How to Measure for Baking: Weight vs Volume Measurement
The Function of Sugar in Baking
The Function of Flour in Baking
All About Gluten and its Role in Baking
All About Leavening in Baking
All About Eggs and Their Function in Baking
All About Fat and its Function in Baking
Ingredient Temperature Guidelines for Baking
Ingredient Temperature Guidelines for Baking Lesson Overview:
Today we are diving into the topic of ingredient temperatures in baking and reviewing some general guidelines about those temperatures. It is probably no surprise to you by now that paying attention to details in baking is important and ingredient temperatures are no exception.
If a recipe is written properly, it should specify when ingredients should be at room temperature or when they should be cold, but today we will review the reasons for the two and the general guidelines for when each is used.
One of the most common questions I get is the question of if it really matters if ingredients are at room temperature or not. The simple answer to this is yes. Baking is a science and details do matter, including the temperature of your ingredients.
The thing to know about ingredient temperatures in baking is that it does matter more in certain circ*mstances than it does in others. Some baked goods, like muffins and quick breads, are very forgiving and aren’t going to be ruined by using cold ingredients (though the texture will be better if you allow the ingredients to come to room temperature). While other recipes, like a perfect pound cake, are more finicky and will not turn out well if you use cold ingredients.
All of this is to say that if you want to absolute best results from you baking then you do want to pay attention to ingredient temperatures. My biggest tip for following this is to consult the recipe. If a recipe is written properly then it should state whether ingredients should be cold or room temperature. But sometimes it isn’t stated, and I prefer to understand the reasoning even if it is stated, so let’s review some general guidelines and why it is important.
Ingredients Where Temperature Matters
When we are discussing ingredient temperatures for baking the only ingredients that we are talking about are the ones that are typically kept in the refrigerator. This includes things like butter, eggs, milk, cream, cream cheese, and sour cream. Dry ingredients like sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt are always going to be used at room temperature.
When You Should Use Cold Ingredients in Baking
As a general rule of thumb, you want to use cold ingredients for any kind of baked good with a flaky final texture. Examples of this are pie and tart crusts, biscuits, scones, puff pastry, and other laminated doughs.
For all of these examples it is important that the fat remains solid before the baked good goes into the oven. The small pieces of solid fat that are studded throughout the dough will melt in the oven creating little pockets, aka flakiness. For these recipes you want to make sure your butter, eggs, cream, etc. are cold before making the dough.
When You Should Use Room Temperature Ingredients
If you are making something with a cohesive dough or batter, or anything that won’t have a flaky final texture, then you want your ingredients to be at room temperature. This is going to be the bulk of your baking. There are a few reasons why it matters to bring ingredients to room temperature before baking.
Butter is an emulsion and when it is creamed with sugar, air and sugar are being beaten into the emulsion. If the butter were too cold or too warm it could easily break the emulsion resulting in a batter than is curdled. This means that the creaming process wasn’t successful and the end result of your baked good won’t be desirable.
Furthermore, you want eggs and dairy products to be at room temperature when they are being added into a mixture that contains creamed butter and sugar. Cold ingredients could also break this emulsion.
You will also notice that ingredients are more readily absorbed into batters and doughs when they are at room temperature. This leads to a more cohesive mixture and a nicer final texture.
What Does Room Temperature Mean in Baking?
When you are bringing ingredients to room temperature you want them to be around 70 F (21 C). This is the temperature at which butter is soft but is not starting to look greasy or glossy yet. Once butter gets to the point where it is greasy looking or starting to melt it is too warm and you should pop it back in the refrigerator for a few minutes.
How to Bring Ingredients to Room Temperature
The best way to bring ingredients to room temperature is to plan ahead. Leave butter, eggs, milk, sour cream, and cream cheese out on your counter for 30-60 minutes before starting your recipe depending on how warm your kitchen is.
If you are in a rush you can bring your ingredients to room temperature more quickly using these techniques:
Butter & Cream Cheese: Butter and cream cheese can come to room temperature quickly but cutting them up into small pieces and spreading them out. The smaller the pieces are, the quicker they will come to room temperature. I can get my butter to room temperature in about 5 minutes after it is cut into small pieces. I do not recommend microwaving butter to bring it to room temperature because it can easily become too warm.
