CHAPTER 14: NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVORINGS Flashcards
When asked about if a particular food is liked, most people comment on what?
Flavor, or taste.
Are texture and presentation unimportant compared to flavor?
No, it’s just that flavor is the most important of all.
How do you develop a sense of taste?
Through practice and experience.
Are smell and memory connected?
Yes, so use it to your advantage. Connect smells to memories.
Flavor consists of what three main parts?
Basic tastes, trigeminal effects, and smell.
Basic tastes include what?
Sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami.
Trigeminal effects (or chemical feeling factors) include what?
Pungency of ginger, the burn of cinnamon, the cooling of mint, and the sting of alcohol.
What is often considered the most important of the three components of flavor?
Smell, or aroma. It is certainly the most complex.
Butter aroma is composed of how many different chemical compounds?
Hundreds.
What is a flavor profile?
A description of product’s flavor when it is first smelled until after it is swallowed. The term is also used to describe the distinctive flavor combinations that characterize the food of a particular culture.
Explain the flavor profile of a particular milk chocolate.
It may start with the aromas of vanilla and roasted coca, continue with the sweet taste and a milky caramelized flavor, and end with lingering bitterness.
A full flavor profile has what?
Top notes, middle notes, and background or base notes, and an aftertaste or finish.
What are top notes?
The smells that provide instant impact, the ones that first fill the bakeshop when pastries bake.
When a product is described as “low in flavor,” what does this mean? Explain.
Because top notes provide first impressions of a products flavor, when a product is described as “low in flavor,” it is often low in top notes.
Main sources of top notes.
Volatile flavors, or those that evaporate easily, usually because they consist of molecules that are small and light.
The smells of fresh cut lemons, ripe strawberries and peaches are classified as what?
Top notes, because they’re highly volatile.
Where do middle notes come from?
Flavor molecules that evaporate more slowly, usually because they are larger and heavier than top notes.
Middle notes provide satisfying what?
Staying power to flavor.
Name some foods classified as middle notes.
Many caramelized, cooked fruit, egg, cream, and coconut flavors. Also, roasted nuts, cocoa and chocolate, and coffee also are rich in middle notes, because of Maillard browning.
Background or base notes consist mainly of what?
The largest, heaviest flavor molecules that are nonvolatile.
Nonvolatile flavors evaporate slowly or what?
Not at all.
Basic tastes and trigeminal effects are part of what?
Flavor’s background notes.
If a product seems to be thin or weak and seems to need something, it’s probably what?
Middle and background notes.
Low-fat foods often lack what? Why?
Staying power, because fat helps slow the release of flavor.
How do you enhance the flavor profile of low-fat foods?
Adding more ingredients rich in middle and base notes.
Aftertaste, or finish, is what?
The final flavor that remains in the mouth after food is swallowed.
Basic taste–especially bitterness–and trigeminal effects, often from ___, ____, and other spices, are important to aftertaste.
cloves, ginger
Do most, if not all, ingredients added to foods provide flavor?
Yes
By flavorings, we are referring to ingredients added to foods primarily for their flavor, especially their aroma. What ingredients does this eliminate?
Honey, almonds, and cocoa because they are equally important for texture, appearance and nutrition.
Do sugar and salt count as flavorants? Explain.
Sugar and salt also don’t fall into this category because they provide basic tastes rather than aroma (and alter foods in many other ways).
While food flavoring contribute to a total flavor profile, they are especially good at providing _____ top notes and often ______ effects.
aroma, trigeminal
Flavorings used by bakers and pastry chefs can be categorized as what?
Herbs and spices and as processed flavorings.
Most, but not all, spices come from where?
Tropical climates.
The American Spice Trade defines a spice as what?
Any dried plant product used primarily for seasoning.
Where can spices comes from? Name of spices and their plant origins.
Bark of a tree (cinnamon), dried fruit (allspice and star anise), seeds (cardamom, nutmeg, and sesame), flower buds (clove, lavender, and rose), roots (ginger), and leafy herbs (mint, oregano, parsley). While not commonly thought of as spices, citrus peel, coffee beans, and vanilla pods fall into this definition.
All spices contain high amounts of what?
Volatile oils
Volatile oils are also called what?
