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

FAQs

Functions of Fat in Baking – Understanding Ingredients for the Canadian Baker? ›

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 makes foods juicy and tender. It adds flavor and texture to what you cook. It also prevents sticking and gives baked goods their flakiness and sauces their silkiness.

Fat helps control the texture of the finished product, its spread, and its appearance. In most cookies containing fat, a plastic (solid or semi-solid) shortening is first combined with the sugar in a creaming stage. This helps to entrap air, and contributes to the structure or grain of the finished product.

Fat is a principle ingredient responsible for tenderness of biscuits and it keeps the quality, grain and texture besides adding the rich quality of the biscuits (O'Brien et al. 2003).

The role of the fat in making a pastry is to give texture to the final product. Depending on the kind of fat used, the pastry will also have a certain flavor. Pastry chefs use various types of fats, like vegetable shortening, butter, or lard.

What is the function of fat in sponge cake? ›

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.

In bread making fat provides flavour but more importantly lubricates the dough. This helps to retain the gases released during baking thus ensuring a well risen loaf which will have a soft crumb and will stay fresh longer.

The Effect of Fat on Texture & Structure

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.

Sometimes referred to as plastic fat, solid fat examples are: butter, tallow, lard, and shortening. They remain solid at room temperature and can be melted by warming or heating. In baked goods, solid fats are often whipped or creamed which creates air bubbles within the fat resulting in a light texture.

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.

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.

Fat forms one of the basic components of a cookie formulation and is present at relatively high levels. Fat acts as a lubricant and contributes to the plasticity of the cookie dough (Maache-Rezzoug, Bouvier, Allaf, & Patras, 1998). It also prevents excessive development of the gluten proteins during mixing.

Probably the biggest function of oil in most baking recipes is to keep your product moist. It basically captures the gases that are released from the interaction of the baking powder and baking soda, and slows down gluten formation to keep certain baked goods tender and fluffy in texture!