Christmas cupcakes

Hi all! It has been a long time since I had time to write a post (I still don't really, but I have 20 minute incubation time in the lab this morning). So seeing christmas is fast approaching and where would we be without a couple of festive recipes. Today, I will be sharing my cupcake recipes, the black forest cupcake and the good old chocolate orange cupcake. Tip number one, use colourful cupcake cases and not the regular plain ones (they simply ruin the festive season). Each recipe make 6 cupcakes, but just double the recipe if you want to make 12. 

Ingredients (black forest cupcake)

• 65g unsalted butter (at room temperature and VERY soft, you may need to put it on the window sill directly above the radiator for a little bit if you room is very cold
• 90g caster sugar
• 1 large egg
• 100g self raising flour
• 1 tbsp coco powder
• 50ml milk (full fat or semi skimmed)
• 100g dark chocolate (at least 50% coco solid, melted and cooled) + extra for shavings
• 
  
• 120g morello cherries with kirsch 
• 150ml double cream (whipped until soft peaks)
• 20g icing sugar

1. Bring butter to room temperature and make sure it is soft. This can take a very very long time, especially in the winter. If you want to speed up the process, follow Mary Berry's method and cut butter into cubes and add in luke warm water to the butter and let it soften for 2-3 minutes and drain off the water
2. Melt 100g dark chocolate, set aside to cool and use 50g to pipe into the shape of christmas trees (makes about 6 trees)
3. Pre-heat oven to 170 degrees C (150 fan)
4. Line 12 well muffin tin with cupcake cases
5. Cream butter and caster sugar together and soft and creamy
6. Add egg, flour, coco powder and milk into the mixture and combine them all together
7. Fold in the melted chocolate into the cake batter
8. Divide the cake mix into the cupcake cases
9. Quarter 6 cherries and put 4x quarters into each cupcake cake
10. Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until risen. Test with clean skewer and it should come out clean
11. Take it out of the oven and let it cool to room temperature
12. Whip the cream until soft peaks and fold in the icing sugar
13. Pipe cream on the cupcakes and decorate with the remaining cherries, piped chocolate tree
14. Use a fine grater to grate a block of chocolate directly above the cupcakes to decorate with shavings 

Ingredients (chocolate orange cupcakes)

• 65g unsalted butter (very soft and room temperature)
• 100g caster sugar
• 1 large egg
• 100g self raising flour
• 30ml of freshly squeezed orange juice
• Orange zest from 1 whole orange
• 30ml milk (full fat or semi skimmed)
• 120g dark chocolate (45-60% coco solid), broken into small pieces
• 70ml double cream 
• 1 tsp of orange extract

1. Make the chocolate orange ganache first by boiling the double cream with 25g caster sugar
2. Once the cream is boiled and sugar completely dissolved, take it off the heat and swirl it in the saucepan for a minute and add to the chocolate
3. Stir chocolate until it has melted and stir in 1 tsp of orange extract and about 1/3 of the orange zest
4. Leave the ganache in the fridge to firm up a little until piping consistency
5. Pre-heat oven to 170 degrees C (150 fan)
6. Cream the soft butter and 75g caster sugar together
7. Add eggs, flour orange juice to the mixture and mix slightly
8. Gradually add in the milk until everything the batter has been incorporated
9. Divide the cake batter into the cupcake cases
10. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until well risen and the skewer comes out clean when tested
11. Take it out of the oven and allow it to cool down to room temperature
12. Pipe the chocolate orange ganache over the cupcake

Rhubarb crumble muffins

Crumbles are often considered a fail safe homemade dessert. But I've never actually made it, NOT ONCE! So, I thought despite never made a crumble OR a muffin EVER, I've decided to combine the two and make my life difficult by combining the two!

Ingredients (makes 12)

• 250g rhubarb (diced)
• 250g caster sugar
• 2 tbsps vegetable oil
• 120ml milk (full fat/semi-skimmed)
• 2 tsps vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 200g self raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 75g unsalted butter
• 75g muscovado sugar 
• 75g plain flour
• 35g porridge oat
• 1 tsp cinnamon

1. Pre-heat oven to 220 degrees C/200 fan
2. Place muffin case into the 12 hole muffin tin
3. Mix muscovado sugar, plain flour cinnamon and porridge oat together
4. Rub in sugar into the dry ingredients until it resembles breadcrumb, set it aside and start preparing the filling
5. Cut rhubarb along the length and cut it into 1.5-2cm cubes
6. Add caster sugar to rhubarb and mix
7. Add vegetable oil, milk, vanilla extract and egg together and mix well
8. Sift and add self raising flour and baking powder to wet ingredients and mix well
9. Divid batter into the 12 muffin cases, fill 3/4 of the way
10. Place crumble on the muffin batter
11. Bake for 15-20 minutes, make sure to rotate the muffin tin if one side of the oven bakes hotter than the other side 

Standard mille feuille

The mille feuille literally means thousand leaves. It is also known as a custard slice and the Napoleon. It is made with three puff (rough puff or full puff) pastry pieces, each piece separated by a layer of vanilla flavoured custard cream or mousseline. I have previously covered the recipe for a full puff pastry here. 

Ingredients (for 5-6 mille feuilles) 

• Puff pastry (shop bought or homemade)
• 150ml milk
• 20g caster sugar + extra full pastry caramelisation 
• 2 egg yolks
• 10g corn flour
• 2 tsps vanilla essence

1. Cut the pastry into desired size at about 3-4mm thick and put back in the fridge(N.B. you need 3 slices for each piece of mille feuille)
2. Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees C 
3. Sprinkle some caster sugar on the pastry
4. Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the surface is crisp and golden brown, take it out of oven to cool down
5. Beat egg yolks with sugar, vanilla essence and corn flour 
6. Heat milk in a saucepan until it starts to boil
7. Pour milk gradually into egg mixture whilst whisking it the entire time
8. Pour the whole mixture back into saucepan over medium heat and whisk the entire time until it thickens
9. Take mousseline off the heat and let it cool 
10. Pipe mousseline between the pastry layers 

This goes very well with berry sauces, to make the sauces, simply blend 120-150g berries and add desired amount of sugar (start with 5g and increase if necessary) and 2g corn flour. Put puree over moderate heat until it starts to boil and take it off the heat to cool down. Pour over mille feuille to finish. 

