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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 mixtures of the above, manufactured through rapid cooling and kneading into solid, semi-solid, or liquid forms 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 mixtures 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 processes to achieve plasticity. Depending on its use, it can 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 and improving dough extensibility, resulting in crispy products.
2. Creaming Property: When baking fat is whipped in air, small air bubbles are enveloped and absorbed by the fat. This air-containing property is called creaming property. It is an important property in food processing. Adding baking fat to batter and stirring increases the batter volume, resulting in a soft texture in the final product.
3. Shortening Property: When baking fat is used in dough preparation, it coats the flour, preventing the flour particles from binding together and inhibiting the adhesion of gluten and starch. Its layered distribution in baked goods acts as a lubricant, weakening the texture and making it crumbly. This is particularly important for cookies and pastries.
4. Stability: Ordinary fats often exhibit poor stability and shortened shelf life during baking and frying due to the thermal decomposition of natural antioxidants or the lack thereof. Baking fats, however, undergo hydrogenation and transesterification modification, reducing unsaturation or incorporating antioxidants, thereby improving oxidative stability.
5. Frying Property: Baking fats maintain stability at high temperatures, thus resisting oxidation, polymerization, hydrolysis, and thermal decomposition.
6. Emulsification, Dispersion, and Lubrication: The emulsification property of baking fats facilitates the stable dispersion of oil droplets in the aqueous phase, resulting in loose, voluminous, and flavorful baked goods. For example, when making cream 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 in conjunction 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 inherent flavor of the cake.
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. Nutritional Value: 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. Their importance varies depending on the product. While not strictly necessary for yeast-based products (e.g., French bread can be made without fat and retain its crispness), they significantly impact other products like cream cakes, fruit cakes, pie crusts, small pastries, and other Western desserts. Fats generally affect the softness and crispness of baked goods, increase volume, enhance batter stability, extend shelf life, and add nutritional value. Choosing the right fat is crucial for these products.
Currently, the Chinese baking market offers a wide variety of fat brands with confusing names, often leading to misunderstandings. In reality, the requirements for the physicochemical properties and baking performance of different fats vary depending on the baking product recipe, production process, and quality requirements (e.g., melting point and melting properties). Therefore, as the Chinese baking industry develops, baking technicians and owners are no longer content with simply operating equipment; they desire a more systematic understanding of the physicochemical indicators and baking performance of baking auxiliaries. This allows for the selection of appropriate raw materials, control of product price and quality stability, informed decision-making instead of blindly following trends, and the creation of unique and delicious baked goods through rational ingredient combinations.
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 use 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 holes.
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 with a naturally light animal fat aroma due to higher animal fat content, considered a healthy fat; and added artificial flavorings, which provide a stronger aroma but often have poor aroma retention after baking. These flavorings are mostly chemically synthesized and may be harmful to health with long-term consumption. A misconception is that low-grade fats, often palm oil with poor base quality, should have stronger added flavors. Fat selection should prioritize the base oil quality, considering the aroma's origin, rather than solely focusing on intensity.
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