Flour Batter Method

What did we cover this week, we looked at another method of production called the "Flour batter" method. Can you recall what the history and advantages of this method are?

Here's a clue, click on the link and take a look at the article listed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_the_United_Kingdom_during_and_after_World_War_II

Do you remember now?
Food Rationing during the war made it differcult to obtain ingredients such as butter, sugar, eggs and milk. The "Flour batter" method of cake production enabled people to produce a good quality cake from a cheap or inexpensive recipe.

How did we do this?
Look at the recipe on page 74 of your books......

1. We creamed equal parts of the fat with the flour in the begining of the mixing process, creaming a mixture puts air into the mix. This contributes to the rise in the cake batter when it is baked.
2. Coating a portion of the flour with fat also helps stop over developing the gluten forming proteins in the flour. By controlling the gluten development we helped make a cake with soft or tender eating qualities.
3. We aerated the eggs with some of the sugar. This helped increase the amount of mechanical aeration in the finished cake batter ensuring our cake would rise.
4. When we added the beaten egg to the flour batter mix we prevented the cake batter from curdling. This was because of the large proportion of flour already present in the mix assited in emulsifying the ingredients.
5. Adding the remaining flour last ensured that the flour would not be over worked and the protein in the flour would not become tough and elastic.

Can you see why it is important to understand the functions of your ingredients?

If you undertand what things do then you can adjust your recipes to allow for a lack of ingredients or solve a fault in a product you make. This ability to problem solve is an important part of being a baker or Pastry Chef.

Have a look at the information on flour when you get a chance, this will support what we are talking about in class.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flour

And remember if you have a question relating to this ask, you will not be the only person who is wondering what it all means but you may be the only person brave enough to speak up.

See you in class :-)

4 methods of production

Hi Guys (and Gals)

well we have covered a fair bit in the last couple of weeks, it is good to see you in class more confident and becoming familar with the layout of the bakery. Not so many people this week asking where the bowls and jugs are!!

So what have we learnt so far, we talked about the different ways we process the ingredients to produce a cake. We have identified 4 processing methods and these were:

1. All in
2. Sugar Batter
3. Flour Batter
4. Blend

By week three we would have produced a cake using each of the methods above and we will have started to identify the advantages and disadvantages in each method.

For example when we did the "All In" method we discussed the ease of production, everything went in the bowl at the same time. The timer went on, we scrapped down twice and the mix was ready within minutes. There seemed to be only a minimal amount of skill required, mearsuring accurately and the ability to follow instructions regarding mixing speeds and times.

When we did the "sugar batter" method we discovered we needed a greater amount of skill, we needed to:

• Identify when the sugar and fat were aerated correctly.
• We needed to precondition ingredients in order for them to emulsify correctly.
• We had determine when the groups of ingredients needed to be added. We looked for the different signs that told us each addition had been cleared and we could add the next amount.

Did you think this method needed a little more skill then the "All In"?

Click on the comments and let me know what you thought and why.