Coffee and walnut cake

It has been a while since I last blogged about a recipe. I made this cake on Sunday for a friend's birthday at her request. Personally, I'm not a big fan of coffee, so have never attempted a coffee flavoured cake until now. But here it is! 

Ingrdients

• 150g self raising flour
• 120g+50g caster sugar in separate containers
• 5 large eggs, separated
• 80g unsalted butter
• 5 tsps instant coffee granules
• 4 tbsps boiling water
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract 
• 40g finely chopped walnut+extra for decoration
• 350ml double cream
• 2 tbsps icing sugar 

1. Dissolve coffee with boiling water and set aside to cool
2. Heat butter until melted and set aside to cool for 30-40 minutes
3. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C and grease a 23cm round cake tin
4. Mix flour, chopped walnut and 120g sugar
5. Add melted butter, egg yolks and 2 tbsps of coffee essence to flour and sugar and mix until it is a dropping consistency (you may need to add 10-20ml of water at this stage)
6. Beat egg whites in a separate bowl with electric whisk and add remaining sugar a little at a time until the egg white has formed soft peaks
7. Mix in 1/4 of egg whites  and fold in the rest into the cake mix
8. Pour cake mix into tin and bake for 55-65 minutes
9. Test with a clean skewer and it should come out clean
10. Let cake cool slightly in tin for 5 minutes and take it out to cool
11. Whip double cream until thick and add in remaining coffee essence to the cream along with icing sugar, if it is not sweet enough, add another tsp of icing sugar
12. Slice cake horizontally into two and fill with 1/3 of coffee cream
13. Spread remaining coffee cream over the rest of the cake and decorate with walnut and chocolate as desired. 

The Liebster award...what is this you ask?

For those of you who don't know what a Liebster award is, it is an award for bloggers with fewer than 200 followers and is generally an honour we bloggers share with other friendly fellow bloggers. Apparently, Liebster means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved and welcome in german. I didn't know about this either before I was nominated and looked up what this award is about! 

For those who aren't frequent browsers of my blog, I am a PhD student in the field of tumour research and I bringing my beloved calculations and precise measurements into baking as well! I have a bunch of lovely friends and colleagues who enjoy tasting my bakes and keep me inspired with ideas. If you are a keen baker and would like to get in touch with your inner geek, I would recommend this book to you. Science of Bakery Products by William P Edwards. 

Now, moving on to the serious stuff. To follow the tradition and rule of the Liebster award, I have answered the questions set by my nominee, the lovely and talented Lucy scott. http://www.lucyscottbakesalot.blogspot.co.uk

• What is your favourite baking "discipline" and why

I love making tarts, you can make them look absolutely spectacular with decorations of sparkling fruits and the combination is limitless. It is versatile, whether you decide to have a warm or cold filling, sober or alcoholic. Also, I tend to use less flour and sugar in a tart, so it's a "healthier" alternative to cakes!

• and your least favourite ?

Biscuits, by far, I just find them so delicate and a pain to make! It's so hard to get the right consistency! Many would argue, but let's just say I'm not gifted in the field of biscuits is an understatement to not gifted. 

• Do you watch The Great British Bake Off .. who is your favourite EVER contestant and why?

Oh, the amazing Great British Bake Off! Who knew a baking program can be so jam packed with drama! My favourite contestant EVER was Holly Bell from series 2. Holly was so persistent in perfecting everything and she has clearly practised a lot for all the things she has made and it is so inspiring! I can relate to her in the sense that I believe practice makes perfect! 

• What made you decide to take up blogging, what keeps you carrying on?

It started off as a way to keep a copy of tried recipes and to share personal experiences, tricks and advice with others who may want to make the same thing. But eventually, I wanted to infuse a bit of science into it too to interest others in science through our shared passion in baking! It's lovely and nice to see an encouraging comment every now and then about my recipes and also the fact some people have actually read my blog to help them with their own baking. 

• When you are not whipping up a storm in the kitchen what else ticks your boxes to pass the time? 

When I'm not in the kitchen??? That's hard to imagine! Hunting for good bakeries, go see the odd musicals and plays and I'm also keen on writing. 

• What has been your biggest baking success .... ?

The first time I managed a successful chocolate chestnut flavoured chiffon cake! You have no idea how hard it was to get the chestnut flavour to shine with the chocolate! But they really do harmonise each other once you get the balance right! (a little bit of dark rum in the chestnut cream helped a lot!)

•  And disaster .. 

Where do I begin?! The genoise sponge is my arch nemesis! Sometimes it turns out great, sometimes it doesn't, but I can never quite seem to get the hang of it! Frustrating little thing!

• From which country do you get your biggest baking inspiration, for example rustic italian breads or the good old British Victoria sponge? 

A lot of people would think France, but I'm actually quite big on the Japanese culture. They are not known for their breads, but their combination of flavours for cakes and other desserts are fantastic! Taste, appearance, texture are impeccable. 

• Who inspired you to take up baking?

I'm what you would call self inspired. No one really baked very much around me, it was the fact I love eating sweets and baked goods that got me baking at the start and what is keeping me baking now!

• What is the best cake / bake you have eaten and still dream about .. ? 

There was this amazing cotton chocolate cheesecake I tasted in China, but I have never been able to find it again. The pastry chef has apparently moved on. It was so light and fluffy and so rich in flavour. The texture was that of a angel cake, but the flavour was chocolate and slightly cheesy! I really miss it!

I would like to nominate:

1. Jen at Blue kitchen bakes, I came across Jen the first time when she encouraged me to make breads, which I was rubbish at. She also hosts a monthly classic french challenge, which is a great way to know how other people put their own spin in classic recipes. 
2. Lauren at A baked thesis, Lauren is talented and extremely encouraging and comes up with many original recipes. Not only that, she was baking her way through her PhD, which is what I'm also doing at the moment. 
3. Ryan at Baked with Kindness, Ryan is truly passionate about baking, often infusing new flavours and his own spin in classic recipes. He also keeps us updated on many news in the food world, from new recipes, books and even mobile apps!
4. Zoe at Bake for happy kids, the name says it all, it's so sweet! 

Here are my questions for all of you who got nominated:

1. What is the best bakery/patisserie (in your opinion) you've been to?
2. What is your favourite bake and why?
3. Who is the favourite person in the world you like to share your bake with?
4. What distracts you the most (e.g. TV? Books? The person in the corner wearing a dinosaur costume?)
5. If you can live anywhere, where would that be?
6. If I say "bazinga", what would you think of?
7. Have you ever helped out with a cake sale for charity? If you have, what was the most selling good?
8. Would you go to the gym just so you can pig out on all the food you enjoy?
9. Who inspired you the most in  your life and why?
10. If you had a dog and a cat, they both fell into the water, which would you save first?