Essential oils
The quality of a spice is related to what?
The amount of volatile oil it contains.
Why is Vietnamese (Saigon) cinnamon considered higher quality than Indonesian cinnamon?
It is very high in cinnamon oil, and often twice the price.
Besides providing top notes from volatile oils, spices provide ____ _______.
trigeminal effects
Cinnamon, allspice, ginger, cloves, anise, and many other spices provide valuable what to foods?
Pungency
Disadvantages of spices.
Because they are an agricultural product, they can vary greatly in quality, strength, and price, and insect infestation can occur.
When might a low quality spice be the right choice? Use cinnamon as an example.
High quality cinnamon is high in cinnamon oil, but this might not be what you need. For example, when cinnamon is sprinkled generously on pastries as a garnish, a so-called high quality cinnamon, such as Vietnamese cinnamon, might be too intense. Instead, the mildest, least expensive cinnamon is likely the ideal choice.
Vanilla beans are a seed pod of a particular _____.
orchid
Vanilla beans are classified primarily by what? Give examples.
A region of origin. For example, vanilla beans can be Mexican, Tahitian, Indonesian (Java), or from Madagascar.
Madagascar vanilla is often called what? Why?
Bourbon vanilla because Madagascar was once Bourbon Island.
Cultivation of vanilla beans usually takes how much time?
A year of intense labor.
Describe intense labor when harvesting vanilla beans.
Plants are hand-pollinated to produce flowers, which bloom for just a few hours before forming pods. The pods remain on the vine for up to nine months to ripen. At this point, they are mostly green in color and still flavorless. Once harvested, vanilla beans are cured to develop their characteristic aroma and chocolate-brown color.
Does the curing process vary with different vanilla beans? Explain.
Yes, it varies with region. In all cases, though, it starts with heating the pods to stop the ripening process. Some produces dip beans in boiling water; others lay them in the sun to bake or on mats over an open fire. The beans are next alternately exposed to heat by day, then covered by night, to sweat. This process is repeated several weeks before the beans are slowly dried, then covered and aged.
If properly cultivated and cured, vanilla beans can develop up to __% natural vanillin.
2
Main flavor molecule in vanilla.
Vanillin.
Does each type of vanilla have its own characteristic flavor? Why?
Yes, because the climate and local curing practices are different.
Most popular vanilla in the U.S.?
Madagascar (bourbon) vanilla.
Describe flavor of Madagascar vanilla.
Deep, rich flavor, reminiscent of wood and rum.
Describe flavor of Tahitian vanilla.
Sweeter, more floral aroma with hints of cherry.
How much vanilla imported to the US is Tahitian? Where is most of it shipped.
Less than 1%. The bulk of it is shipped to Europe.
A few of the many factors that affect quality of spices include what?
Plant variety, country of origin, method of harvesting and handling, annual climate conditions, manufacturer’s processing, and the age and storage conditions of the flavoring.
How do you minimize problems from spices?
Purchase spices from a reputable dealer and treat them as the raw agricultural products that they are. Or instead, consider using a processed flavoring.
Processed flavoring include what?
Extracts, liqueurs, compounds, oils, emulsions, and powders.
Can processed flavoring be natural or artificial?
Yes
Advantages of processed flavorings over spices.
Generally more consistent in flavor quality and strength, little or no concern over insect infestation, and they can be faster and easier to use than spices. For example, it is easier to measure an ounce of lemon extract or dried lemon peel than it is to zest a lemon.
One of the main disadvantages of processed flavorings.
The flavor of certain processed flavoring, even natural ones, can be less true, rich, or full than the original spice. For example, lemon extract, even if natural, rarely has the same true flavor as lemon zest.
Does almond extract taste much like almonds?
No
The most common processed flavoring in the bakeshop.
Extracts
All extracts contain what?
Alcohol
What does alcohol do for extracts?
Dilutes and dissolves the flavor ingredients and preserves them by preventing microbial growth.
Common flavors sold as extracts include what?
Vanilla, orange, peppermint, lemon, ginger, anise, and almond.
Can extracts be natural or artificial?
Yes, depending on whether the flavor added is natural or artificial.
The most popular and complex of extracts in North America.
Vanilla
