Baking question - any experts?!


Question:

Baking question - any experts?

Sometimes when I make chocolate chip cookies, the recipe tells me to mix certain ingredients together in a separate bowl, then add that to certain other ingredients which you have already mixed in yet another bowl. It also has you putting the ingredients in in a certain order. My question is, does that really make a difference? Why can't you just throw all the ingredients into one bowl at once and start mixing them? Does anyone know the basis of these instructions? Thx.


Answers:
While you can just throw all the ingredients in the bowl and mix them, and your cookies will probably turn out just fine, there is a certain amount of basis for the order of mixing ingredients.

First, let's start with the dry ingredients:

If you sift or mix all the dry ingredients, such as flour, salt, baking soda, etc. first, then you will ensure that the salt and baking powder is evenly distributed throughout the dough.

Wet ingredients:

Many times the instructions will tell you to mix the butter and sugar together first. What this accomplishes is slightly dissolving the sugar so it will be less grainy and the cookies will have a better texture.

Also, certain ingredients (mostly baking soda/powder) only have their chemical reaction when wet. The longer you wait after mixing them together to bake them, the less powerful that reaction will be. Therefore, you should mix the wet ingredients into the dry last.

Now, as I said before, especially if you are using a mixer, it probably doesn't make all that much difference what order you put the ingredients in. But, there is a reason :)

Source(s):
10+ years baking experience.

Just throw all the ingredients in together to see what happens,they should turn out ok,good luck..lol

I know the steps are very important but I couldn't tell you why sooo....here's a website that seems to explain it very well.

Hope this helps.

sugar and egg mixture will fluff your recipe or what ever the recipe call for if you do not it will turn out fine but you will not have the fluffyness or right tecture

Baking is scientific. The butter is beaten first, because it will have more air incorporated before you add the sugar. The eggs go in next, because eggs toughen if over beaten. The flour is mixed in last because it also gets tough because of the gluten in the flour. So if everything was just dumped into the bowl at one time, it would be one gloppy mess. Although with certain things, like brownies, it doesn't matter all that much because it is only stirred together. The chunky ingredients should only be added at the end and gently stirred in for the same reason, so the flour and eggs do not toughen any more. Otherwise, you would have little rocks instead of cookies.

It does matter. You would still get cookies if you threw all the ingredients into one bowl. But, they wouldn't taste as good.

well if you want them to turn out their best then do it in order, if your in a hurry and really dont' care then yea through it in.

By mixing the room temperature butter and sugar(s) together you're putting air in the batter, making your cookies lighter. Mixing all the other dry ingredients together first, you ensure they're all blended and then when you combine them with the sugar and wet ingredients you do it in batches. This insures that the flour doesn't clump and it absorbs the moisture. You don't have to follow all the steps and cookies will probably turn out so-so...but by taking a little effort your cookies will come out terrific. Also, rotate baking sheet half way through baking to insure even browning.




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