Scones

I always find scones to be one of the weird things that don't fit into any categories. It's not really a cake or a bread. But I think I'll put it under bread in my recipes, simply because its texture is closer to bread than cakes. This is a very quick and easy recipe and it's great to make it the evening before and have it for breakfast. Also, a cup of tea goes a long way with a nice scone. 

Ingredients (makes 12-15 scones)

• 450g self raising flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 75g unsalted butter
• 50g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 200ml milk 
• strawberry jam
• whipped double cream

1. Pre-heat oven to 220 degrees C 
2. Mix flour and baking powder together in a very large mixing bowl
3. Rub in the butter to the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs
4. Mix in sugar
5. Beat eggs and milk together 
6. Add 2-3 tbsp of egg/milk mix to the dry ingredients and gently bring the mixture together
7. Continue until you have about 3-4 tbsp of egg/milk mixture left, the dough should have come together and may be slightly wet and sticks to your hands, if not add another 2 tbsp of milk and knead again
8. Lightly flour work surface and push the dough down to about 1.5-2cm thickness and cut it out with a 4-5cm round cutter
9. Place cut out dough in baking tray and brush some of the leftover milk/egg mix over the top of dough
10. Bake for 17-23 minutes, the dough should rise well and turn golden in the oven
11. Take it out and let it cool, try and keep it as moist as you can
12. Cut scone in half and fill with strawberry jam and cream
13. Prepare a cup of tea and enjoy

Tarte au citron

This is a very simple tart to make, as long as you follow the recipe correctly and use an electric scale. At first you may think the recipe contains A LOT of lemon, but there really isn't any point in having a lemon tart unless you get the full blast of its flavour! 

Ingredients

• 200g plain flour + extra for dusting
• 30g icing sugar
• 95g unsalted butter
• 1 large egg
• 1 tbsp cold water
• 4 lemons
• 120ml double cream
• 250g caster sugar
• 5 large eggs

1. Mix flour and icing sugar together in a large bowl
2. Cut butter into small chunks and add to the flour, pulse if you have an electric blender, if not, rub the ingredients together with your finger tips until they resemble a breadcrumb structure
3. Make a well in the middle of the mixture and add the egg to it and combine ingredients with you hand, if it doesn't quite stick together, add 1 tbsp of water and try again. Try not to overwork the dough as the butter will melt and turn into a sticky mess
4. Lightly dust work surface with flour and gently roll out the pastry dough to about 3mm thick
5. Put rolled out pastry into a 23cm fluted tart tin and very lightly press the pastry against the sides, don't worry about the extra pastry hanging off the sides of tin for now
6. Evenly prick small holes across the entire base of pastry and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes
7. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C/160 fan
8. Take pastry out of fridge and line with parchment paper and fill baking beans/rice
9. Bake the pastry for 5 minutes and take it out of the oven, use a sharp knife to trim off the excess pastry to form a perfect shape
10. Return pastry to oven and bake for another 10 minutes (check if base is dry, if not return to oven for another 3 minutes)
11. Remove baking beans and parchment paper and bake for another 5-10 minutes, or until the base is golden
12. Take pastry case out of oven to cool slightly, lower oven temperature to 170 degrees C (150 fan) and start preparing filling
13. Mix eggs, caster sugar and cream together and whisk until smooth
14. Add the juice and zest from 4 lemons to the eggs and whisk again until everything has combined 
15. Pour mixture into a jug
16. Return pastry back into oven and then pour the filling in, this way, the filling is less likely to spill than attempting to return pastry case with filling together into oven
17. Bake for 25-35 minutes, it's done when the sides are set and the middle wobbles slightly when tapped gently on the side
18. Cool completely on bench top
19. Dust with icing sugar and serve! 

Sachertorte

The Sachertorte, it is also known as the king of chocolate cakes. No, I didn't make that up! For something as glamorous as the king, it is really quite a plain cake/torte. The decorations only consist of a shiny chocolate coating and the piped word Sacher on it. The recipe dates back to 1832 and is the signature cake of Hotel Sacher and its recipe is guarded as top security. However, many have attempted at creating their own version of the sachertorte since. 

Ingredients

• 145g + 100g plain chocolate (in separate bowls)
• 80g + 35g+ 60g caster sugar (in separate bowls)
• 140g unsalted butter
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 100g ground almond
• 40g plain flour
• 5 large eggs, separated
• 10 tbsp apricot jam
• 200ml double cream
• 10g milk chocolate
• coco powder for dusting

1. Melt 145g plain chocolate over simmering water or low power in the microwave, let it cool for 20 minutes
2. Beat butter until it is very soft
3. Cream in 80g sugar into the butter and it is very soft and fluffy
4. Grease and line a 23cm round baking tin with parchment paper and pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C
5. Add the cooled chocolate and vanilla extract to the butter and sugar and mix
6. Add the egg yolks and beat the mixture until it is smooth
7. Fold in the ground almond and plain flour until they have incorporated into the rest of the batter
8. In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites with electric whisk until it begins to get foamy and then add 1 tbsp of the 35g of sugar at a time until all the sugar is dissolved and the meringue forms stiff peaks
9. Add 1/4 of meringue to cake batter and beat it in to soften the batter
10. Add remaining egg white to the batter and VERY gently fold it in to avoid losing the volume
11. Pour mixture into baking tin and bake for 50-60 minutes (you may need to cover the top with foil after about 40 minutes to prevent the top from burning, but this is oven dependent)
12. Take the torte out of the oven and let it cool in the tin for 2 minutes and remove from tin and cool on a wire rack
13. Slice the torte horizontally in half
14. Heat double cream and 60g caster sugar until boiling and sugar completely dissolved
15. Take cream off the heat and let it cool for 2 minutes and add to 100g of broken plain chocolate, stir until chocolate has melted and the ganache is shiny. Let is cool for 10 minutes 
16. Microwave 5 tbsp of apricot jam to soften it and make it more spreadable
17. Spread apricot jam onto the bottom slice of torte and leave it for 5 minutes and then spread a generous amount of chocolate ganache on top of the jam
18. Put the other layer of torte on
19. Microwave the remaining apricot jam and spread it on the torte
20. Pour ganache onto the torte and spread it evenly, or tilt the torte to let the ganache run to the side to get a smooth finish on the top and the sides
21. Let the ganache to cool completely for 30 minutes
22. Melt milk chocolate over simmering water or low power in microwave and put it into a piping bag and let it cool for 20-30 minutes
23. Pipe the word "Sacher" on the torte with milk chocolate 
24. Dust coco powder into patterns you desire 

Here we are! The KING of chocolate cakes! 