Eggs: Eggs will come to room temperature quickly by placing uncracked eggs in a bowl and cover with warm (not hot) water, and letting them sit for about 5 minutes to come to room temperature.
Milk & Cream: Milk and cream can be brought to room temperature quickly by microwaving them for about 15-20 seconds to take the chill off.
Other Instances When Ingredient Temperatures Matter in Baking
There are two other instances where it is very important to be aware of ingredient temperatures and that is when making whipped cream and when whipping air into egg whites. Cream needs to be very cold in order to thicken and trap the web of air. In contrast, egg whites will whip up to their highest volume from room temperature.
Homework for this Lesson
Now that you understand why ingredient temperatures matter in baking you are ready for your last homework assignment! As always, the homework is optional but is a good way to practice. For this lesson I want you to tackle a recipe that feels challenging and one that you have never tried before. I know I constantly have a list of baked goods that feel intimidating but that I want to try. Choose something off of your list!
When you utilize all of the skills and knowledge you have gained in this class I know that this will feel more approachable! If it doesn’t turn out exactly as you hoped this time, I know you have the skills to assess what may have gone wrong so you can have more success next time!
What Does Room Temperature Mean in Baking? When you are bringing ingredients to room temperature you want them to be around 70 F (21 C). This is the temperature at which butter is soft but is not starting to look greasy or glossy yet.
Here's a quick recap of temperature effects on your cake: cold ingredients lead to a coarse and heavy textured cake. room temperature ingredients allow for a fine texture and light mouthfeel. warm ingredients cause the cake to be more coarse in texture but retain the light feel.
And it turns out, ingredient temperature plays an important role in developing proper structure in many baked goods. Using room-temperature eggs, fat, and liquid, emphasizes Sever, is “the key in achieving a nice, velvety batter.” This is especially true when it comes to butter.
How to Quickly Bring Ingredients to Room Temperature. The good, old-fashioned way to bring your ingredients to room temperature is to let them sit out on the counter for 30 minutes to an hour (or several hours, in the case of cream cheese) before you begin baking.
If food temperatures do not meet requirements or if TCS food shows evidence of previous temperature abuse, do not accept the food, or discard the products. Maintain cold food at 41°F or below.
Bread is baked at a temperature of 160 - 180 degrees Celsius and for a time of 25 - 28 minutes The sponge cake is baked at 150 - 160 degrees Celsius for about 40 - 45 minutes Cookies bake at 170 - 190 degrees Celsius for 15 - 25 minutes Cream puffs bake at 190 - 200 degrees Celsius for 25 - 30 minutes A way to properly ...
More often than not, controlling the temperature in an oven does more than just ensuring doneness—it can affect the texture and flavour of the dish or baked goods. Generally, a temperature that's too low makes it harder for your food to be done, and a bitter, burnt taste will emerge in overcooked food.
Generally speaking, higher temperatures will give your bakes a more golden, crisper crust to the sponge or pastry and a low temperature will result in a fluffier, less golden sponge. With some cakes, you want a golden crust and with other cakes you want them to be gently cooked and fluffy.
When you think about it, baking is simply chemical reactions between ingredients to produce the desired result. For the chemical reaction to happen, the ratio of ingredients has to be correct and that's why accurate measurements are important.
Keep high-risk food at 5 °C or below or above 60 °C to avoid the temperature danger zone and food poisoning. Store raw foods below cooked foods. Store food in suitable, covered containers.
Fill a large jug (or blender canister) with hot tap water and carefully pour it in, leaving an inch or so of space above the lowest bowl so that water doesn't splash in. This is a boss way to quickly bring all of the the ingredients to room temperature in one fell sweep.
Accurate Weighing is Fundamental to Baking Operations
The correct balance of raw ingredients, both liquid and dry, will ensure not only the taste of the product, but also the proper consistency and density. In particular, Davis must use extreme care when making dough to be used in a variety of his creations.
