What's the point of letting dough rise?
What's the point of letting dough rise?
If you don't allow your bread dough to rise, you'll end up with a heavy and disagreeable loaf.
When you let dough rise, you're giving yeast a chance to leaven the dough. This happens when fermentation produces carbon dioxide gas that puffs it up. Dough should be left to rise in a warm place without draughts and covered with a clean kitchen towel to prevent a crust from forming.
The formal name for this process is proofing (sometimes calling proving).
An egg wash is a well-beaten egg that's often mixed with a bit of water, milk or salt.
Egg wash is applied with a pastry brush to unbaked bread dough, pie or pastry crust to seal the dough and to give it a glossy finish once it comes out of the oven.
Egg washes can also be made with egg whites or egg yolks only, and whether you add water, milk or salt to the mixture can affect the final look and texture of the dish. Different recipes may call for different sorts of egg washes, and you can experiment to see which one works best for you.
An egg wash can also be brushed on the edges of wonton wrappers to seal dumplings or on the edges of ravioli to seal them before poaching.
Once a prize kept under lock and key in wealthy households, sugar is now ubiquitous and comes in many forms. Most commercial sugar is made from cane or beet root. Here's a look at the most common types of sugar used in the kitchen.
Granulated white sugar: White sugar is highly refined and made from sugarcane or beets. This all-purpose refined white sugar has small but fairly coarse crystals and is used to sprinkle on food, sweeten beverages, or add to dishes during cooking. Golden granulated sugar is a brown sugar made from sugar cane molasses that is similar but has a light brown color.
Castor (caster) or superfine sugar: This refined white sugar has fine crystals that dissolve more quickly than regular granulated sugar, making it a good choice for baking meringues. Golden castor sugar is made from unrefined cane sugar.
Brown sugar: Brown sugar is nothing more than white sugar that has been mixed with molasses to color it and give it a moist texture. Light brown sugar has less molasses than dark brown sugar. Brown sugar should not be confused with raw sugar, which has a similar color and taste but is actually the residue from processed sugarcane.
Turbinado sugar: A sugar cane extract that is made by steaming unrefined raw sugar. It has large crystals and a slight molasses flavor. It's a shade paler than brown sugar and can be substituted for brown sugar in recipes. We like to use turbinado sugar for sprinkling on top of muffins, cookies and scones. It holds its texture well and, when cooked, has a nice sweet crunch.
Demerara Sugar: True Demerara sugar is raw or partly refined sugar with large crystals, but some impostors are nothing more than white sugar stained with molasses.
Muscovado Sugar: This raw cane sugar comes in light and dark varieties and is used to make cakes and desserts.
Powdered, icing or confectioner's sugar: This sugar is made by reducing granulated sugar to a powder and mixing it with starch to prevent it from lumping up. It's used to decorate cakes and can also be used in making sweet dishes and baked goods.
Leaveners or leavening agents are substances that are used to make bread and other baked goods -- such as cakes, cookies and muffins -- rise.
Bread rises thanks to yeast, a fungus that ferments when mixed with dough, converting sugar and starch into ethanol and carbon dioxide that allows it to rise. Yeast comes in fresh or dry forms.
Pure sodium bicarbonate, baking soda will not only fluff up your muffins, it can also put out a grease fire, clean your teeth and deodorize your carpet. When you cook with baking soda, you need to balance it out with an acid like lemon juice or buttermilk. Otherwise, your muffins may have a bitter, soapy flavor.
A combination of baking soda and a few other ingredients, most notably cream of tartar, a dry acid, baking powder usually comes in a can. Out of baking powder? Make your own by mixing one part baking soda with two parts cream of tartar.
Yeast, that magical microscopic fast-multiplying fungus that makes bread dough rise and beer and Champagne effervescent, comes in various fresh and dry forms. When mixed with flour and liquid at a warm temperature to make dough, yeast ferments, converting sugar and starch into ethanol and carbon dioxide gases that allow the bread to rise.