Pain aux raisins

The good old pain aux raisins, there are many variations to how this is made. Some use puff pastry and some uses brioche dough. Personally, I'm a fan of the brioche dough method. A trip to Boston and a taste of the pain aux raisins from the Flour Bakery really got me interested in making these myself, especially when I realised I couldn't just take a trans-atlantic flight every time I fancied some. To make the pain aux raisins, you will need to make the brioche dough and the pastry cream. 

Recipe (brioche dough)

• 160g plain flour
• 170g strong white bread flour
• 2 and a half large eggs
• 60ml water
• 160g unsalted butter, cut into 10-12 pieces (room temperature)
• 7g dried yeast
• 40g caster sugar
• 2g salt

1. You can use a dough hook, that can make your life easier, but I don't have one, so I did it by hand
2. Mix plain and bread flour, sugar togther
3. Add salt to one side of mixing bowl 
4. Add yeast to the other side of mixing bowl
5. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and add the water and eggs to the well
6. Use your hands to bring all the ingredients together and knead the dough for 5 minutes
7. Add one piece of butter at a time to the dough and incorporate by kneading it on a lightly floured surface, repeat the process until all the butter has been incorporated
8. The dough at this time will feel VERY wet and you will start to doubt whether it's going to work, keep kneading it and it will eventually become silky and elastic. Stop when you can stretch it by about 30-35cm and it doesn't break
9. Put the dough in a lightly floured bowl, seal with cling film and let it proof at room temperature for 2-3 hours or better, overnight in the fridge for up to 10 hours
10. The dough should have almost doubled in size

Recipe (pastry cream)

• 300 ml semi-skimmed milk
• 100g caster sugar
• 30g plain flour
• pinch of salt
• 4 egg yolks
• 1 tbsp vanilla essence

1. Bring milk to a boil
2. Mix sugar, flour and egg yolks together until it resembles a thick paste
3. Add hot milk a bit at a time to the eggs, whisking it the entire time to prevent lumps from forming
4. When all the hot milk has been added to the eggs, return the whole mixture back to saucepan
5. Put it on medium heat, whisking the mixture the entire time, until it boils and thickens
6. Take the pastry cream off heat and fold in the vanilla essence
7. Let it cool to room temperature

Recipe (sugar glaze)

• 140g icing sugar
• 2 tbsp water
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract

Make the glaze by simply mixing everything together, add more water if necessary to make it thinner. 

You will also have to soak your raisins if they are very dry

1. Knock out the air in the dough and roll it out on a lightly floured surface to 40cm by 30cm, with the length of dough facing you 
2. Spread the pastry cream on the dough, you don't need any cream 2-3cm on the length closest to you
3. Spread the raisins over the pastry cream
4. Start rolling from the length furtherest away from you and roll it towards you. Try to keep it a tight roll (I didn't in mine as you can see, and it didn't look very good, but it's my first time)
5. Use a sharp knife to cut the roll into 3-4 cm thick pieces and turn them round, then you can see the spiral
6. Put it in a baking tray and wrap with cling film and let it proof for a second time in a warm room for 60 minutes to 90 minutes and it should increase in volume
7. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C (160 fan) when the doughs are almost ready (i.e. have increased in volume)
8. Bake for 20-30 minutes depending on your oven
9. Take it out of oven and brush the top with glaze whilst it is still warm

Strawberry tart

My second bake of the year, yes, only the second one surprisingly. So, after almost 2 months with no baking, I decided to make something simple just to make sure I can still bake. I was originally going to make a rhubarb and strawberry tart, but I couldn't get hold of any rhubarb. 

Ingredients (for 9 inch tart tin)

• 80g + 40g unsalted butter (separate)
• 30g icing sugar
• 190g + 15g plain flour (separate)
• 25g + 50g corn flour (separate)
• 750g strawberries
• 130g + 50g caster sugar (separate)
• 500ml milk (semi-skimmed or full fat)
• 5 large eggs

1. Cut butter and sift icing sugar, 190g plain flour together and rub with finger tips until it resembles breadcrumb (or pulse with mixer)
2. Add 1 whole egg and 1 tbsp of cold water and combine by hand until it forms a smooth dough, at this stage, it should not stick to your hands 
3. Roll out pastry dough to 2-3mm thick and place inside tart tin, softly press dough against the sides and leave the extras from the sides for now
4. Prick the base of pastry evenly with a fork and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes, meanwhile, pre-heat oven to 190 degrees C (170 fan)
5. Place a piece of parchment paper on the pastry and line with baking beans to prevent pastry from rising and allow an even bake of the base
6. Blind bake for 10 minutes, take it out of the oven and trim off the excess from the sides with a sharp knife, careful as the pastry is very delicate at this stage
7. Blind bake for another 5 minutes, the base should be dry at this stage, if not, return to oven for another 2 minutes and keep going until the pastry base is dry beneath the baking beans
8. Remove baking beans and parchment paper and bake for another 5 minutes, or until the base is golden
9. Beat 1 egg in a bowl
10. Remove pastry from oven and lightly brush the beaten egg onto the base and sides of pastry case
11. Return to the oven and bake for another 5 minutes, or until the pastry case is golden in colour
12. Take pastry out of oven and let it cool to room temperature
13. To make strawberry sauce, wash and quarter 250g of strawberries (if you want strawberry and rhubarb, replace 100g strawberry with chopped rhubarb)
14. Place strawberries in saucepan with 50g caster sugar and 3 tbsp water over medium heat until it simmers
15. Take a small amount of the strawberry juice out of saucepan and beat in the corn flour until it is smooth and thick
16. Add a bit more strawberry juice to the thickened paste until it becomes running
17. Return all of the juice and cornflour to the saucepan, heat and beat until it is thick
18. Put in strawberry sauce in a clean bowl to cool down
19. You should have some beaten egg left, add 3 egg yolks, 130g sugar and 50g corn flour to the eggs and mix until thick
20. Heat milk until simmering and add gradually the milk to the egg mix and keep whisking at the same time until half of the milk has been added
21. Transfer the runny custard to the remaining milk back in the saucepan and put it over low-medium heat, continue whisking the whole time 
22. Continue heating until the custard simmers and starts to thicken, it should still be runny, but should be thicker than double cream consistency
23. Add 1 tsp of vanilla extract to the custard and stir it in
24. Continue beating until the custard is very thick
25. Take pastry cream off the heat and add 40g unsalted butter, stir it in until it has completed melted 
26. Cool custard to room temperature
27. Spread the thickened sauce evenly to the bottom of the pastry base and set in fridge for 1-2 hours
28. Pipe the pastry cream on top of strawberry sauce and layer chopped strawberries on top however you like
29. Brush leftover strawberry jam on top of the strawberries for glazing

