Add Flavor to Your Baked Goods With Baking Flavoring
Add a variety of flavors to your bakery products with baking flavoring. These extracts and oils have long shelf-lifes and a little goes a long way to intensify the flavor of your recipes.
Emulsions are water-based alternatives to extracts and have a more robust flavor. They can withstand high temperatures and won’t “bake-out”. They are ideal for frostings, ganaches and other fillings.
Salt
Salt may seem like a small ingredient, but its roles in baking go far beyond flavoring. It stabilizes the yeast fermentation rate, strengthens dough, and enhances the flavor of the final product. It also functions as a cooking agent to preserve the freshness of other ingredients and prevent spoilage.
Ferran Adria once declared that “salt is the only product that changes cuisine” and, indeed, it does. Sodium chloride doesn’t just add the saltiness that we human beings innately love, it skews the overall flavor profile of foods to positive effect, suppressing bitterness and enhancing sweet and savory.
Adding salt to foods increases the concentration of their aromas, which contributes greatly to flavor. Salt is also known to lower the water activity of foods, increasing the volatility of flavor components and improving their intensity. It has even been proposed that salt may function as a flavor enhancer by decreasing the concentration of negative taste elements (see Figure 3-2).
At Bickford Flavors, we know how important it is to use the best quality natural flavoring possible. That’s why we only carry high-quality all-natural baking extracts. These natural ingredients are sourced from whole ingredients and undergo rigorous testing to ensure quality, purity, and stability. This way you can be sure you are using the very best flavoring for your baked goods.
Sugar
Sugar seems like a basic baking ingredient, but its role is much more important than it might first appear. In baked goods, it provides sweet taste and flavor through caramelization and feeds yeast, which helps with fermentation (the most significant process in baking).
It also interacts with other ingredients to modify their flavors, heightening or depressing their intensity. For example, sugar makes the sweetness of milk chocolate a little less intense than dark chocolate. It can even influence texture, affecting the amount of crunch and stickiness in a cookie or the softness of a cake.
The type of sugar you use depends on the baker and the recipe, but there are some general guidelines. Sucrose or table sugar is the most common and is refined to remove molasses, baking flavoring which can affect the color and flavor of some recipes. Powdered sugar has extremely fine crystals and is ideal for frosting or sprinkling on top of cookies for a pretty finish. Demerara or turbinado sugar has large crystals and is great for sprinkling on scones before baking.
Other sweeteners can be used as substitutes for some recipes, but they must be carefully selected based on their sweetness values and physical and chemical properties. For example, saccharin is sweeter than sugar but has a very different physical and chemical profile. It can also absorb moisture, clump and become contaminated if not stored properly.
Butter
The richness and flavor of butter make it an important part of baking recipes. It enhances the flavor of other ingredients and helps baked goods retain moisture. Its natural dairy flavor pairs well with other ingredients, such as chocolate and vanilla, and helps distribute the flavors evenly throughout a finished cake or pie.
It is typically stored in a refrigerator, where it can keep fresh for up to one year. It can also be frozen, but it must be well-wrapped and thawed in the refrigerator before use. Butter can also be stored at room temperature for up to two weeks before spoiling.
Butter is available salted or unsalted, and can be “lite,” which contains about 50 percent less fat per serving than regular butter. The salt content of butter varies among brands, as does the flavor. Some butters are flavored with a variety of ingredients, such as garlic, herbs or fruit. Others are churned from cream that has been soured by a lactic acid-producing culture, which gives them a stronger, riper flavor than standard American butter.
Vegetable shortening is a common substitute for butter in recipes, although it can change the texture of some baked goods. Applesauce, mashed banana, and greek yogurt can also work as substitutes in some recipes. These substitutions may alter the results of some recipes, though, so they should be used sparingly if possible to get the best baking results.
Alcohol
In addition to being a staple ingredient, alcohol is used in baking because it enhances and intensifies flavors. It also helps bridge the gap between fat- and water-soluble molecules, allowing them to dissolve in each other and mix evenly throughout your food.
Alcohol can be added to a variety of baked goods, including cakes, cookies, yeast products, frostings, ganaches, and fillings. There are a variety of types of alcoholic extracts, which can be used alone or in combination to add the perfect flavor to any dish.
For example, lemon or baking flavoring peppermint extracts are used to create a delicious zesty citrus taste and smell. Gin, vodka, and rum are also commonly used in desserts to provide a smooth, robust taste that is sure to impress your guests.
Professional bakers often prefer to use emulsions instead of alcoholic extracts because they are more robust and won’t “bake-out” when exposed to heat. Ethanol, or ethanol, is a safe and efficient solvent used to make a variety of extracts, emulsions, and flavouring compounds. Nedstar, your tailored ethanol supplier, can offer both extra neutral and organic ethanol for different applications in the food and beverage industry.
In most recipes that call for alcoholic extracts, the function is more important than the flavor itself. This is because the alcohol serves to help bind and tenderize ingredients, as well as helping create a smooth texture in doughs such as pie crusts and cakes. However, there are a number of great alcohol substitutes for those who cannot use it for various reasons, such as allergies, alcoholism, and pregnancy.