Why Is Room Temperature Important? When at room temperature, eggs, butter, and other dairy ingredients form an emulsion which traps air. While baking in the oven, that trapped air expands and produces a fluffy baked good.
TWO HOURS is the MAXIMUM time perishable foods should be at room temperature (ONE HOUR at temperatures 90 degrees F and higher). This INCLUDES the time they're on the table during your meal. Just ONE bacterium, doubling every 20 minutes, can grow to over 2,097,152 bacteria in 7 hours!
Safe temperatures are 5°C or colder, or 60°C or hotter. Potentially hazardous food needs to be kept at these temperatures to prevent food-poisoning bacteria, which may be present in the food, from multiplying to dangerous levels.
The most basic rule must be always followed: store raw products below, never above, your cooked or ready-to-eat products. Keep foods 4°C (39°F) or colder, the safe temperature for refrigerated storage.
Note: There are three important temperatures to remember when cooking meat or eggs at home: Eggs and all ground meats must be cooked to 160°F; poultry and fowl to 165°F; and fresh meat steaks, chops and roasts to 145°F.
A moderate oven has a range of 350–375 °F (180–190 °C), and a hot oven has temperature set to 400–450 °F (200–230 °C). A fast oven has a range of 450-500 °F (230–260 °C) for the typical temperature.
The general rule of thumb when baking is "the bigger the pan, the lower the temperature". You bake a cake in a 9" round pan at 350 F for about 30-35 minutes. But, if you were putting the same recipe in a 14" pan, you'd need 50-55 minutes to raise the temperature to 325 F.
Temperature is the measure of hotness or coldness expressed in terms of any of several scales, including Fahrenheit and Celsius. Temperature indicates the direction in which heat energy will spontaneously flow—i.e., from a hotter body (one at a higher temperature) to a colder body (one at a lower temperature).
While flavor is important, it's the most subjective part of baking. And ultimately, if the 'chemistry' of the baked product is off, so will be the flavor.”
If you do not accurately measuring your ingredients for a recipe, then you cannot guarantee that you are using the exact amount of ingredients each time you prepare that recipe. Without accuracy, you cannot bake consistent product.
Measuring ingredients by weight is simply the most accurate and consistent way. In successful restaurants, dishes should be the same for every guest, every time, and weight is the best way to deliver standardized results.
Cook beef, pork, veal, and lamb roasts, steaks, and chops to at least 145° F (63° C), with a 3 minute rest time. Cook ground beef, veal, lamb, and pork to at least 160° F (71° C). Cook ground poultry to 165° F (74° C). Cook all poultry to minimal safe internal temperature of 165° F (74° C).
What is the maximum storage temperature for chilled food? All chilled foods, especially high-risk foods, must be kept at 8°C or below while in storage. This is because the growth of bacteria is slowed at this temperature, ensuring that it is safe to eat for a longer period of time.
Chilling foods to proper temperatures is one of the best ways to slow the growth of these bacteria. To ensure that your refrigerator is doing its job, it's important to keep its temperature at 40 °F or below; the freezer should be at 0 °F.
Because ovens often fluctuate (or are incorrectly calibrated) a setting of 350° essentially ensures that the browning temperature is reached. Read: It's a clever way to make sure that all of those glorious flavors are formed.
The magic of cooking at 350 degrees isn't magic at all, but chemistry. It is, for example, the level associated with the Maillard Reaction, the chemical process that gives so many foods a complex flavor profile—and an appealing golden-brown hue—when sugar and protein are heated together just so.
While it doesn't need to be cold, your batter should have time to rest. Our no-fail yorkies recipe recommends transferring your batter to a jug after mixing, then leaving it to rest for at least 15 minutes.
According to the FDA, the grains from which flour is ground are grown in fields that may be exposed to harmful bacteria like salmonella and E. coli. What is this? Heating flour to at least 160 degrees kills off any nasty bacteria that might be lurking in your flour bag.
Introduction: My name is Aron Pacocha, I am a happy, tasty, innocent, proud, talented, courageous, magnificent person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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