La Burdick, Boston, MA, USA

This place is a chocolatier specialist, so as expected, their main products are pre-packaged chocolates of various flavours. However, they do have a good variety of chocolate desserts too. I didn't purchase any chocolates as that wasn't the reason of my visit.

Linzer torte

Let's start with the linzer torte, visually, it looked very appetising with all those roasted nuts and a good layer of raspberry in the middle. It was packed with almond flavour, but the hazelnut didn't come through strongly, in fact, you really had to search for the hazelnut flavour. The nuts on top were well roasted and crisp. However, the linzertorte for me would have to be more delicate and crumbly. This particular one was quite solid and the mixture may have been overworked, giving it more of a chewy and hard texture. The flavour was absolutely fine. 

The Burdick

The cake was quite solid, and was not as moist and soft as I had expected. The rum flavour came through nicely and complemented the flavour well. The design was simple and effective. The structure was held very well for ALL of the cakes there and they all looked very attractive. However, I suspect the structure of all the cakes were so sturdy because the cake itself was harder and less likely to collapse . I'm definitely someone who would go for taste before appearance. Though, saying that, the cake was good, but is it good enough to inherit the name of the shop? Personally, I don't think it is.

Mocha cake

Very similar to the burdick in terms of structure and texture. The sponge had a very close texture, but because of the fact each layer is sliced so thin, you may not notice, especially if you had a soft layer of cream/mousse in between the layers. The major problem of this cake is the stiff coffee cream. It was too hard, perhaps beaten too much. A good soft cream would hide the downfall of the sponge, but this cream couldn't do that because it was very hard itself. Despite saying that, the aroma and taste from the coffee was very good and it was lovely. If the texture itself can be improved slightly, this will be a very good cake.

Lemon and chocolate cake

I've said it before and I will say it again, lemon and chocolate go very nicely together and this cake was a delight, flavour wise. Texture on the other hand, suffered the same problems as the ones I mentioned above. The lemon cream here is softer and did in fact mask the downfall of the cake somewhat. This is definitely worth trying and I did feel I wanted more after finishing it.

Overall impression: 6/10
The burdick: 6/10
mocha cake: 6.5/10
chocolate lemon cake: 7/10
Linzertorte: 5.5/10

Maria's pastry, Boston, MA, USA

Yet another beautiful weekend in Boston, sunny, not a single cloud in the sky and yes, still -10 degrees C here. I found this lovely Italian pastry shop at Haymarket whilst I was, well, searching for the market. It has a good range of pastries and biscuits, but I couldn't see any cakes there and they also sell pre-packaged baked goods in there too. They do the baking in a separate room at the back of the shop and the place has generally received good reviews. So, I thought, let's give it a try. It's nice to visit local bakeries that aren't part of a chain, which can mass produce products and slip up on the occasional quality control. Unlike the previous visits to other places, I only picked up a range of pastries instead of going for things from across the disciplines in baking.

The first thing I tried was the Baba rum, or how we British call it, the rum baba. Don't know why we switch the order of words around to be honest. The actual baba was good, the texture feels that it has good volume, good aeration and a very slightly harder skin on the outside. It was filled with pastry cream. Variations from some cultures will add some fruit too, but not in this one, which is not an issue. Though both the baba and the cream were good, the overall impressiveness was ruined somewhat by the rum syrup. It was not as sweet as I had hoped and it has a quite distinct sour after taste, which didn't appeal to me very much. If it was made slightly sweeter and less sour, it would be a much better baba I think. Presentation wise, it was fine, but the pastry cream didn't stick to the baba very well and when you eat it, the two components separate. 

Next was the mille-feuille. Honest opinion, the pastry and structure were both very good. It held together very well. Sometimes the whole thing just disintegrates and difficult to eat because it's extremely messy. The flaky pastry built up a multitude of layers and was crisp, but not solid like some mille-feuilles, making it much easier to eat. The pastry cream inside was sweet and delicate, but too much custard and not enough vanilla, also, the cream was slightly too thick for my liking. I was looking for the flavourful caramelisation of the sugar on the pastry, but I couldn't find any, so the pastry on its own would be quite bland without the custard cream. However, the whole thing was sweet enough, shame about the caramelisation of the pastry though. 

Also, I had the custard slice. I thought the custard slice is just what americans call the french mille-feuille, but the one I had looked and tasted slightly different to the mille-feuille I bought. The pastry was the same, the custard was slightly sweeter I found, but that could be just me. And there is a very thin layer of sponge in the middle, which was interesting. This is something I'm definitely going to try when I get the opportunity. Overall, just like the mille-feuille, good structure, good pastry, good custard, let down by the caramelisation of the pastry. 

Chocolate filled cannoli, I don't have this very often, so can't say I'm very good at judging it. But, I thought it was good, it's not overly sickly or sweet, the sweetened ricotta also held well inside, which is, just like they said, filled upon purchase. The shell was crisp, has a very nice flavour and at the same time complemented the ricotta well. I quite enjoyed this. I always find the ricotta in cannoli a bit lumpy though, maybe I'm just too used to creamy cheese. 

The appearance of the sfogliatelle was impeccable, and the texture was good too. The cream was fluffy and sweet. It is quite crunchy and not really something you can eat with a knife and fork without making a mess (talking from experience here). But overall, it is rather tasty.

Finally, I got an apple strudel from the shop as well. The pastry itself wasn't very flaky as I would expect from a strudel. The pastry may not have been rolled out thin enough, it actually felt more like an apple turnover in parts. So, as an apple turnover, it is very good. It wasn't overly sweet, but as a strudel, it was let down by the pastry unfortunately.

