Jack Burke

Introductions

This week we will be working on different quick breads. Our learning objectives for the week consist of using chemical leavening agents and fats, preparing a variety of quick breads using the biscuit, muffin, and creaming method, and lastly preparing a variety of griddlecakes. My prior knowledge of quick breads would be experimenting with muffin and biscuit recipes both at-work and at-home.

Background Information

For this week’s quick breads topic, I’ve decided to research the different chemical leavening agents used to leaven different quick breads. According to The Blue & Gold‘s editor Hannah Choy, quick breads require “the use of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) or baking powder, rather than yeast or sourdough levain (starter),” (Choy 2022). The most common pastries and breads you will see with this method of leavening will be cookies, muffins, scones, pancakes, waffles, and sweet breads such as coffee cake.

When baking, it’s important to understand what leavening is at its core, which is “to make the dough lighter by adding gas,” (Sharma 2023). Such can be done with different agents, sourdough being the most recent trend due to its health benefits. However, the quickest way to leaven would be to use chemical agents such as baking powder baking soda, as mentioned above. Leavening when baking provides light, airy pastries and breads, which eliminates dense and tough textures.

Dish/Method Variations

We can find many different variations for our dishes we will be preparing this week: blueberry muffins, sour cream coffee cake, and country biscuits. The muffin batter we are making can easily be used for other fruit, chocolate, or spiced-flavored muffins such as raspberry muffins, cinnamon muffins, or even chocolate chunk muffins. The sour cream coffee cake can be varied based on what spices you add to the batter, such as nutmeg or clove rather than solely cinnamon. Lastly, the country biscuits can be altered by adding ingredients such as cheddar, chives, bacon, or even sweeter ingredients like cinnamon sugar. Each would result in new, tasty biscuit variations.

Recipes & Plan of Work

Works Cited

Choy, H. (2022, October 26). Falling into autumn baking: Science of quick breads. The Blue & Gold. https://chambleeblueandgold.com/12874/features/falling-into-autumn-baking-science-of-quick-breads/

Sharma, N. (2023, June 13). Baking 101: Leavening agents explained. The Flavor Files. https://niksharma.substack.com/p/baking-101-leavening-agents-explained