Functions of Fat in Baking – Understanding Ingredients for the Canadian Baker (2024)

FAQs

What are the functions of fat in baking? ›

Fat can blend flavors of ingredients together or enhance the flavor, such as butter. In baked goods, fat also contributes to the tenderness of a product as it prevents flour from absorbing water. Muffins or biscuits with reduced fat are often tougher because the gluten is more developed.

Fats and oils, like butter margarine , cocoa butter, oils, vegetable shortenings and lard are widely used for centuries in baking.

Helps with Leavening

Fat also plays an important role in leavening our baked goods. When solid fat is creamed with sugar it supports the web of air that is beaten into the two ingredients which lifts and leavens our baked goods.

Dietary fats are essential to give your body energy and to support cell function. They also help protect your organs and help keep your body warm. Fats help your body absorb some nutrients and produce important hormones, too.

My favourite fats for baking and raw desserts are extra virgin olive oil, grass fed butter or ghee, macadamia nut oil, cold-pressed coconut oil and avocado oil.

Fat In Cooking: Why You Need It

Fat blends flavors and ingredients—in baking and cooking—to give you a better-tasting final product. Fat also, especially in baking, influences texture.

The fat coats the flour and prevents too much water from being absorbed during the mixing and produces a crumbly, short-textured, melt-in-the-mouth effect. Stabilising helps food to keep its structure. Eggs and flour are used for stabilising.

According to Love Food Love Science, when fats are added to a recipe, they coat the flour particles, preventing them from soaking up water and forming gluten strands. This process is important because without fats, baked goods would be much more dense, heavy, and flat.

Fats are an essential ingredient in baking, directly imparting flavor and influencing tenderness and flakiness in pie and tart crusts. Most pie and tart crusts need to be made with a solid fat in order to create their characteristic tender and flaky texture.

Why are fat important? ›

Fats are nutrients in food that the body uses to build cell membranes, nerve tissue (including the brain), and hormones. The body also uses fat as fuel. If fats eaten aren't burned as energy or used as building blocks, they're stored by the body in fat cells.

It keeps baked goods moist and soft. When sugar is added to fats, it cuts into the mixture and creates thousands of tiny air bubbles and makes the batter light and fluffy. While your item is baking, these bubbles expand, which helps your item rise! Sugar adds flavor and changes color.