This is a shorter and simpler blog than my earlier ‘blessays’; but I have been chastised recently for failing to maintain this blog so though I had better step up to the plate (of biscuits?).
The ‘why the holes’ question is normally correctly answered by people with baking experience – quite simply it is to avoid the formation of air pockets under the biscuit (caused by moisture in the dough evaporating during the baking process).
Now you might think this is a trivial piece of information -- but that would be to underestimate the importance of dimensional integrity when a biscuit is entering a creaming machine.
To create a standard sandwich biscuit (such as a bourbon) you need to fire the base biscuit through a cream depositing process and then match the top biscuit onto it. This happens quickly and if either biscuit part is distorted or buckled going in to the creamer … well trust me, its not a pretty sight when one of those things jams. As you are I am sure aware, commercial biscuit baking is a continuous baking process with biscuits rolling out of an oven straight into the creamer. When the creamer jams there isn't a 'buffer' option to hold up the biscuit flow, so biscuits start getting dumped to waste if the creamer stops functioning.
So what does this tell us about life?
- You have to predict stress build up and make allowances for relieving it.
- Make sure you remember to let off steam to ensure you maintain your form (otherwise there’s likely to be a lot of broken biscuits on the floor).
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