Practical Food Preparation: Cake Making and Ingredients

Vocabulary flashcards covering flour types, ingredient functions, baking tests, and cake defects grounded in the lecture notes.

Elasticity of Gluten Test Parameters

An experiment where gluten balls prepared from $50\,\text{g}$ of flour are baked on a greased tray at Gas 7, $220\,^\circ\text{C}$ ($425\,^\circ\text{F}$) for $15\,\text{minutes}$.

Yorkshire Pudding Steam Experiment

A test comparing two identical batters to observe the impact of steam, where one is baked in a cool oven starting from cold and the other in a pre-heated hot oven.

Weak or Soft Flour

Flour containing a relatively small amount of gluten-forming proteins, ideal for cakes to give a fine, even texture when gluten coagulates.

80% Extraction Flour

Flour that provides extra fibre (NSP), nutrients, colour, and flavour, though cakes made with it may have slightly less volume than white flour.

Starch (in Cake Flour)

Ingredient component that becomes trapped within the framework produced by expanding gas bubbles and gluten during baking, contributing to cake lightness.

Shortness

A property provided by fat, which is insoluble in water and prevents gluten strands from adhering to each other and shortening them to avoid a solid, tough baked mixture.

Soft Margarine

A fat specially produced for creaming that is not suitable for rubbed-in mixtures because it is too oily.

White Cooking Fats

Vegetable fats that do not contribute to cake flavour or colour, but cream well with sugar and are suitable for strongly flavoured mixtures.

Lard

A fat unsuitable for most cake mixtures because it does not cream well and has a distinctive flavor not good for cakes.

Caster Sugar

The most suitable sugar for cake making, featuring small crystals that dissolve easily and produce a smooth cake texture.

Granulated Sugar

Sugar with coarser crystals that requires more thorough creaming or melting with fat prior to use in cake recipes.

Sugar Caramelisation

The process where sugar contributes to the brown colour of the cake crust when exposed to the dry heat of the oven.

Lecithin

A substance present in egg yolk responsible for emulsifying fat in creamed mixtures and preventing fat from separating from liquid.

Curdling (Uncooked Mixture)

The separation of fat from sugar when eggs are added too cold, added too quickly, or fail to emulsify with the fat.

Curdling Remedy

Adding a little flour from the mixture to absorb water from the egg so that an emulsion can form.

Flavouring Dissolving Technique

Dissolving flavourings like coffee powder in water before adding them to prevent a speckled appearance in the finished cake.

Fruit Coating Technique

Coating washed and dried fruit pieces with some flour to keep them separate and help prevent them from sinking in the cake mixture.

Cake Sunk in Middle

A baking fault caused by excess sugar or syrup softening gluten, excess raising agent overstretching gluten, undercooking, or opening the oven door before gluten sets.

Peaked and Cracked Cake

A baking fault caused by an oven temperature that is too high, too much mixture for the tin size, or placing the cake too high in the oven.

Hard Sugary Crust

A cake defect caused by sugar that is too coarse for the mixture and fails to dissolve in time.

Heavy Texture Fault

A cake fault caused by excess liquid, insufficient raising agent, a curdled mixture, low oven temperature/undercooking, or overbeating when adding flour or liquid.

Coarse, Open Texture

A defect caused by using too much raising agent (producing large gas pockets), insufficiently mixing the flour, or using too much sugar.

Sunken Fruit Fault

A fault in fruit cakes caused by an overly wet mixture, wet fruit adding excess liquid, or excessive sugar/raising agent causing structural collapse.

Dry Cake Fault

A defect caused by using too much chemical raising agent, too little liquid, or overcooking the cake.