CONCEPT 43: LAYERS OF BUTTER MAKE FLAKEY PASTRY Flashcards
The difference between biscuits and pastries that are flaky and light and biscuits and pastry that are dense and heavy.
Knowing how to handle butter.
How does butter make biscuits and pastries flake? What must happens to accomplish this?
When butter is heated, the water turns to steam. This steam lifts the dough and helps create a flaky texture in biscuits, tarts shells and pie crusts. But butter must be evenly dispersed in layers throughout the dough. This way, when the butter layers melt, the steams helps separate the super-thin layers of dough into striated flakes.
The challenge with creating a flaky pastry with butter.
Getting the butter evenly dispersed throughout the dough while still leaving it in distinct layers.
What happens if butter becomes fully incorporated?
Fully incorporated butter (such as in cake) will cause no flakes.
Butter begins to soften at what temperature?
60ºF
Butter begins to melt at what temperature?
85ºF
Butter liquifies completely at what temp?
94ºF
When melted, what happens to butter creating flaky pastry?
Butter easily works its way into the other ingredients, removing the possibility of forming layers and promoting the formation of flakes in the oven.
Two methods used to create flakey pastries.
Lamination and fraisage.
Name three pastries that use lamination.
Puff pastry, croissants and many tart dough.
What are laminated pastries made of?
Alternating layers of dough and fat.
How are laminated pastries created?
By repeatedly rolling and folding the dough over itself, typically in thirds (like a business letter).
Each set of folds in lamination is called what?
A turn.
With each turn, what increases exponentially?
The layers.
The process of turning flattens butter into what?
This sheets sandwiched between thin layers of flour.
What does laminating pastries create in the oven?
The butter melts and steam fills the thin spaces left behind, creating hundreds of flaky, buttery layers.
What does fraisage refer to?
The process of smearing the dough with the heel of your hand, thereby spreading the butter into long, thin streaks between skeletal layers of flour and water.
TEST KITCHEN: BISCUIT DOUGH FORMED USING FLOUR AND BUTTER IN A FOOD PROCESSOR, MELTED BUTTER AND THIN CUT SLICES PRESSED BETWEEN WELL FLOURED FINGERS.
Melted butter biscuits sat squat, dense and uniform next to the moderately flaky traditional biscuits (food processor), both of which paled in comparison to the height and flakiness of biscuits made with thin pieces of butter.
What’s the key to flaky biscuits?
Get layers of solid fat spread between the layers of dough. This way, the thin layers of fat (butter) will melt when they hit the hot oven.
Why does melted butter not work for biscuits?
It’s incapable of forming discrete layers of solid fat between layers of dough.
Why is “pebbled” dough made in a food processor not good for biscuits?
The pebbles can’t begin to form layers of fat between layers of dough. Even when they do start to spread in the oven, the softening pebbles can’t spread far enough apart, forming only small regions of fat that won’t give rise to flakey biscuits.
How should you cut biscuits?
With firm, even pressure; do not twist the cutter.
How should you mix flour and butter for biscuits?
Drop butter into flour, coat butter and pick up one piece at a time, pressing between well floured fingertips into flat, nickel-sized pieces.
Why does a food processor work for pie dough but not biscuits?
The pebble shape, created by a food processor, is ideal for the small, irregular flakes in a pie crust but not for the pronounced layers we need in a biscuit.
How should butter be treated for a biscuit?
Slicing the butter into very thin squares, and–instead of cutting the squares into the flour with a pastry blender–we press each piece onto the flour with our fingers, breaking them into flat, flaky pieces about the size of a nickel. This is exactly what we want for a biscuit; as we roll out the dough we can see the butter develop into long, thin sheets.
What does swapping out some butter for shortening do with biscuits? Explain.
It has a tenderizing effect because butter is 16 to 18% water while shortening is all fat; shortening reduces the hydration level in biscuits.
Besides shortening having less water, why else does it have a tenderizing effect on biscuits?
Shortening contains higher amounts of unsaturated oil than butter, which has a higher level of saturated fats. The higher level of liquid oil in the room-temperature shortening more effectively coats the protein in the flour, also reducing the level of hydration. Less hydration means less gluten formation and a more tender biscuit.
Why add extra baking soda to buttermilk biscuits?
It reacts with the acidic buttermilk creating carbon dioxide, neutralizes the acid in the buttermilk (so acid doesn’t reduce the leavening power of baking powder), takes the edge off buttermilk’s flavor so it’s not too acidic.
What happens if you allow the butter to melt in the biscuits before baking?
If they soften and mix during the series of folds, the result will be biscuits that are short and crumbly instead of crisp and flaky.
Why don’t you have the luxury of letting the biscuit dough rest in the fridge to avoid softened butter?
Baking soda in the dough begins to react the moment liquid and dry ingredients come together.
How can you buy extra time besides chilling the butter for biscuits?
Chilling the mixing bowl and all of the ingredients before mixing.
Why is biscuit dough a catch-22? How do you fix this issue?
It needs to bet wet–a dry dough makes a dry biscuit–but it also needs to be rollable. We don’t want to scatter too much flour on the counter because the wet dough will absorb it and no longer be wet. The solution is a quick counter top spray with vegetable oil, helping the dough release easily.
Why should you never twist the biscuit cutter? How should biscuit be placed on a tray?
Twisting can seal the edges of the biscuit and prevent them from rising. Dipping the ring in flour and inverting the biscuit (flat side up) on the baking tray will lead to an evenly baked biscuit.
Homemade clotted cream recipe.
1 1/2 cups pasteurized (not ultra-pasteurized) heavy cream
1/2 cup buttermilk
Combine, stir, cover and let stand at room temp until mixture has thickened to consistency of softly whipped cream, 12 to 24 hours.
