How to Make Baked Products Rise

How to Make Baked Products Rise
The first known breads were flat, with a heavy, close texture. They were describe as unleavened, which means they had no raising agents added.

Consumers now prefer light, open textured bread, cakes, pastries, batters, meringues and cold sweets. This is achieved by incorporating gas into the mixture.

Raising agents work by releasing gas when the mixture is heated causing it to rise.

There are three gases which make food mixture rise:
*Air
*Steam
*Carbon Dioxide

The raising agents used to produce carbon dioxide may be chemical raising agents or yeast. Yeast is used to raise dough.

Air
Air is incorporating into mixtures by mechanical methods:

*Sieving flour (cakes, pastry, batters)
*Creaming together fat and sugar (cakes, some biscuit)
*Rubbing fat into flour (shortcrust pastry, scones)
*Whisking egg white (meringue, whisked cake)
*Beating mixtures (batters, choux pastry)
*Rolling and folding (flaky pastry, rich yeast pastries)

Steam
For steam to make mixture rose, two conditions are needed:
*A high proportion of liquid in the mixture
*A high boiling temperature

When the liquid content reaches boiling point steam is given off. This forces its way up though the mixture to stretch and raise it.

The mixture cooks and sets in the risen shape, with large pockets of air left after the steam has escaped.

Food products which are raised mainly by steam have a very open and often uneven texture.

Steam also can be combined with:
*Air and carbon dioxide in cakes and bread
*Air in shortcrust and flaky pastry

Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is produced in two ways:
*Chemically from the action of bicarbonate of soda with an acid
*Biologically from the fermentation process of yeast

How to Make Baked Products Rise