Book of American Baking / A Practical Guide Covering Various Branches of the Baking Industry, Including Cakes, Buns, and Pastry, Bread Making, Pie Baking, Etc.

by Various

Each Shortening in Its Proper Place.

In a number of experiments at Chidlow Institute, Chicago, seven years ago, it was found that every kind of fat that could be used in bread-making had a character of its own which it exhibited in various ways. In fact, they varied so widely as to suggest much deeper research than was at first contemplated at that time. In making up a number of doughs, small amounts of each shortening was added to the loaves, increasing the amount until a proportion of 40 pounds per barrel of flour was used, the lowest amount of shortening used being 2 pounds per barrel of flour. The loaves from each of these batches were placed aside with a view of finding out how much of the shortening was brought to the outside of the loaf by escape of the moisture, and it was found that nearly all shortenings came to the surface or crust of the loaf in different proportions. These tests were made many times over, and always with the same results. With some shortenings the amount of fat brought out was nearly one-half of what was added; in others it would be less than one-fourth, and in some it was as high as three-fourths. Evidently the shortening that would carry three-fourths of the quantity to the crust was unfitted for bread-making by that particular method and with that particular flour.

The details of these experiments are of no service here. They are only referred to as indicating a difference of result obtained by the use of different shortenings. The same thing was noted in making experimental doughs. These were made of the same weight of flour, yeast, sugar, shortening, and water. They were then placed in a glass jar which was marked off so as to give clear readings of the expansion of each dough. The jars were then placed in a water bath maintained at a uniform temperature, and covered with glass to keep the surface of the dough moist. Some of the shortenings used permitted the doughs to rise very much higher than where other shortenings were used, and it made no difference how often these doughs were made and the tests repeated. The shortenings that permitted a very high expansion of the dough on one test always gave a high expansion in another test, so that the results were uniform. This gave us the very information we were in search of, showing us that we must find the best method for each kind of shortening, and for each kind of flour.