Fresh yeast: Fresh yeast is a type of baker's yeast that comes in squares. It is light beige and has a yeasty fresh smell (if the odor is too strong or the color is too dark, it is past its prime). It must be refrigerated. When you're ready to use it, fresh yeast is mixed with lukewarm water and sugar until it froths up from fermentation and can be mixed in with other ingredients. Once dough rises once, it is punched down and allowed to rise again before baking.
Active dry yeast: Dehydrated baker's yeast keeps longer than fresh yeast. Regular dry yeast is activated by adding lukewarm water and a bit of sugar and left to foam up before mixing with other ingredients and allowed to rise twice before baking. Instant, fast-acting or quick-rising yeast can be mixed in with other ingredients and only needs to rise once before baking.
Brewer's yeast: Not suitable for baking, brewer's yeast is a non-leavening yeast used to make beer and as a dietary supplement.
Nutritional yeast: This deactivated yeast is grown on mineral-enriched molasses, then pasteurized to kill the yeast; unlike live or brewer's yeast, it tastes good and is also an excellent source of protein, B vitamins and minerals that help stabilize blood sugar.
Yeast starter: The yeast starter was the leavening method for bread before commercial yeast was developed in the 19th century. It is a mixture of yeast, flour, sugar and water that is fermented and kept refrigerated until needed, then brought to room temperature and used to make a fresh batch of dough by refreshing it with water and flour.
A laminated dough is created by pressing together alternating layers of dough and butter.
Laminated dough is a pastry staple, most recognizable in the sharp crunch of puff pastry or the chewiness of a croissant.
The specific technique of pressing together the butter and flour depends on what kind of pastry you're going for, but generally butter is spread on a thin layer of the dough, and then the dough is folded and rolled out repeatedly to create many alternating layers, which then puff up in a hot oven. For more details on what happens as a laminated dough is cooked, check out Joe Pastry's explanation.
what you should know
Unsalted butter is always equally unsalted, but salted butter is never quite salted the same.
The NaCl uncertainty is the main reason we prefer to use unsalted butter when we cook. Often that salt can subdue the sweet flavor of butter. (Unsalted butter is often labeled as "sweet butter.")
salt conversion In most recipes, the little extra salt will go unnoticed. Still, as a general rule if a recipe calls for unsalted butter but all you've got is salted butter, cut 1/4 teaspoon of salt per stick of butter (1/2 cup) you use.
stick it up Salt acts as a preservative for butter. Tightly wrapped in foil and stored in the fridge, salted butter can last for five months, while unsalted butter lasts about three before going stale. (Spot stale butter by slicing into the stick; the outside will be darker than the inside.) Then again, many people don't store butter in the fridge to begin with.
cooking with butter Sometimes, when you want a nuttier flavor, you'll want to let the butter's foam subside. But butter has a low smoke point, so be careful using it as your cooking fat. It'll burn easily. Clarified butter, or ghee, has a higher smoke point (and also makes a tasty dipping sauce for crab, lobster and anything else).
roux-dimentary Butter forms the foundation for countless classic sauces and thickeners, including béchamel, beurre manié and roux.
what you need
Have you ever wanted to make fresh butter at home? This traditional butter churn is based on the famous Dazey churn from the early 20th century.
You can also make a small batch of butter by putting cream in a jar and shaking it for a long, long time until you've shaken it solid.
The water-cooled crock owners we know swear by the constant supply of creamy, spreadable butter they keep on their tables.
Other butter lovers who shun the refrigerator prefer the classic rectangular butter dish.
what you do
Sage and butter are absolutely delicious together. How delicious? Try this rich and pillowy tortellini with sage brown butter and parmesan to find out.
Steamy Kitchen likes to top her slow butter- braised asparagus with parmesan and sea salt. With that savory finale, you definitely don't need salted butter.
Drizzling roasted sweet potatoes with cilantro-lime butter gives them a burst of tart richness.
Salted butter might interfere with the complex sugar-spice interaction in these orange-scented popovers with cinnamon-orange honey.
These better-for-you whole-grain flapjacks from hogwash are made with quinoa, millet and flaxseed. After using butter to grease the pan, you can afford to use a little extra on the cakes themselves.
Coconut & Lime's worked out one of the fastest and tastiest cinnamon bun recipes out there.
