Learning baking terms can make a difference in results
Recipes for baking have their own language, using words such as “cream,” “cut in,” “whisk,” “fold,” “stir” and “beat.”
If you’re an inexperienced baker, these terms can be confusing. Doing these techniques properly will make a big difference in how your cake, cookies or quick breads turn out.
Cream
This is often the first step in making a cake or cookies: “Cream the butter and sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy.” Creaming means to beat together ingredients — usually butter and granulated sugar — to add air and make them light and fluffy, resulting in a lighter-density batter. This can be done with an electric mixer or by hand.
Recipes usually call for using room-temperature butter. According to Shirley Corriher, food scientist and author of “CookWise,” the ideal temperature for the butter is 68 degrees or just slightly cooler. To achieve the best consistency, leave butter at room temperature just long enough to be firm yet not too soft or squishy.
“I get superior creaming when I start with refrigerator-cold butter cut into tablespoon-size pieces. During the first minutes of creaming, the butter is still too cold to blend with the sugar. But after six or seven minutes, it’s magnificent — light, very fluffy and dry,” she wrote in the winter 2004 issue of Fine Cooking Holiday Baking.
Cut in
“Cut in” refers to mixing cold butter or vegetable shortening with flour and sometimes other dry ingredients. This method, used when making pie pastry and biscuit dough, is done with a pastry blender, two knives, or by rubbing the mixture with your fingers. You can also use a food processor, pulsing on and off to get the desired size of particles. Directions will say to cut in butter until there are pieces the size of small peas, or like coarse cornmeal.
Starting with cold fat is the key. Cutting in coats the flour with the fat to prevent the formation of gluten when liquid is added; gluten would make the pastry tough.
Whisk
Whisks are used to whip air into ingredients, such as egg whites or whipping cream. The more wires a whisk has, the more effectively it incorporates air into a mixture. Whisks are available in a variety of sizes.
If you don’t have a whisk, use a portable electric mixer on low speed or a wooden spoon. If whisking a very small amount, such as one egg white, you can use a fork.
Fold
Recipes call for folding when combining two mixtures of different consistencies. The aim is usually to add light, fluffy textures to denser textures without losing volume.
Egg whites or cream, for example, often are beaten or whipped separately, then carefully folded into the batter without deflating the fluffy whites or whipped cream.
A large, flat rubber spatula or large, flat spoon works well for folding.
Start by adding one-fourth of the lighter mixture to the batter, fold, then add the rest.
To fold, pour or spoon the lighter mixture on top of the heavier one. Use an over-and-under motion, cutting through the center to the bottom of the bowl, across the bottom and up the side of the bowl, bringing some of the heavier food to the top. As the spatula reaches the top, turn it back toward the center of the bowl. Turn the bowl a quarter turn. Cut through the center again and repeat until mixed.
Don’t overfold. It’s better to have a few streaks in the batter than to deflate the lighter mixture.
Stir
Stirring is mixing with a spoon in a circular motion.
Stirring is used to move foods when cooking and to cool foods after cooking. Usually, recipes call for stirring to combine foods, such as a batter, before cooking. In those cases, stir means to gently mix just until well-combined, as opposed to beating, which takes more strokes.
Be cautious about overstirring. Muffins, pancakes and other batters can get tough, coarse and full of tunnels from overstirring. Just stir until dry ingredients are moistened. Ignore the lumps.
Beat
Beating is used to make a smooth mixture by stirring vigorously with a fork, spoon, whisk or electric mixer.
Follow directions for beating time. Overbeating a cake, for example, can create too fine a crumb or can introduce too much air, which may cause the cake to crack.