31Quick breads, muffins and cookies

Not every bread has to wait for yeast. Quick breads go from bowl to oven in minutes, because a chemical leavener makes them rise instead of a slow fermentation. Muffins, biscuits and scones all belong to this family.

Cookies sit close by. They come in more shapes, sizes and textures than almost anything else on a pastry bench, from chewy and soft to crisp and bite-sized. What links all of these bakes is how they are mixed, and how little mixing they need.

31.1 Quick breads

Quick breads are for days when there is no time, or no equipment, for a yeast bread. All the recipe needs from its leavener is a fast rise in the oven; baking powder or baking soda gives it. Mixing takes only a few minutes and is easy to do by hand.

Batters and soft doughs

Every quick bread starts as one of two mixtures:

• A pourable batter is runny enough to pour straight into a prepared pan. A drop batter is thicker. It will not pour, but it is soft enough to drop from a spoon. Both count as batters.
• A soft dough is firm enough to roll flat and stamp into shapes. Biscuit dough is the example. It is handled gently, and it has to be stiffer than a muffin batter.

Three ways to mix

The amount of fat and sugar in the recipe decides how it is mixed.

The three quick-bread mixing methods compared.

The muffin method in a bakeshop goes like this.

• Sift the dry ingredients onto parchment and tip them back into the bowl.
• In a second bowl, combine the liquids along with the fat, which here is oil or melted butter.
• Pour the liquids into the dry ingredients and stir only until no dry flour is left.
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• Fill the pans and bake straight away; the batter should not stand.

The biscuit method works the fat in solid.

• Weigh everything first. see chapter 5: Four steps
• Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl.
• Work in the butter with the mixer's paddle, a pastry blender or your hands, and stop while there are still bits of butter about the size of a pea; those bits make the biscuit flaky. see chapter 3: Mixers
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• Add the liquids and mix just until a soft dough forms.

Then knead, but only a little.

• On the bench, press into the dough with the heel of your hand.
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• Fold it over with your fingers.
• Give it a quarter turn counter-clockwise.
• Do this three or four more times.
• Roll the dough out about 1 inch thick and cut the shapes you want.
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That little bit of kneading changes the result. Kneaded biscuit dough rises higher and bakes flakier. Dough that is not kneaded spreads more and comes out closer to cake. Knead too much, though, and the biscuits turn hard.

Cutting biscuits

• Handle the dough as little as possible. Work it only until it will be flaky; more makes it tough.
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• Press the cutter straight down and lift it. Never twist it.
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• Cut each shape right next to the last one. Scraps have to be worked again, and reworked dough is tough.
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• Turn the cut biscuits upside down on the pan. They rise better that way.
• For a crust all the way round, space them ½ to 1 inch apart on a sheet pan lined with parchment. For soft sides, set them touching.

The creaming method for quick breads

Richer muffins and some biscuits are mixed by creaming, the way many cakes are.

• Put the fat and sugar in the mixer bowl with the paddle. Spices for muffins, or milk powder for biscuits, go in at the same time.
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• Cream them. For muffins, beat until the mix is pale, light and fluffy. For biscuits, stop as soon as it comes together, because extra beating changes their texture.
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• Add the eggs a little at a time. After each one, scrape down the bowl, bottom and sides, so everything mixes evenly.
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• Sift the dry ingredients onto parchment, and stir the liquids together in their own container.
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• Add the two by turns. Begin with a quarter of the dry ingredients, then a third of the liquid, and keep going until both are used. Scrape the bowl between additions.
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• When the mixture is smooth, pan muffin batter and bake it. Biscuit dough goes onto a floured surface to be rolled out.

Storing the ingredients and the bread

Foods are sorted by how easily bacteria grow in them. Flour, plain bread and powdered eggs are not potentially hazardous. Fresh eggs and milk are potentially hazardous, and so are pastries filled with cream, cheese or meat. see chapter 2: Potentially hazardous foods

Flour and other dry goods go in a dry storeroom.

• The ideal room temperature is 10–15°C (50–59°F).
• The room is cool and dry.
• It is sealed against rodents.
• Shelves sit at least 15 cm (6 in.) off the floor.
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• The oldest stock is used first.

