Principles of food preparation

A pastry bag can be used to fill the puffs, or one can be improvised by making a cornucopia of stiff paper, inserting the end into a small opening in the side of the freshly baked puffs, then pouring the filling into the cornucopia and squeezing the larger end, thus forcing the mixture into the puffs. Note. When the cream-puff mixture is formed, before baking, into a cylindrical shape by passing it through a pastry tube about an inch in diameter, the cakes are called "eclairs." They are filled as usual, and are generally spread with a chocolate icing. The cream-puff mixture is called by French cooks the "chou" paste. 1. Different leavening agents — air, steam, carbon dioxide. 2. Various classes of commercial baking powders — tartrate, phosphate, alum, etc. The use of egg albumen in baking-powder manufacture. 3. The nature of the products formed by double decomposition of the substances in the baking powders of commerce. The different opinions regarding the wholesomeness or unwholesomeness of the residues left in the dough from the different classes of baking powder. 4. The need of some elastic and tenacious substance to hold the gas evolved from the baking powder or other leaven. 5. Common adulterants of baking powder; of flour. Tests for these adulterations. The bleaching of flour. 1. Discuss the advantages and the disadvantages of adding the dry mixture to the wetting, or conversely, the wetting to the dry ingredients, in mixing a batter or dough. In what cases might one method be more advisable; in what cases might the other be more advantageous to use? 2. Why is not baking soda alone used for a leaven without the addition of an acid? 3. Describe the different ways in which butter may be added to a batter or dough, and the effect of these various methods. 4. Discuss various methods of ascertaining how much soda is required when used as a leaven with sour milk or other acid liquid. 5. Recipes for the use of soda sometimes prescribe that it shall be added to the sour milk or other liquid; sometimes that it shall be sifted in with the dry ingredients. Compare the advantages and disadvantages of both methods. 6. What effect was produced by cooking the flour, butter, and water together in making the cream puffs? Why was it necessary to the success of the mixture that this effect should be produced? (Try to conceive what would happen if the ingredients were mixed in the usual way.) 7. Besides the carbon dioxide, other leavening agents, such as air and steam, are present in flour mixtures. Enumerate the mixtures in which each of these agents played the most important part; the mixtures in which each had probably the least effect. The exercises on this subject may be chosen from the various derivatives of the soft and the stiff doughs. References See References for Chapter XV, wath the addition of: Snyder. Human Foods, Chap. XII. Bulletin 13, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Division of Chemistry. C'HAPTER XVII To the Student. Good quick-process bread can be made in a two-hour class period. Excellent quick-process bread can be made at home in from three to five hours.