New to Baking? Me too! Lets Learn Together!
As a human who spends a lot of time in the kitchen, I have not done much baking. It intimidates me. I don’t feel like I have as much freedom to experiment, mostly because I don’t know how the chemistry works. Speaking from experience the slightest miscalculation in baking can lead to complete disaster, I often avoid baking completely because l’m human and failing is not fun. Today is the day that I overcome that fear!
Step one: Inspiration
I’m much more eager to learn if I am excited by what I am learning. So, I figured I better pick a great goal recipe so that I can learn while baking. I decided to bake apple cheddar scones from one of my favorite cookbooks, Run Fast Cook Fast Eat Slow. Just imagining my kitchen smelling like apple cheddar scones is enough to power me through this learning experience!
Step two: Ingredients
The recipe called for two types of flour, 1.5 cups of all purpose whole wheat flour AND 1.5 cups of whole wheat pastry flour. I’ve reached my first question: what is the difference between all purpose flour and pastry flour? According to Bon Appetite, it all comes down to protein percentage. The more protein in the flour the more gluten can be formed when the flour is mixed with water. Gluten is responsible for the structure of the baked good. The more gluten the more structure. All purpose (AP) flour is 9-11% protein and acts exactly as its name suggests. It can be used for almost everything and be almost perfect. Pastry flour has a lower protein percentage than AP flour, about 8%. The lower protein content allows the baked product to be more tender than a baked good made with AP flour. In this recipe the mixture of AP flour with pastry flour will cause the scones to be slightly more tender than if exclusively AP flour, but without compromising on the structure.
The next ingredients the recipe called for is .5 tsp baking soda AND 1 tbsp baking powder. Again I find myself asking the same question: what is the difference between the two? Luckily one of my favorite cooking websites, The Kitchn had an answer for me. Both are leavening agents, meaning they both will cause a chemical reaction to happen that allows the baked good to rise. Baking soda is sodium bicarbonate. It reacts with acid to quickly release carbon dioxide which causes the baked good to rise. It also neutralizes the acid this reaction is important because if there is any baking soda left over that doesn’t react with the acid it will cause an unpleasant after taste in your precious baked good! Baking powder on the other hand is baking soda with the correct ratio of sodium bicarbonate to acid. Which is the perfect segue to my next question: why use both and risk having that unpleasant after taste? Again, The Kitchn had all of the answers. If you use baking powder alone, it may cause your baked good to be too acidic. However, if you add just enough baking soda to react with all of the acid without any baking soda left over, it may not produce enough carbon dioxide to lift your baked good as much as you want. That is why the one, two punch of baking soda and baking powder is so effective. The perfect amount of lift with no unpleasant after taste! Mind blown!
After all of that talk about acid there has to be an acidic ingredient in this recipe to react with the baking soda, and indeed there is — full fat yogurt! An additional bonus to baking with full fat yogurt is the nutritional value it adds to the baked good! Its a nice way to sneak in some calcium, protein, and potassium! An added bonus if you can find a brand that doesn’t have any added sugar, like the one I found.
Next, the recipe called for 1 stick of very cold butter. Why very cold? Well, recipes call for very cold butter when the intention is for the butter to not fully combine with the dry goods. This causes layers in the final product after the baked good is cooked. How do the layers form? Butter is also a leavening agent like baking powder and baking soda. As cold butter is heated up it creates steam between the layers of dough, this leads to a more flaky final product.
The rest of the ingredients are for the unique apple cheddar flavored scone: 1 medium sized apple cut into bite sized cubes, .5 cup of shredded cheddar cheese, 1 tsp salt, and two tbsp of fresh rosemary finely chopped. I cut the apple and shredded the cheese ahead of time, so I didn’t have to worry about anything except following the directions.
Step 3: Lets get baking!
After learning why all of the ingredients were included in the recipe the steps made a lot more sense. I actually felt much more organized because I had an intention behind every step.
1. Preheat the oven to 350 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Combine all of the dry ingredients (1.5 cup AP flour, 1.5 cup pastry flour, .5 tsp baking soda, 1 tbsp baking powder, and 1 tsp salt).
3. Cut the butter into 1 inch by 1 inch cubes and quickly incorporate into the dry ingredients with your hands. This step made a lot more sense after learning why I was using very cold butter. I quickly combined the butter and flour trying not to melt the butter.
4. Mix in the chopped apple, 1/2 cup of cheese, and rosemary. Then add the yogurt and mix until the dough comes together. Use your hand to incorporate all remaining flour.
5. Place the dough on a lightly floured surface (I used a cutting board) and shape the dough into a log shape large enough to cut 10-12 triangles. Press in any additional cheese to the surface of the log.
6. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes, or until golden brown.
Final Thoughts:
Overall, I think this first attempt at baking scones went very well! The final texture was perfect and you could really see the layers formed by the cold butter in the final product. I think that I would have made the log that I cut into triangles a little bit longer because the scones rose more than I expected in the oven. Thank you leavening agents! Having all of the ingredients out in front of me chopped, shredded, and ready to go was essential to making the baking a pain free process. Now that I understand more about why specific ingredients are used in baking I have a feeling I will be trying it again soon!