Weyauwega Butter Creaming Experiment - Series One, Part 1

I finished one full run – or almost a full run – of butter creaming experiments. This first run had two goals:

1) Determine whether the incorporation of air into a butter and sugar mixture during the creaming process is easily reproducible
2) Determine how the creaming process affects my Butt-Ugly Butter Cookies

I am excited to have finished this first run, and I think the results accomplish these two goals. I only wish the conclusions were more exciting.

First, it’s probably worth giving the procedure again in this post:

1. Get 4 sticks of unsalted butter (Weyauwega brand, for now) warming up from refrigerator temperature.
2. Measure 405 grams (about 2 cups) of C&H Granulated Sugar.
3. Stir well 4+ cups of unsifted Pillsbury Best All-Purpose Flour in a bowl with a whisk.
4. Weigh out 495 grams (about four level cups) of the stirred flour into a second bowl.
5. Add 0.5 teaspoon baking powder to the weighed flour and stir 24 times briskly with a whisk.
6. Sift the weighed flour and baking powder into a third bowl.
7. When the butter has come to 68-71 degrees, record the temperature and proceed.
8. Beat the butter in the large bowl at Level 2 (folding dry ingredients) for 15 seconds.
9. Beat the butter at Level 7 (creaming speed) for 30 seconds.
10. Add sugar. Beat at Level 2 for 15 seconds.
11. Beat butter and sugar at Level 7 for the prescribed period of time.
12. 30 seconds before the end of the prescribed time, add 1 teaspoon vanilla.
13. Measure the temperature of the butter/sugar mixture at the end of the creaming period.
14. Measure the weight of one level cup of the butter/sugar mixture at the end of the creaming period.
15. Add about two cups of the flour to the butter. Mix at level 2 for 20 seconds.
16. Add the remaining two cups of flour. Working rapidly with one hand, work the flour into the dough with my hands for one minute and thirty seconds.
17. Divide the dough into several equal portions. (Three equal portions by weight is about 424 grams each).
18. Form each portion into a roll about 2 inches in diameter.
19. Refrigerate all the rolls for 2 hours.
20. 30 minutes before the 2 hours is up, turn the oven on to 350 F.
21. Slice the rolls into quarter-inch slices
22. Bake on my Wilton pan. Determine to 30 seconds how long it takes to bake to the point of crispness.
23. After the cookies are cooled, save several samples in a plastic bag in the freezer.
24. Take notes on the resulting cookies.

There are four measurements for each trial:
- temperature of butter/sugar mixture before creaming (degrees F.)
- temperature of butter/sugar mixture after creaming (degrees F.)
- weight of one cup of butter/sugar mixture after creaming, including the measuring cup (grams)
- calibration time from step 22 (minutes - not exactly a measurement, more of an observation, but close enough)

Here’s the numerical data I collected, with column 1 being the number of minutes of creaming:

0 - NA – NA – 312 - NA
1 – 69.0 – 68.5 – 280 – 7.5
2 – 70.7 – 70.3 – 248 – 7.5
3 – 68.6 – 69.4 – 243 – 7.25
4 – 70.0 – 70.7 – 227 – 7.25
5 – 70.2 – 71.3 – 225 – 7
6 – 68.7 – 71.1 – 236 – 7
8 – 69.5 – 71.5 – 220 – 7
10 – 69.8 – 74.3 – 223 – 7.25
13 – 69.5 – 76.5 – 219 – 7.25

A few comments on the data:

Unlike my previous creaming data, each timepoint’s data is obtained after creaming steadily for the entire stated time, instead of stopping every minute to collect the next timepoint’s data.

The weight of 312 is an arbitrarily-chosen typical weight of one cup of the mixture before creaming from previous experiments. I think all the starting weights I saw previously were within two grams of this weight. This figure will be used as the basis of volume increase calculations.

The calibrations (step 22, or right column of the table) were done as described in my post of January 23, 2010. I mostly only baked for 7 and/or 7.5 minutes. The times given as 7.25 minutes were batches for which all but maybe three cookies were fully baked after 7 minutes, and the unbaked cookies were extremely close at that point, but for which an extra 30 minutes yielded cookies that were obviously past the instant of baking completion as determined by the degree of brownness of the tops of the cookies and the amount of crispness.

I cut the experiment off at 13 minutes for two reasons:

1. The end temperature of the butter was getting so high that further creaming would have required a modification of the experimental procedure
2. I did not expect to see any further changes in the appearance of the cookies if I creamed for a longer period of time.

Unfortunately, I need to postpone analysis and discussion until tomorrow. I will also add my general observations of the dough and cookies to tomorrow’s post. Meanwhile, consider the implications of the creaming weight figures!