Jack Burke

Results

This week’s lab laid out a great foundation for the different techniques we will use often in this lab. Our primary method of creaming worked well for our sour cream coffee cake, however due to the somewhat cold temperature of the butter, the creaming took longer than anticipated at a higher speed. The blueberry muffins were almost perfect, except for just a few muffins over-doming slightly on top. The biscuits took on too much flour, so we had to adjust and remove flour when rolling out the dough. We also switched out the milk for buttermilk to add some tang, which tasted really nice in the overall product.

Evaluation of Results

Our primary change we would make to our recipes would be decreasing the temperature of the muffin baking temperature to lessen the dome of some of the muffins since some were quite tall. A hack to this that I found online would be to start at a high temperature like we did (i.e. 425 or 400), and then unlike our process, lower the temperature after 5 minutes to around 350-375 (Lee 2021).

Another change we would make would be to have spare liquid available for the biscuit dough. We used our exact amount of buttermilk as needed from the recipe, but something I found while researching online is to have spare liquid on-hand to moisten a very dry dough (Velantini 2024).

Conclusion

In conclusion, I believe that we mastered the technique of creaming for the week, and will be sure to account for changes the next time we encounter this method. I was very pleased with each of our items that my partner and I prepared this week, as I think each tasted great and also had the right textures and appearances. I am excited to continue using these recipes and techniques, and am ready to move on to a new technique this week.

Works Cited

Food52. (2021, August 26). A bakery hack for the best muffins ever. Food52. https://food52.com/story/26519-bakery-muffin-hack

Velatini, B. (n.d.). Perfect your biscuits with these expert tips. The Chopping Block. https://www.thechoppingblock.com/blog/perfect-your-biscuits-with-these-expert-tips