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"Roy Basan" > wrote in message
om...
> Dave Bell > wrote in message
> rea.net>...
>> On Fri, 19 Nov 2004, pheasant wrote:
>>
>> > No liquids are needed. Basic cookie ingredients are butter/shortening,
>> > flour, salt, and sugar.
>>
>> Well, I was thinking "egg", not water...
>>
>> > Every recipe varies, even pie crusts use varying ingredients, (my
>> > wife's has
>> > vinegar and eggs) but your recipe looks sound as is.
>>
>> Then, why do they melt and turn to lace? There's precious little water in
>> butter, and less in shortening. If not making a shortbread (with a lot
>> more flour relative to the butter), what is there to bind it?
>>
>> As suggested, I will try again, with less butter/more flour, but this was
>> really just a single example of several recipes that I've had the same
>> problem with. I *do* get a good shortbread cookie from the spelt flour.
>> They spread only a small amount in the heat. Perhaps I should go back to
>> that as a basis, and morph it to the oatmeal cookie...
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Dave
>
> Cookies are baked products that had minimal moisture content among the
> other baked goods. It is more related to the pie crust which has
> little moisture as well.
> The principle in this products is that you just need just sufficient
> water not much to form a dough or much more like a batter but just
> simply a paste.
>
> But a pastry or a cookie with similar texture like shortbread. You
> still can find under the microscope discrete particles of flour
> granules in combination with some swollen gluten aggregated with fat
> particles and sugar crystals.
> It is a fact that sugar tends to bind moisture as well due to
> hygrosocopicity but the nature of such interactions will favor the
> flour protein to bind the limited water first, and due to the finer
> particles size if compared to the normal fine granulated sugar;
> while the flour wedge protein is finer by two or more significant
> figures.But mixing can also influence the results if you cream the fat
> and sugar and add it to the flour blend you will likely get the same
> lacy cookie than if you mix the ingredients simply. Just be sure that
> the eggs and fat are well blended to allow some emulsification.
> Therefore the mixture is loose if compared to the dough and the
> batter. To attain some degree of cohesiveness with out becoming too
> wet more fat is needed but there is a limit. As too much fat will
> prevent the minimal flour protein in soft / pastry/ cookie flour to
> hydrate properly.
> The same also with sugar. Fat ( in form of butter or margarine)will
> tend to coat the sugar particles distributing whatever moisture in it
> on the sugar surface. Therefore inspite of the bigger particles size
> if compared to the flour wedge protein its quantity will inhibit the
> flour from absorbing the minimal moisture. Then there will be much
> less water left for the flour.
> This will be aggravated if there is a ballast component that does not
> have a gluten in it like oatmeal. It can also adsorb the moisture on
> the jagged surface of the oatmeal preventing it to be absorbed by the
> flour.
> Hence if you mix a blend of non gluten ingredients such as oatmeal
> with flour its best to use higher protein flour so that there is more
> chance that the increased gluten content that the mixture will surely
> result in good moisture binding and will minimize 'pan flow or
> laciness'
> Being a loose mixture if the amount of fats is high as well as the
> sugar, during the baking the fat having the lower melting point will
> tend to flow like a river dragging the pebbles of 'sugar 'along
> without an obstruction( supposing the is no water in the recipe).
> Hence the flour particles will be carried down also resulting in lacy
> appearance.
> If the cookie formulator always think in narrow way ( or is so
> inexperienced)that a cookie should be like a short bread and adapt
> that principle to cookies he will never get anywhere with his recipes.
> He should have to create the obstruction by means of the flour
> protein which serves like gnarled roots of trees and other vegetation
> along the river banks. Hence the need for moisture in the form of milk
> / egg or water.
> If you ask then how about short bread it has no water in it. But it
> has little sugar in there as well as compared to the normal cookie
> recipe.The minimal amount of moisture in the butter is partially
> responsible for some binding.
> A short bread is firmer and than a cookie dough and the fat is
> slightly less as well as much less sugar quantity in it.
> A short bread can be pressed and cut with little difference in
> appearance when baked if compared to a normal cookie.
> You are right the presence of lots of sugar and butter and minimal
> moisture plus the coarseness of the oatmeal will impede the formation
> of the desirable cookie structure.hence your cookie will flow out and
> like lace cookies.
> Therefore you need drastic measures, that is the use of egg which
> contains moisture but most important the albumen portion has a good
> binding ability and it will interacts with the flour protein making a
> good mesh or structure.for that type of cookie.The lecithin in the egg
> will also interact forming a ternary phase fat /moisture/protein
> strengthening the structure.
> You are on the right track with your experiments, try to obtain a
> balance between cohesiveness( just enough moisture binding) and
> flowability( due to enough fat and sugar but not much) and your cookie
> will come out all right.
> Setting aside other factors such as baking and mixing.
> The principle of cookie flow is also affected by the flour protein,
> cookies made with stronger flour ( all purpose instead of pastry) will
> have better symmetry specially if you use it non gluten ingredients
> like oatmeal. If you use 100 percent flour then its okay to use pastry
> as the all purpose flour tends to distort the cookie symmetry and
> affect the eating quality as well.
> Roy