Overall impression: 6/10
Baba rum: 5/10
Mille feuille and custard slice: 7.5/10
apple strudel: 5/10
sfogliatelle: 7/10
cannoli: 8/10

Mille-feuille bakery, New York City, USA

I'm just going to say it, this bakery is very good and definitely worth a visit. No, I wasn't paid to say this. I identified the place from the number of positive comments online, and it was quite close to where I stayed in New York anyway, so thought I'd give it a go. The bakery was quite small and there weren't a huge range of goods there, but still, the things on display were decent. 

The place just seemed clean and simple, nothing extravagant, but had a nice french cafe feel to it. The girl at the counter was very smiley, which is always good to see. Cafes and patisseries are meant to be filled with happy people. I sat down with my food there for about 30 minutes, during that time they got a few customers through and they sounded like they go there quite often. A little girl popped in with dad and got some macarons too and the whole atmosphere was just so sweet and homely.

One slight thing is that although they have ovens on site, all of their baked goods are made in a kitchen in Brooklyn. When you go in, you don't get the attractive fresh bread and buttery smell that you sometimes get in bakeries. 

Moving onto their baked goods. It's called the mille-feuille, so I just had to try the mille-feuille. It was a simple one, with vanilla cream and dusting of icing sugar. The pastry had good flake and good caramelisation, each layer within the pastry was clear and well defined. The pastry cream was light and complimented the pastry very well. However, one down side is that the puff pastry did feel a bit over baked and slightly burnt in areas and tasted a little bitter. Though, it wasn't such a big problem, it could be overlooked quite easily. 

The chocolate fondant was very moist and the sponge was light and just very chocolatey. Was kind of expecting a gush of melted chocolate to seep out when I cut into it, well, that didn't happen, which was a bit disappoint. Nonetheless, as a chocolate sponge, it was good. 

I tried the macarons too, there were many flavours. My favourite one has to be blackcurrant, passion fruit and salted caramel. So, quite simple flavours, but they tasted SO good! It was just the right size, delicate and the middle is not overly chewy. I really smiled after having just one, and it has been a LONG time since I smiled after trying something at a bakery. It's amongst the best macarons I've tasted and I've tried them from quite a few places. Shame that some of them had crached tops, but these are not cracks from the baking, more like they were so delicate that the shell on the surface broke during transport and ruined the appearance slightly. 

Last but not least, the raspberry financier. I felt it could do with a little bit more raspberries, but overall, it was too bad. The almond flavour came out quite strong and it was lovely. However, the colour and taste suggest to me that the butter has not been heated for quite long enough to give the financiers the distinctive caramelised flavour. It didn't feel like a financier, just an almond cake. 

I would definitely visit this little place in lower Manhattan again if I get the chance. The price is relatively reasonable and the standards of goods there are definitely above your regular bakery and cafe. 

Over impression: 8/10

Macarons: 9/10 

Chocolate fondant: 6.5/10

Mille feuille: 8/10

financier: 6/10

Pasticceria Rocco, New York City, USA

This is a very busy cafe/patisserie and despite their business, the service was good and attentive. The selection of products there were also very good. Ranging from cakes to various pastries and lots of biscuits. And for such a busy and popular cafe, the prices are very reasonable. But, unfortunately that's all the nice things I can say about it. 

I tried a few things there and honestly, none of them really stood out very much. A few things did look very attractive on menu, but didn't quite live up to expectations. Bearing in mind, I haven't eaten since 9am that day and I arrived at the shop at 3pm, so I was starving and would be happy with anything. 

Let's start with the key lime tart, the filling was actually good. You get the zing with it and the sweetness was relatively balanced too. You can get an overpowering sourness sometimes, but fortunately, this was good. However, the pastry let it down. It's a shortcrust pastry, so you would expect it to be short, it was overworked and quite hard, which is not quite right for a shortcrust pastry. In fact, if the pastry was thinner, the downfall of the pastry wouldn't have been that obvious, however, the pastry was VERY thick, I didn't have a ruler with me, but just by looking at it, I'm pretty confident to say it was probably about 1cm thick, which is almost as thick as the filling itself! 

Then I had the turtle cheesecake. So, the description was a new york cheesecake topped with pecans, caramel and chocolate. My instant thought was "hey, I'm in New York, let's try the new york cheesecake", and the combination sounded nice too. Again, it was quite disappointing. I wasn't expecting a huge amount of flavour in the cheesecake itself, but it was literally a plain cheesecake. I think it would be a lot better if they had incorporated the flavour of the topping into the cheesecake itself. But rather, the topping was lose, fallen apart and didn't quite hold its shape on the cheesecake. Furthermore, perhaps from the weight of the topping crushing down, the cheesecake also felt a bit dense. Finally coming to the biscuit base, I could barely find anything. It's not supposed to be a huge amount of biscuit, but, the biscuit there was extremely thin. Great if you don't like the biscuit base anyway, but I think it would be great if they could double the depth of biscuit there. 

The rum baba I had was thorough soaked in sweet rum syrup, the dough was actually alright to the baba, but oversoaked perhaps, it was EXTREMELY wet and soggy. Imagine the texture of your morning cereal bathed in milk for a few minutes. That kind of texture. 

Finally, I had a pistachio biscotti. Can't really taste the pistachio, you see a lot of green in there, but can't really pin down the actual pistachio taste and there was certainly hardly any pistachio nut in there that I could see. So, the flavour was lacking, just tasted sweet and frankly, quite artificial. 

It's a bakery with a good range of products, though I wouldn't say the goods were particularly outstanding. Worth popping in for an afternoon tea if you are in the area, but don't expect too much. 

Overall impression: 4/10

Key lime tart: 5/10

Rum baba: 4/10

biscotti: 4/10

cheesecake:5/10

Bova's bakery, Boston, MA, USA

Yet another bakery I looked up and this one also received some fairly good reviews by locals. Their name is definitely not as big as the big bakeries and patisseries in Boston, but I think the family ran and rustic nature won me over. The street the bakery is on is tucked away and it's not that easy to find. It wasn't packed as expected, but it did have a wonderful smell of baked goods inside. Their baked goods aren't fancy decorations, what you see is what you get and I like that. They have a nice range of bread on display, but unfortunately I only picked up a loaf of ciabatta bread there. 

