Nowadays people are very concerned with their health, food security issues are the primary focus of consideration, lots of people set out to choose making foods(such as cake, bread and etc.)at home, newhands just entered the baking world are very blind to buy stuff that are really inapplicable and can not distinguish out good ingredients from bad ones.
First of all I’d like to introduce you with the ingredients of baking:
◇Butter: we all will choose animal butter between vegetable butter and animal butter, for vegetable butter is a substitute with a similiar flavor of butter that is made out by adding artificial fragrance into the vegetable oil after partially hydrogenated. Vegetable butter belongs to hydrogenated vegetable oil and will form a‘Trans Fatty Acids’in oil after artificially hydrogenated, this sbustance would cause cancer for a long-term consumption, so better use animal butter which is made of milk and reliable to use.
◇Baking powder: there are so many ingredients for baking powder, I suggest using less if it contains alum. Potassium alum in ingredients will have some toxic effects to human bodies if consuming excessively. And now it has been medically proven that it can’t be consumed for a long-term, otherwise it will lead to dieseases like osteoporosis, anemia, and even affect the development of nerve cell, easier to cause senile dementia. Normal cakes can create a fluffy effect through the way of whipping egg white, while cakes outside for sale nearly all add baking powder.
◇Cream: vegetable cream is harmful to human bodies, it is usually called ‘vegetable creamer’,‘non-dairy creamer’or ‘margarine’. It is widely used in bread, cheese, artificial butter, cake and cookie. It is also seen in fried foods such as fried chicken, French fries or fried salty chicken. In addition, hydrogenated oil also hides in chocolate, ice cream, cream cookies, instant noodles, coffee mate(creamer) and etc. Most instant foods contain this additive. And most part of the yummy flavors in those foods rely on the accretion of hydrogenated oil. Vegetable cream places people in high risk of CVD and diabetes by its large prduction of ‘Trans Fatty Acids’. And there is a SP cake oil which is harmful too, many small dessert shops are using it for dressing cakes.
◇Corn starch: it is refined from corn kernels. In baking desserts, sometimes we need to add some corn starch in flour for making the paste. And it has a function simliar with gelatin, which is used in making the filling. Besides, it is the best substitute for low protein flour by mixing with medium protein flour according to a certain ratio, thus to reduce the hardness of flour and increase a more tender taste.
◇Yeast: the commonly used yeast is Active Dry Yeast, before adding dry yeast into the dough, adjust temperature of water to 105.8F-109.4F,and dissolve dry yeast with water 4 to 5 times more than it, stand for 5-10 minutes and so that it has an equal quality with fresh yeast.
◇Gelatin: many people complain that it has a fishy smell after using gelatin, it is probably related to the quality of gelatin that you buy. Gelatin with good quality has no peculiar smell.
And now let’s change the subject to the baking utensils.
☆Oven: 36-50L for general household use
☆Oven thermometer: check and approve the oven temperature
☆Basic mold: 6 or 8 inch round mold, flat-bottomed deep ovenware<for baking cookies, cheese cake and bread>, simple biscuit shape mold, toast bread mold
☆Pastry tip: can be used to dress cakes, cookies and puffs
☆Electronic scale: choose one that can be accurate to 1g
☆Egg beater: both manual and electric egg beater are essential, manual for common whipping and electric for whipping egg white
Lastly I would talk about the preservation of ingredients.
⊙Butter: dispense butter into small packages with 100g a bag and into the freezer so that pollution could be avoided
⊙Whipping cream: wipe with alcohol on the opening of whipping cream bottle for sterilizing, and seal it with a clip and refrigerate it, do not freeze
⊙Cream cheese: no freezing but refrigerate in the fridge, cream cheese will condense with a bad taste when using it to make cheese cake
⊙Flour: use automatic sealing bag to dispense the flour and into the freezer, by that way the flour won’t be easy to snake
⊙Yeast: dispense it into automatic sealing bags with 4g-5g a bag, freeze in the fridge, a room temperature will kill the bacteria and lose efficacy
Hope everyone make healthy foods with correct usage of stuff. I think a correct selection of stuff on ingredients, utensils or methods to preserve will get you double results with half the effort on the way to achieve a healthier eating style, and you will benefit from it in your whole life.