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Baking ingredients: Baking fats
Baking Fat Classification
Baking fats are fats specifically used in baked goods such as bread, cakes, cookies, biscuits, pie crusts, and fried doughnuts. They include shortening, artificial butter, and refined oils.
Shortening: refers to edible hydrogenated oils of animal and vegetable fats, high-grade refined oils, or a mixture of the above, manufactured through rapid cooling and kneading into a solid, semi-solid, or liquid state with good shortening properties (National Industry Standard SB/T10073-92). Therefore, shortening refers to edible hydrogenated oils of animal and vegetable fats, high-grade refined oils, or a mixture of the above. Emulsifiers, antioxidants, and antifoaming agents may also be added, and nitrogen may be introduced. This differs from artificial butter in that it does not require emulsification. Depending on its physical properties, it is often divided into general-purpose, emulsified, frosting, filling, coating, and frying types.
Artificial Butter: refers to a solid fat made from animal and vegetable fats with added water and other auxiliary materials (emulsifiers, flavorings, pigments, etc.) through emulsification, rapid cooling, kneading, and ripening to achieve plasticity. Depending on its use, it can also be divided into baking, dining, and pancake artificial butter.
Refined Oils: include refined butter, lard, coconut oil, palm kernel oil, and hardened lard, coconut oil, and palm oil.
Advantages of Using Specialized Baking Fats in Baking
Fats play a crucial role in baked goods, offering unique functionalities in the baking process. The final flavor of baked goods made with baking fats differs from those made with ordinary oils, due to these unique functionalities.
1. Plasticity: Plasticity refers to the ability to change shape under external forces, facilitating spreading, improving dough extensibility, and resulting in a crispy product.
2. Creaming Property: When baking fat is whipped in air, the air forms small bubbles that are enveloped and absorbed by the fat. This air-containing property of the fat is called creaming property. It is an important property in food processing. Adding baking fat to the batter and stirring can increase the batter volume, resulting in a soft texture.
3. Shortening Property: When baking fat is used in dough preparation, the fat coats the flour, preventing the flour particles from binding together and preventing gluten and starch from adhering. Its layered distribution in the baked goods provides lubrication, weakening the texture and making it crumbly. This is particularly important for cookies and pastries.
4. Stability: Ordinary fats often have poor stability and shorter shelf life during baking and frying due to the thermal decomposition of natural antioxidants or the lack of natural antioxidants. Baking fats, however, through hydrogenation and transesterification modification, reduce unsaturation or incorporate antioxidants, thereby improving oxidative stability.
5. Frying Property: Baking fats are stable at high temperatures, making them less prone to oxidation, polymerization, hydrolysis, and thermal decomposition.
6. Emulsification, Dispersion, and Lubrication: The emulsification property of baking fats helps stabilize the dispersion of oil droplets in the aqueous phase, resulting in loose, high-volume, and flavorful baked goods. For example, when making butter cakes with high sugar content and increased water, milk, and egg content, the fat may struggle to enter the aqueous phase. Baking fats, however, can be used with high sugar content. It is also a softening agent, making dough and finished products softer, extending shelf life, lubricating batter and dough, facilitating expansion and slicing, and resulting in crispy, soft, smooth, and delicious cakes that highlight the flavor of the cake itself.
7. Water Absorption: The water absorption property of baking fats helps absorb and retain moisture in baked goods, preventing hardening under pressure and maintaining crispness.
8. Flavor: Baking fats enhance the appealing color, aroma, flavor, and texture of the finished product.
9. Nutrition: Baking fats provide 9 kcal per gram and are rich in fat-soluble vitamins, carotene, and essential fatty acids.
How to Choose Baking Fats
Fats are one of the most commonly used auxiliary materials in the baking industry. The importance of fats in baked goods depends on the product being made. Fats are not absolutely necessary for yeast-based products; for example, French bread can be made without fat and retains its crispness. However, fats significantly impact other products such as butter cakes, fruit cakes, pie crusts, small pastries, and other Western desserts, as these products are greatly affected by fats. Generally, fats affect the softness and crispness of baked goods; increase product volume; increase the stability of cake batter; extend shelf life; and increase nutrition. Therefore, choosing the right fat for the product is crucial.
Currently, the Chinese baking market has a wide variety of fat types and brands, with confusing naming conventions that often mislead users. In reality, due to differences in baking product formulas, production processes, and quality requirements, the requirements for the physicochemical properties and baking properties provided by various fats, such as melting point and melting properties, vary. Therefore, with the development of China's baking industry, baking technicians and owners are no longer satisfied with simply operating equipment; they yearn for a more systematic understanding of the physicochemical indicators and baking performance of baking auxiliaries. Only in this way can they choose the right raw materials, control product prices and quality stability, avoid blindly following others, make reasonable combinations, and create unique and delicious baked goods.
1. Functions of Baking Fats in Cakes, Pie Crusts, and Small Pastries
1. Functions of Fats in Bread: While it's been mentioned that bread can be made without fats, using them appropriately is crucial for achieving ideal bread quality. Adding fats during mixing creates a monomolecular film at the interface of gluten and starch, binding tightly and preventing separation. This makes the gluten softer, improves gas retention, increases bread volume, enhances texture, and adds shine to the crust, resulting in a softer, tastier, and more nutritious bread. However, excessive fat can lead to smaller volume and coarser texture. The typical amount of fat in bread should not exceed 12%.
2. Oiliness of Fats: The oiliness of fats significantly impacts the crispness and texture of biscuits, pastries, and pies. Higher oiliness leads to crispier products with better taste. Lard has the highest oiliness among fats.
3. Emulsifying Properties of Fats: The ability of fats to incorporate air during mixing is called emulsifying power. This directly affects the volume and quality of some cakes, especially batter cakes and heavy cream cakes. The quality of the fat directly impacts the cake's volume and texture. Chemical leavening agents increase cake volume, but excessive use results in a coarse texture with irregular large air pockets.
4. Stability of Fats: Fats incorporated into batter during mixing help stabilize it, preventing collapse during baking until other ingredients, such as gluten, solidify and form the structure. Smaller, more numerous, and evenly distributed air bubbles in the batter result in greater strength, larger product volume, and better texture. Because ordinary fats have poor emulsification in batter, their usage is limited to under 40% of the total, while higher-quality fats can be used up to 50-55%.
5. Aroma Retention of Baking Fats: The aroma of fats comes from two sources: the fat itself, often a naturally light animal fat aroma from higher animal fat content, considered a healthier option; and artificially added flavorings, which provide a stronger aroma but often have poor aroma retention after baking. These flavorings are usually chemically synthesized and may be harmful to health with long-term consumption. Low-grade fats, often palm oil with poor base quality, often compensate with stronger added flavors, which is a misconception. Fat selection should prioritize the base oil quality, considering the aroma's origin, rather than solely focusing on intensity.
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