Again, I picked a few nice looking baked goods ranging from bread to cake and pastry. I don't have a picture for the bread, because I finished the whole loaf before I realised I didn't have a picture, but it was a good loaf of ciabatta bread, it had a nice crust to it and the flavour wasn't too strong, but adequate . I'm not a huge fan of heavily yeasted and fermented bread, so this for me was perfect. There are large irregular air pockets in the bread as well. So as far as ciabatta goes, it ticked all the boxes. 

The cheesecake was what I had next, it was a plain cheesecake, there are other flavours, but I stuck with the plain one, as I think that really tells you of the bake itself. Strong flavours can mask a multitude of sins as they say. The cheesecake was not too heavy, but nicely cream and soft and the biscuit base held together well. I would have liked it to be a bit more buttery, but that's personal preference. So the cheesecake was nicely made too. 

Moving on the the sfogliatelle, at least I think that's what it was, it didn't really have the layers I was expecting from the appearance. It was quite tough actually, but since I've got no idea what it should be like I can't really tell. 

The eclair was strange. The pastry itself is fine and you can't really go wrong with the chocolate topping. But I felt the pastry cream filling was a bit too much and heavy for my liking, it just tipped the balance over from something that is very good to something that is just ok. 

The fruit tart was also very weird, not in terms of the fruit or the creme patissiere, but the pastry. It's not shortcrust pastry, it's very hard, very sweet and definitely not a meringue. It made it very difficult to eat as well. I must say, I'm a big fan of fruit tarts in general, but I didn't really enjoy this one. 

Over all impression: 6/10

Ciabatta bread: 8/10

Plain cheesecake: 8/10

Fruit tart: 4/10

chocolate eclair: 6/10

sfogliatelle:  can't tell, don't know what it's like, but as far as how much I enjoyed it, 6/10

Flour Bakery, Boston, MA, USA

THE Flour Bakery, it's one of the top and most recommended bakery by various places and websites on the internet. It's also quite a popular bakery amongst the locals as well (says my colleague, who is a PhD student like me and also quite a keen baker). To be honest, I wasn't really sure what to expect, and  certainly didn't want everyone to hype it up too much, that tends to get me over-excited and most of the time, when things are too hyped, they don't tend to live up to expectations. 

Flour bakery has 4 branches: South End, Back Bay, Fort Point Channel and Central Square. From what I gathered, they sell pretty much the same things. Flour Bakery is owned by Joanne Chang, who is a graduate from Harvard University, with a degree in applied mathematics and economics and left to train in New York, but you can read her profile yourself really on her bakery's website. The bakery itself was featured in Gourmet, the New York Times and also winner of Boston magazine's best bakery 4 times. 

I did a little research on what to get before I went, you know searching for the specialties. Almost straight way, I found their Sticky Sticky Bun was featured on "Throwdown! With Bobby Flay". If you don't know what it is, don't worry, I didn't either until I looked it up. It's basically a TV program featuring a celebrity chef challenging chefs at relatively renowned restaurants to their own signature food and then they decide who won. So the battle of Joanne Chang VS Bobby Flay, Joanne won in with her sticky sticky bun recipe. Another thing that she mentioned was her pain aux raisin, which is something she loves. So the sticky bun and pain aux raisins were the two things I knew I had to try before I even went. 

When I got there, the first impression was very good. The design was simple, not too extravagant, friendly staff and also, filled with families and little children, it's generally a very warm atmosphere I thought. Moving onto the bakes then, which I'm sure you are dying to hear. 

Pain aux raisin, gosh, this was a master piece! It was delicious and soft, and sometimes you can get an overpowering buttery flavour, but this one is well balanced and it's just perfect as far as the pastry goes. However, the slight down side for me was, I would have preferred a bit more raisins in there, I would have a bite of the pain aux raisin expecting to have each bite, not filled, but contains a few raisins. But with this one, I kind of just stumble on a few every now and then. But nonetheless, it is very good!

Now the Sticky Sticky Bun, not sure why sticky appears twice, I thought they just accidentally put sticky in there twice, but apparently it's what it's really called. Anyway, the bun was very soft and there was a very generous amount of topping, and I mean VERY generous amount of it. So much that a lot of it seeped into the actual bun. When you cut into it, 20% of the bun, on the side closest to the topping was wet and softened by caramel topping.The caramel and the nuts on top go very well together and the brioche was very nicely done too, some of the best I've tried. However, it is quite heavy, there is a lot of caramel and for some, it could be too much, I would definitely recommend trying this, but make sure it's the 1st thing you try and with a large of cup of tea coffee with it too. 

Chocolate tartlet, simple, good shortcrust pastry, nice chocolatey sweet filling, what more do you need to know?

Chocolate roulade, the surface was so shiny, I was blinded by the light reflected off it, ok, that's slightly exaggerated, but it did look very good. The roulade itself was very light and full of chocolate flavour, which is exactly how it should be, I couldn't fault it really, even the rolling was good. 

Raspberry gateaux, I must say, this kind of disappointed me, the cake itself seemed over baked, that or something in the mixture process didn't go right, it felt quite solid when you bite into it. The flavour combinations was great, the zing from the raspberries really hit your tongue from the word go and the sweet cake then neutralises the sourness quickly. But for me, the texture of the cake was wrong. 

Triple chocolate mousse, it's essentially a chocolate teacake. The chocolate dome was well done and shiny and it kept its shine for quite a bit as well, which I was impressed with. The middle is filled with very light chocolate mousse and the bottom a thin layer of chocolate sponge. It was a delight to eat. But I think part of me did think the mousse was too light, if it was slightly stiffer, it would be easier to cut and get a better definition from each cut. Each individual component of the teacake was well made, but I'm just not sure whether consistency for the mousse was right when combined with other other components. 

Impression: 8/10

Pain aux raisin: 9/10

Sticky sticky bun: 8/10

Triple chocolate mousse: 6/10

Raspberry cake: 4/10

Chocolate roulade: 8/10

Chocolate tartlet: 8/10

Baking science over the next 6 weeks

Hi readers! Thank you for visiting my blog and I hope you have found something to your fancy or useful here! 

Over the next 6-7 weeks, there will NOT be any new recipes here as I will be working in Boston and unfortunately my temporary flat there does not have an oven and only has a very small hot plate. There will instead, more updates on baking sciences, something I've been trying to put together to encourage scientific understanding by applying it on baking. 

