A question about adding ingredients at what (to me) is an unusual time, please?!
A question about adding ingredients at what (to me) is an unusual time, please?
Hi -
the other day, I found a recipe for English Muffins that incorporated half the flour (2 cups), directed you to let the mixture rise then add the other half of the flour and 3 tablespoons of butter ....
Q: why was the butter added so late? Why wasn't it added at the first stage with the milk & sugar, just before adding the first half of the flour?
I have seen other recipes like this also ... at the last moment, butter was incorporated into the almost-finished dough
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second example: a European recipe for a flat little chocolate cake baked at Christmas time... made of butter, sugar, 2 beaten eggs, chocolate, a little flour, no leavening .... .and at the last moment has more whole egg incorporated ...
Q: why ever?
Thank you very much
Answers:
First question:
This is done to make the English Muffins have a sourdough taste. You are essentially make a sourdough starter then adding the rest of the ingredients to make the dough earlier than you would in a normal sourdough. Butter isn't found in sourdough starters. Too complicated to go into why here, at least more than I'm willing to write at this time.
Second question:
The cake recipe you describe makes for a heavy cake. The eggs added at the end provide extra leavening and structure for the cake, then.
I've sent you a note to see if you can send me the recipes you query. I need to see them to be of any help. Your second recipe worries me a little: butter and sugar (i.e. a cut) and then *beaten* eggs? That's technically poor: without whipping the egg, one by one, into the cut, there will be no leavening worth mentioning at all. From then on, you have every right to be baffled. I'll edit this to a fresh reply as soon as I've had a chance to look at 'the culprits'. :-)
I can answer your first question. The butter is added late so that it is "lumpy" in the dough. The spongey texture of the english muffin is partly created by the small lumps of butter melting into the dough as it bakes.