Food
Many bakers who are just starting out have questions about commonly used phrases in their recipes. If you didn’t have enough luck to grow up with your grandma in the kitchen where these things were lovingly explained, “buttercream and sugar,” “scrape down the bowl,” “cut fat into the flour mixture.” You may have a question about what it means. Even if you are familiar with this vocabulary, it can be helpful to know why these techniques are important. Below is a guide to common baking phrases for reference by bakers of all skill levels.
Adding eggs, one at a time
After mixing butter and sugar, the next ingredient in many cookie recipes is eggs. They should be added one at a time so that the buttercream/sugar mixture can more effectively retain the trapped air, tapping each well before adding the next. Scrape the sides of the bowl so that it contains all the butter and sugar mixture.
Beating egg whites
The proper beating of egg whites is important for making certain light cookies, such as meringues and cupcakes. Three things to keep in mind, Bowls and beaters should be clean and grease-free, Use stainless steel, ceramic, or glass containers instead of plastic. Egg whites are beaten above room temperature before being beaten. When you hit the egg white, you will initially have a clear liquid puddle with large bubbles.
It’s very easy to go too far. The appearance of granular white ridges makes it difficult to create a web of air, water, or protein past a hard peak, and each time a beater hits. You will also see a clear liquid puddle below the bubbles. The good news is that the bubbles that are still on top of the liquid continue to work. The bad news is that you can’t really fix what happened except to start over with fresh egg whites.
Boiling
When the liquid on the burner boils, the first sign of this imminent boiling is a very small bubble on the liquid at the edge of the pot. Heating milk is called scalding the milk. After that, bubbles from the inside of the pot begin to rise and burst on the surface. These bubbles are small and widely spaced. This is called boiling. If the recipe requires boiling the liquid in a pan, adjust the heat so that these bubbles continue to form and break at intervals, but not always. To boil a liquid, keep the heat high until there are many bubbles on the surface that make it indistinguishable. This is called a full boil or a rolling boil.
Chilling
Flattening wrapped dough to chill. Put the dough in a plastic bag, let it cool, and press it flat with a rolling pin. This allows the dough to cool quickly and provides an edge for later rollout.
After mixing the cookie dough, the fat hardens when cooled, giving the flour time to absorb the liquid evenly. This allows the dough to be stretched more evenly and retains its shape when cut and transferred to a baking sheet so that the dough does not stick too much.
Cooling cookies
Move cookies to a cooling rack Use a spatula to move cookies to a cooling rack.
When baking drip cookies, especially if you like sticky ones, remove the tray from the oven and leave it on the baking sheet for 5 minutes. This gives the cookie a chance to harden a little before inserting the putty knife under the cookie. After 5 minutes, place the cookies in a cooling rack to cool. A grid pattern cooling rack with 1/2 inch holes is recommended for added support when the crispy cookies cool.
Bar cookies should be chilled in a wire rack baking pan. Do not cut while hot. This creates a rod with very rare edges and is much more likely to fall apart when removed from the pan.
Creaming
Creaming is responsible for creating the texture of cookies, especially crunchy cookies. This is the process of initiating many cookie recipes. This is where sugar and fat mix to form bubbles and trap them. Bubbles are formed when the ends of sugar crystals are cut into fat molecules to form an air sac. When you start beating sugar and fat, the mixture is thick and slightly lumpy. If you keep hitting, the mixture will have a creamier texture, and when air is in, it will have a more uniform and brighter color.
Cutting in
A flat portion of fat that is the size of thumbnail results in exfoliation.
This technique combines fat and flour in a way that preserves the pieces of fat in the mixture. These pieces enter between the flour/liquid layers of the dough and separate them as they are baked, creating a soft, flaky texture in the freshly baked cookies. The cut can be made by lightly pulsing a dough fork, two knives, a dough mixer, or a food processor.
Melting chocolate
Chocolate is flammable and will be easier to grip (hard and immiscible) when it comes in contact with water as it melts. It is recommended to put it in a heat-resistant container and melt the chocolate in the microwave with moderate force. A cup of chocolate chips melted with half the power needs to be heated for one and a half to two minutes, depending on the power of the microwave.
It is preferable to melt the chocolate in three-quarters of the process and complete the process of melting with the accompanying heat while stirring and softening the chocolate.