If there are things in particular people would like to find out more, whether it is different types of flour, fats, what eggs do in a cake, different types of sugar etc, put a comment here and I'll do my best to find out more about it and explain it here! 

Paul Hollywood's 8 strand plaited loaf

The recipe is on the BBC website. It is easy to follow and it works really well, so I won't go through the recipe again here.
Link to recipe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/eight-strand_plaited_57815

Tip
When it says roll out each piece to 40cm, make sure it's thin and 40cm or even slightly longer, otherwise it will be difficult to plait towards the end and you will have quite a short loaf of bread like mine!

Also, it says 10g salt in this recipe, I actually find it a bit too salty for my liking, so if you prefer your bread more bland, reduce it to 5g.

Yeast

Aha! Biology! Something that I do (kind of) at last! No, I don’t actually work on yeasts or any sort of microorganisms and no, I don’t work on metabolisms at all. If there are specialists out there reading this, please do correct me if you spot any mistakes. 

Back in the days I was at school (gosh, just over 4 years ago), I was only told of the 5 kingdoms, followed by the phylum, class, order, family, genus and lastly, species. Of course, you always find out that whatever you learned at school is not entirely the whole story and before long, you get the addition of the 3 domains on top of the 5 kingdoms. We won’t concern ourselves with these hugely complicated evolutionary genetics, but I am going to describe the lineage of baker’s yeast, which belongs to the fungi kingdom under the eucaryota domain. 

Fig 1

Fig 1 Phylogeny of baker’s yeast S.cerevisiae.

Yeast is a type of unicellular fungus and baker’s yeast is almost entirely formed by the species, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The “Saccharo” part means sugar and “myces” refers to fungus. The species name, cerevisiae, is derived from the name Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture. Don’t worry, I won’t dwell on the history of yeast at all, as I don’t even know them myself.

Yeast is not only involved in bread making, it is also used in the production of alcohol, cheese and various recombinant human proteins including antibiotics. This very useful organism ferments sugar, or fermentable sugar to form ethanol and carbon dioxide (CO₂) (Fig 2).

Fig 2

Fig 2 Aerobiosis and anaerobiosis following glycolysis. All species under the animalia kingdom can carry out the aerobiosis reaction following glycolysis into the kreb’s cycle and the electron transport chain to generate ATP to provide energy. However, unlike mammals, yeasts are capable of alcoholic fermentation, using the pyruvate generated to form ethanol and CO₂. Diagram taken from Alba-Lois and Segal-Kischinevzky (2010).  

From figure 2, we see that yeast is capable of producing CO₂, which is trapped in the matrix of bread dough formed by gluten, causing it to rise. The reaction requires glucose, but glucose is not readily available in the mixture of flour, water, salt and yeast. Flour contains starch, which is a large complex polysaccharide, containing many monosaccharides joined together. Glucose and fructose are released from the breakdown of starch; glucose enters glycolysis (Fig 2) directly, whilst fructose must be converted to glucose before it can enter the pathway.

Although S. cerevisiae is the dominant species used in both baking and brewing, there are different strains that control which yeast is used. Strain is used to distinguish microorganisms of the same species, which have very similar genetic make up, but may have specific mutations within their genome to adapt to a specific environment and subsequent changes in their phenotype of functionality. For example, it has been described that a species is a collection of different strains that show at least 70% cross-hybridisation, i.e. when the 2 strands of DNA are separated from two different organisms, at least 70% of the DNA from one organism will anneal or bind to the DNA of the other organism (Wayne et al, 1987) and this concept is generally applicable to the bacterial domain (Brenner et al, 2000).

Brewers’ yeast and bakers’ yeast behave very differently and they certainly belong to different strains of S.cerevisiae. Bakers’ yeast can be divided into three main categories: active dry yeast, instant dry yeast and compressed (cake) yeast.

Compressed yeast is made by a series of dehydration and literally compression processes after fermentation to concentrate the active yeast into a block. This yeast is alive and active and therefore, is much more prone to “death” and needs to be kept refrigerated in many cases. Even then, the yeasts don’t tend to last more than a few weeks. However, it has better leavening capacity compared to the other two yeast types and generates a weaker fermented flavor.

Active and Instant dry yeast are very similar. They are both dried yeasts, which mean they can be stored at room temperature and for a much longer period of time before they lose their leavening properties. These yeasts are not active immediately; they are in their dormant form. Many fungus become dormant when their surrounding environments become unfavorable, this process allows them to protect themselves from germinating or reproducing in undesirable conditions and conserve energy until time for growth. Active dry yeasts are in granules and needs to be soaked in water to activate before using in a dough. Instant yeast on the other hand, is elongated and therefore, has a larger surface area for water uptake and can be incorporated into the dough directly, but the two yeasts act in very similar ways if not identically once activated.

Yeasts are living organisms, and they need to be kept alive if you want it to do their job. Therefore, temperature and osmolarity of their surroundings are very important in maintaining their efficiency and liveliness. Yeasts work best at around 40 degrees C, but allowing it to ferment at lower temperature at about 30 degrees C will allow the dough to rise slower but develop the flavor over a longer period of time, some even put the dough in the fridge to retard the efficiency of yeast action and proof for a much longer period of time. However, do bear in mind temperature at about 60 degrees C will kill most yeast, so when adding warm water to the mixture, make sure the temperature is well below 60 degrees. High level (concentration) of salt will also retard yeast actions and even kill them. I actually don’t know why this occurs, but I speculate it is due to the osmolarity of the surrounding and draws water out of yeast and dehydrate them and hence “kills” the yeast preventing them from fermenting.

Leaving the yeast to work and proof the dough over a longer period allows flavor to develop in the dough. This is a result of breaking down the starch of the flour. Yeast when they ferment and multiply as well as metabolize, it releases various metabolites include aldehydes and ketones that affect the flavor of bread.

That’s it for now. Maybe I’ll come back to this and add more to it soon.

References

Alba-Lois, L. & Segal-Kischinevzky, C (2010).  Yeast Fermentation and the Making of Beer and Wine. Nature education. 3(9): 17

Brenner D, Staley J, Krieg N (2000). Classification of prokaryotic organisms and the concept of Bacterial speciation. Springer; New York, NY: Bergey's manual of systematic bacteriology

Wayne L.G, et al (1987). Report of the ad hoc committee on reconciliation of approaches to bacterial systematics. Int. J. Syst. Bacteriol.37: 463–464