Watch baked bread for mold. It shows as bluish-green, hair-like growth, and it grows on bread kept somewhere warm, dark and a little damp.

31.2 The muffin method

A muffin is the classic test of gluten. Gluten forms when two wheat proteins, gliadin and glutenin, meet liquid and are worked. A muffin batter builds gluten very easily, so every second of stirring shows in the result. see chapter 7: Flour

In short, the method has four steps.

• Blend the dry ingredients.
• Make a hollow (a well) in the middle.
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• Pour the liquids in.
• Mix as little as you can.
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A basic batch of muffins

This recipe makes 6 medium muffins. Baking powder is what makes it rise.

• 1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp. sugar
• 1½ tsp. baking powder
• ¼ tsp. salt
• ½ cup milk
• ½ egg, which is 2 tbsp.
• 2 tbsp. plus 1½ tsp. oil

Step by step

• Heat the oven to 425°F. Grease only the bottoms of the muffin cups.
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• Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together three or four times, so they are fully blended.
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• Whisk or beat the egg into the milk until it is evenly mixed, then stir in the oil.
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• Put the dry mix in a large bowl and hollow out a well. Pour in all the liquid at once.
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• Stir at once, with a rubber spatula or a wooden spoon, as fast as you can without splashing. Aim for 10 seconds, and never go past 20.
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• Stop the moment the dry ingredients are damp. The batter should be lumpy, but you should see no dry flour.
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• Scoop with a spoon, cutting the batter against the side of the bowl in one clean stroke. Hold the spoon right over the cup and push the batter off with a second spoon or a spatula. Fill each cup two-thirds full.
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• Bake at 425°F for about 12 to 15 minutes, until golden brown. Leave the muffins in the pan for a minute or two before you take them out.
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Notice what the scooping step protects. Every extra stir, even while filling the pan, works the gluten a little more.

Under, right and over

What a good muffin looks like

The standard for a good muffin.

Flour and gluten

Lay out wheat flours side by side, each with a ball of gluten washed out of it.

• bread flour
• all-purpose flour
• pastry flour
• cake flour
• whole wheat flour
• rye flour
• oat flour

Record each flour's protein content and how big its gluten ball is. The muffin recipe uses all-purpose flour.

31.3 The biscuit method

The biscuit method is also called the pastry method, because the fat goes in the same way: cut into the flour while it is still solid. It makes a soft dough, and it teaches two skills, kneading lightly and rolling.

Rolled biscuits

This small batch makes 6 biscuits.

• 1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 1½ tsp. baking powder
• 3 tbsp. shortening
• milk, an approximate amount only
• Heat the oven to 425°F. Sift the three dry ingredients together three times.
• Cut the shortening into the dry ingredients with a pastry blender, scraping the blender clean as you go. Stop when the mixture looks like coarse cornmeal.
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• Make a well in the center and pour in the milk. Stir hard and fast with a fork, about 20 to 30 strokes, until the dough is blended and follows the fork round the bowl.
• Dust the counter with about 1 tsp. of flour. Shape the dough into a ball and knead it lightly with your fingertips, 10 to 15 times.
• Roll it ½ inch thick, which gives 6 biscuits. Handle it with care so the shape does not stretch out of true.
• Dip the cutter or knife in flour, and hold it so it presses evenly as it cuts. Set the biscuits on an ungreased baking sheet.
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• Bake at 425°F for about 12 to 15 minutes, until golden brown.

Drop biscuits

Drop biscuits skip the rolling.

• Make the dry mix and cut in the fat exactly as above.
• Use more milk, ½ cup, and stir only until the dry ingredients are damp.
• Do not knead and do not roll.
• Drop the dough by the tablespoon onto a greased baking sheet and bake for 10 to 12 minutes.
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The extra milk turns a dough you can roll into one too soft to roll, which is why it is spooned instead.

What a good biscuit looks like

The standard for a good biscuit.

Bake the rolled and the dropped versions side by side and judge each one against that standard. Then compare biscuits made from scratch with convenience products.

