Hi class and welcome back to baking school. Now we are currently on lesson 12
of the baking fundamentals course which means you made it. We are all the way at
the very end of the course and this is our last lesson. Now I hope you're
feeling really confident in all the new things you've learned about baking and
feeling really accomplished that you made it all the way through this course.
Now today I want to talk to you about the topic of ingredient temperatures and
some general guidelines for those temperatures with our baking. Now as you
know baking is an exact science and details do matter so paying attention to
ingredient temperatures is no exception. The biggest tip I have for you for your
ingredient temperatures in baking is to just follow the recipe. If a recipe is
written properly it will specify whether your ingredients need to be at room
temperature or cold for the recipe. Now I do know from experience that not all
recipes do specify this and if you're anything like me you like to know the
whys and baking even if it does. So let's dive into those guidelines. So as a
general rule of thumb really the only times it's desirable for our ingredients
to be cold in a recipe is when we are making something with a really flaky
texture. So some examples of this would be pie and tart crusts, biscuits, scones,
and something like a puff pastry. Now in all of these examples I've given you
it's really important that the fats a solid before the baked good goes into
the oven and this is because all of those pieces of solid fat are going to
melt in the oven creating little pockets of steam and flakiness. So therefore we
really want to make sure that the fat and the milk and the eggs and cream or
whatever else is in the recipe is going in cold so that the fat is not melting
and creating a cohesive dough instead of a dough that has little pieces of fat
all throughout. Now in contrast to this almost every other recipe that is not
going to have a flaky end result is going to call for room-temperature
ingredients. So this means room-temperature butter, eggs, milk or
anything that's going to come out of your refrigerator is going to want to
come to room temperature before you make the recipe. Now there are a few different
reasons for this if you're going to be making something that's asking for you
to cream butter and sugar together it's essential that your butter is at a cool
room temperature. So that means somewhere around 70 degrees Fahrenheit. So butter
is an emulsion of fat and water and when you're creaming it together with sugar
you're actually beating sugar and air into that emulsion which could make the
emulsion unstable but if the butter is around room temperature around 70
degrees Fahrenheit it will be stable enough to contain that web of air and
sugar. But if your butter is too warm or too cold the emulsion is likely going to
break and cause your dough to look kind of curdled. Now additionally if you're
adding eggs or milk or other ingredients like that into your creamed butter and
sugar mixture you can cause the emulsion to break if they're also too cold. So
it's really important that these ingredients come to room temperature
before you start the recipe. You'll also notice that eggs are going to more
readily absorb into your batters and doughs if they are at room temperature
and this is just going to lead to a more even bake and a nicer texture to your
final baked goo. Now there are a few ways you can bring ingredients to room
temperature. The best way is to plan ahead and to leave things out on your
counter for about 30 to 45 minutes before you do start your recipe. Now if
you are in a pinch and you need things to come to room temperature a little
quicker there are a few different things you can do. For things like butter and
cream cheese they are going to come to room temperature much more quickly if
they are in smaller pieces so I like to take my butter and cream cheese out of
the fridge and to just take a knife and cut them up
into smaller pieces and sort of spread them out a little bit. This is going to
greatly speed up the process of those ingredients coming to room temperature.
In fact my husband let me know a few weeks ago that when I was out of town he
tried to make a cheesecake by himself and it took a few hours for all of the
cream cheese to come to room temperature and that's because he stacked all of the
blocks of cream cheese together and they were sort of insulating each other and
it did take a really long time. So I suggested that next time he go ahead and
unwrap all of the cream cheese, cut them up into smaller pieces and sort of
spread, give them some surface area, spread them out so that they will come
to room temperature much more quickly. Now I find when I do this with a stick
of butter if I do cut the pieces pretty small it can take anywhere from five to
ten minutes for that to go ahead and come down in temperature. So you can
really get going much more quickly. Now for eggs you can actually put them in a
bowl and cover them with warm water for just about five minutes and this will go
ahead and bring those down to room temperature. Just make sure that your
waters not hot you just want it to be warm and that works really well for eggs.
Now for things like milk and cream you can just go ahead and put that in the
microwave for about 15 to 20 seconds and that will take the chill off and you'll
be ready to go. But I do not recommend using the microwave for butter because
it's really easy to go a little bit too far and to get butter that's slightly
melted which is not what you're looking for. You don't want it to be to the point
where it's starting to get a little liquidy or it is now too warm. Now there
are two other instances where it's really important to pay attention to
your ingredient temperatures and that is when making whipped cream and when
making meringue. So when you're making whipped cream you're going to be
whipping heavy cream to stiff peaks and this is not going to happen unless your
cream is very cold and ideally you actually want your bowl and your whisk
or your beaters for your mixer to also be cold. That really cold temperature is
going to whip the cream more quick and it's also going to keep the cream
more stabilized when it is whipped so it's very important that the cream is
cold when making whipped cream. Now in contrast when you're making meringue or
whipping egg whites to stiff peaks it's actually really important that the egg
whites are at room temperature or even just slightly warm egg whites are going
to gain their most volume when they are at room temperature and they are also
going to be the most stable when they are whipped this way they actually can
get to stiff peaks from cold but they just won't be as stable and they aren't
going to get the most volume out of them. So that is it for today's lesson,
really short and sweet but such an important lesson to end this course on.
And now it's time for me to give you your last homework assignment for this
course. Now for this lesson I want you to try making something completely new and
something that feels a little bit intimidating. So if you're anything like
me you probably have a list of baking recipes that you've always wanted to try
it but that feel a little bit intimidating. I want you to pick one of
those to make. Now I think you find when you utilize all of the skills and
knowledge that you've learned in this course,
that recipe is gonna feel a little bit more approachable and I think you're
going to have great success with it. Now even if it doesn't turn out exactly how
you hoped I know that you have gained the skills to assess what may have gone
wrong and to approach it next time with more success. So I'm so excited to see
what you all make for your final lesson and I'd love for you to share it with me
either in our private Facebook group or you can share it on social media using
the #BBbakingschool or you can email it to me directly at Bettie@Baker Bettie.com.
So thank you all so much for joining me for this very first
course in my new online baking school. I'm so honored that you decided to take
this course. I hope you enjoyed it and I am already working on the content for
the next course and I will be announcing that soon so go ahead
keep your ears open for that and I will see you guys next time. Bye!