It’s December, and less than a week until Christmas, which means I am in full-on baking mode. I’ve been making quicks breads, muffins, cookies… you name it. So I wanted to talk a little bit about the components that go into baking. While I would say baking is definitely an art, it’s one of those things that’s a science too: if you mess up one of the ingredients, your baked goods probably won’t turn out as expected. So let’s get into the science of baking, shall we? (P.S. There is a very nice infographic of this information here.)
First, we have the flour. Flour is made mostly of starches and proteins. The protein in wheat flour (and some other flours, like barley and rye) is what we call gluten, and it serves to make dough sticky and elastic. When you mix the flour with water, the coiled up proteins stretch out and form a gluten network, which can stretch as gas bubble expand the dough. If the gluten network is too strong (which might happen if you overmix dough), the dough can’t rise; if it’s too weak, it won’t stay risen. In this recipe for pumpkin muffins, I used a gluten-free flour. This makes the muffins a little more crumbly than most baked goods, but adding fatty ingredients like almond meal keeps it moist.
The starch part of the flour is the carbohydrate portion. The starches can either be broken down and eaten by yeast (which will produce gas to help yeast breads rise), or, given enough water and heat, can form the structure of the baked good. There is still plenty of starch in these muffins, which help them to rise beautifully.
Fat is the second component (remember, fat is necessary and can be healthy… check out this post). What’s the main difference between a baked good with fat in it, and one without? The one with fat is more tender and softer. This is because the fat acts on the protein in the flour to slow the formation of the gluten network. We get the fat in these muffins from almond meal and an egg.
A third important player for baked goods is a leavening agent. Most breads have yeast that helps the bread to rise, as I already mentioned. Quick breads, cookies, and muffins usually have baking soda or baking powder. Baking soda reacts with acidic ingredients and heat to create gas, helping the dough to rise. Some recipes don’t call for any type of leavening, and these rely on the water in the baked good (which may come from a component such as butter). When the baked good goes in the oven, the water changes to steam and expands, causing the batter the rise. An item like a meringue, which using whipped egg whites, rises because whipping the egg makes it partially solid, allowed air bubbles to get trapped inside.
We have three more components, so hang with me.
The eggs are important in baked goods, because they give structure to the baked good and act as an emulsifier. Remember when I talked about emulsifiers in my post about salad dressing? It helps keep water and oil together, which is important in a baked good with some many hydrophobic and hydrophilic components.
Second to last component: sugar. sugars sweeten of course, but they can also caramelize to give that wonderful toasty aroma and caramel flavor in a baked good. This is why you can often smell when a baked good is done.
Lastly, we need salt. Salt helps to balance out the flavors, and actually makes sugar taste sweeter, and chocolate taste richer… it strengthens the flavors of the baked good. Salt also helps to keep the dough from being a sticky mess.
So there we go. Flour, fat, leavening, eggs, sugar, and salt. These form the basis of essentially all baked goods, and knowing how each component works can help you the create better baked goods. Is your bread too stiff? Does it not rise? You may have overmixed the dough. Are your cookies not browning? Sugar caramelizes around 350 degrees F, so you may need to raise the oven temperature or leave the cookies in a bit longer. Here’s a pretty cool guide from Handle the Heat specific to chocolate chip cookies:
But we’re making pumpkin muffins. Glorious, nutty, perfectly-spiced pumpkin muffins. I’ve been searching for a good gluten-free pumpkin muffin recipe, but most either turn out bland or too crumbly. I want that moist muffin top with a sweet and warm spice. I think the secret to making gluten-free quick breads and muffins, like my banana bread (LINK), is to use almond meal. I first got this idea from Minimalist Baker, one of my favorite blogs, and it works wonderfully to make a muffin that’s not too dense or too light and airy. If you don’t need to make these gluten-free (and I know gluten-free flour is expensive), go ahead and use regular flour. These muffins rise beautifully, and for only 200 calories each, they make a nice addition to breakfast or a snack.
Pumpkin Muffins
Makes 12
Ingredients
1 egg + 1 egg white
1 cup (150 g) pumpkin puree
2/3 cup (146 g) sugar
2 single-serve applesauce containers (about 3/4 cup; I love keeping the single serve applesauce containers in the pantry for baking. Applesauce is great for replacing some of the fat in quick breads and muffins, and having individual containers mean you don’t have to open an entire jar for less than a cup.)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon nutmeg (add up to 1 teaspoon if you like a lot of spice. Cinnamon tends to get all the credit in pumpkin-spiced goods, but I think the nutmeg is where it’s at. It has a warmer, deeper taste. http://www.tasteofhome.com/herbs-and-spices/get-to-know-nutmeg)
1/2 cup (55 g) almond meal (if you can't find almond meal, just pulse 1/2 cup almonds in a food processor for about 2 minutes, until it forms a coarse flour)
1 3/4 cup (160 g) gluten free flour blend (or just use regular flour)
1/2 cup (120 ml) water
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Put the first 5 ingredients (through vanilla extract) in a large bowl and whisk together until well combined.
2. Mix dry ingredients (baking soda through flour) in a separate bowl. (If I’m feeling lazy about washing multiple bowls, I sometimes just make a well in the wet ingredients and mix the dry together before incorporating into the wet. It works just fine).
3. Add the water and the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and mix until thoroughly combined. (Remember not to overmix! You’ll know if you’ve overmixed the dough–if you’re using regular flour– when the dough becomes sticky and gluey instead of smooth.)
4. Spray a muffin pan with oil spray and scoop batter evenly into 12 muffins. This is usually about 2 scoops of batter per muffin.
5. Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes. (These muffins start smelling really strongly when they are done, so use your nose!)
