown sugar are both crude products of sugarcane, which retain the original substances of sugarcane, so they have a pleasant fragrance. Although the sweetness is not high, they are rich in nutritional value.
The common sugar brands in China are Taikoo, Schuchman, Zhanyi and Ganzhiyuan. Swire, as a century-old brand in Hong Kong, has always been relatively stable in quality and has become the first choice for baking enthusiasts. Schuchman was originally developed from sugar, and now the product line of baking materials is very rich. The products of Zhanyi are generally produced by other factories. I have used many of his products, and the quality control is not bad. There is also a hot-selling Korean white sugar on a treasure, which is fine in workmanship and suitable for baking, but the large package of 30 kg is not convenient for home use (it is not recommended to buy sub-packaging for reasons you know).
Taigu fine sugar
Refined sugar
salt
There is a saying that "I eat more salt than you do", which shows that salt is as important as rice, and salt is as important to bread as it is to human body. There are four main functions: first, improving the taste of bread (as are other desserts), second, strengthening gluten tissue, third, controlling the fermentation speed of yeast, and fourth, inhibiting the reproduction of other bacteria.
The salt we use in baking is refined salt, not coarse salt, because it is not easy to dissolve and it is not easy to control when weighing. The amount of salt used in baking is very small, which is easy to agglomerate and lead to inaccurate weighing. It should be stored in a sealed way to prevent moisture.
Fine salt
Milk (powdered milk)
Although milk and milk powder are almost the same substance, milk powder is more fragrant and easier to preserve than milk. Milk powder can be mixed with water to replace milk in most cases, and vice versa. The water content of milk is about 90%. We just need to replace the milk with 10% milk powder and 90% water. In some cases, for example, adding milk powder to biscuits can make biscuits taste more fragrant, while biscuits hardly contain water, so it is difficult to replace milk powder with milk.
Whether it is milk or milk powder, try to choose some well-known brands, and at the same time make sure to buy genuine products. The more common brands in the market are Nestle, Deyun, Deya, Odenburg, Anjia, Yili and Mengniu.
milk
milk powder
Cream that can be thickened to make whipped cream
First of all, the whipped cream we refer to here is animal whipped cream, and vegetable whipped cream (margarine) is not discussed. Whipping property and stability are important reference standards for choosing a kind of whipped cream, and the content of cream is the factor that determines the whipping degree of whipped cream. The higher the fat content of milk, the easier it is to beat. Generally, the cream on the market contains about 35% milk fat and about 60% water.
Common brands are Nestle, Anjia, CEO, Ailewei (Tower), Blue Windmill and Odenburg, among which Ailewei, Blue Windmill and CEO are better, followed by Anjia and Odenburg, and Nestle is the most unstable. The quality of whipped cream is very important, but it is also crucial to master the skills and degree of whipping, which can only be improved by continuous practice and summary.
Legend has it that Nestle whipped cream is not suitable for decorating flowers.
By the way, many people know that Nestle's whipped cream is not suitable for decorating flowers, but whipped cream has many uses, and sending it to decorate flowers is just one of them. If you use it as stuffing or noodle dough, you can use Nestle completely, and its small package price is cheaper than the previous brand, which is very suitable for families with small consumption.
A very easy to send Alevin whipped cream.
water
Almost no water is used in making cakes, biscuits and other desserts, but water is very important for making bread. The formation of gluten and the gelatinization of starch are inseparable from water. In addition, water can dissolve sugar and salt, activate yeast and enzyme. From a chemical point of view, the PH and hardness of water will slightly affect the finished bread. The suitable PH value is between 5-7 (weak acidity) and the hardness is above100 mg/L/L. The PH value and hardness of our tap water are suitable for making bread, so I won't discuss it in depth here.
Expansion (fermentation) agent
Before talking about expansion agent, let's talk about the expansion principle of dessert. There are three ways to make desserts swell, namely, pumping air into the raw materials, and the raw materials themselves generate carbon dioxide, which is heated to generate steam. The typical representative of the first method is the beating of eggs and butter. Through beating, the raw materials are filled with small bubbles to realize volume expansion. The second method includes two ways, namely, the chemical way of sodium bicarbonate (mainly baking soda and baking powder) reaction and the biological way of yeast fermentation. The third is the expansion mode that most desserts will have, because the raw materials of desserts will contain water to a certain extent, and puffs are the most classic example of expansion by steam.
As can be seen from the table, the main swelling agents for dessert are baking soda, baking powder and yeast. The ingredient of baking soda is sodium bicarbonate, which can produce carbon dioxide when heated in the oven. In addition to sodium bicarbonate, there are some acidic substances in the baking powder, some of which start to react when the raw materials are mixed, and the other part is carried out when heating, so the baking powder on the market is generally called double-effect baking powder. In addition, it should be noted that it does not contain aluminum, which is harmful to human body.
sodium bicarbonate
Aluminum-free baking powder
Yeast can be divided into fresh yeast, dry yeast and high activity dry yeast, which can be replaced with each other, but the dosage is different. In addition, there are high-sugar tolerance and low-sugar tolerance. Generally, low-sugar tolerant yeast is used to make steamed bread and bread, which are not interchangeable. Pay attention to the distinction when buying. The common yeast brands in China are Lesford (Yanpai), Angel, Zhanyi, Xinliang, Shengqi and Mary.
High activity dry yeast
abstract
Now let's sum up that the basic raw materials commonly used in baking are flour, eggs, grease, sugar, salt, milk (milk powder), whipped cream, water and swelling agent, and each raw material plays an irreplaceable role in the baking process. A variety of recipe proportions create a rich variety and taste of desserts, just like when we listen to music, different melodies always bring us different wonderful feelings. We should thank the bakers from generation to generation, who have inherited and developed desserts and created a colorful baking world for us.
While paying tribute to the master, we should learn the basic knowledge, master the baking principle, stand on the shoulders of giants and create our own flavor.