31.4 Cookies

The word cookie means "little cake", and like cakes, cookies can be mixed several ways. The creaming method is the most popular. Outside North America, the word may mean nothing at all to people.

Creaming a cookie dough

• Weigh every ingredient carefully, and have them all at room temperature.
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• Put the sugar and fat in the mixer bowl, with the paddle, on low speed.
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• Cream them together. How much air you beat in here shapes the texture of the cookie.
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• Add the eggs and any liquid.
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• Sift in the dry ingredients and stop as soon as they are mixed in. Beating on past that point builds gluten. see chapter 7: Flour
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Scrape down the bowl every time before something new goes in.

Six kinds of cookie

Cookies are sorted by how the dough is shaped.

• Piped. A soft dough goes into a piping bag with a tip and is squeezed out onto the pan. It keeps the shape it was piped in.
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• Dropped. The dough is portioned onto a prepared cookie sheet with a scoop or spoon. These often carry add-ins such as chocolate chips, nuts and candies.
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• Rolled. The dough is rolled out with a rolling pin on a lightly floured surface, then stamped out with cookie cutters.
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• Molded. The dough is shaped by hand, or pressed with a stamp.
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• Icebox. A slightly stiffer dough is rolled into a log and chilled. At baking time it is sliced into equal pieces and set on the prepared sheet.
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• Bar. The dough is spread in a sheet pan, baked, and then cut to shape. It can also be formed into a log and baked whole.

Rolled and cut: savory wafers and straws

Cutting solid fat into flour, as for biscuits, also makes thin, crisp bakes that are rolled and cut like rolled cookies.

• Sesame seed wafers. Cake flour and whole wheat flour are mixed with salt and sugar, shortening is cut in, and ice water is stirred in until the dough is like pie dough. It is rolled ⅛ inch thick, sprinkled with sesame seeds and rolled once more, then cut into 1-inch squares. They bake on a lightly greased sheet at 425°F for about 8 minutes, until brown.
• Cheese straws. Butter and half the grated sharp Cheddar are cut into flour seasoned with salt, dry mustard and cayenne. A little ice water binds it. The dough is rolled, covered with the rest of the cheese, folded in half and rolled again. It is cut into strips 3 inches by ½ inch, sprinkled with celery seed, and baked at 350°F for 12 minutes or until light brown.

Where the quick-bread methods turn up again

Once you know the muffin and biscuit methods, you will spot them in many other recipes.

• Muffin method. Whole wheat muffins are mixed like plain ones: sift the white flour with the other dry ingredients, blend in the whole wheat flour, add the combined liquids and stir only until blended. They bake at 400°F for 15 to 20 minutes.
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• Muffin method. Herb corn sticks follow the same pattern. The beaten egg, milk and melted butter go into the flour and cornmeal all at once and are stirred just until damp. They bake in well-greased corn stick pans at 425°F for 20 minutes.
• Biscuit method. Blueberry scones start with chilled butter cut into the dry ingredients until crumbly. The berries are folded in, heavy cream goes into a well, and the dough is folded only until it comes together. It is pressed 1¼ inches thick, cut into four triangles, and baked at 400°F for 15 to 20 minutes. A warm glaze of powdered sugar, lemon juice, butter and zest goes on top.
• Biscuit method. A fruit cobbler is topped with a soft biscuit dough: shortening cut into the dry ingredients, then milk stirred in. Spoonfuls are dropped onto the hot, thickened fruit, and the dish bakes at 400°F for 20 to 25 minutes.
• A kneaded quick bread. Irish soda bread is a soft dough of whole wheat and all-purpose flour and buttermilk or sour milk. Unlike biscuits, it is kneaded for 2 minutes, shaped into a round, and marked with a cross on top before baking at 375°F for 25 to 35 minutes.
• A spoon bread. Southern spoon bread starts as cornmeal cooked in milk to a mush. Egg yolks go in, then beaten egg whites are folded through. It bakes at 325°F for 1 hour and is served with a spoon, topped with butter. see chapter 15: Foams: meringue, soufflé, puffy omelet