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Tonight I performed the third of three two-minute creaming experiments with Crystal Farms unsalted butter. Or I should say, the third and fourth of three experiments. :-)
First, here's what happened with the first two "good" experiments of two-minute creaming:
Starting Temperature:
68.4 - 68.5
Ending Temperature:
69.1 (change of 0.7) - 68.8 (change of 0.3)
Weight of creamed butter/sugar, not including weight of cup:
197g - 204g
Percent volume increase during creaming:
31.0% - 26.5%
In my first repetition of the experiment tonight, I used some butter that had previously warmed to 75 degrees, but which I subsequently put back in the refrigerator for several days. I brought the butter temperature up to 68.4 degrees - no fiddling around with the temperature at all, for once - and did the creaming. The temperature rose during creaming to about 71 degrees. The weight of creamed butter/sugar was 193 grams. That temperature rise of over 2.5 degrees was way more than the average 0.5 degrees rise of the previous two times. It's about the same I saw before when I used butter that had warmed to 75 degrees, but which I simply lowered to 68 degrees and proceeded. The volume increase during creaming was on the low side, too.
From the first repetition tonight, I conclude that once the butter gets too warm, there's no way to get it back to the state it was in before it got too warm. Even lowering its temperature back to forty degrees again for several days doesn't get it back to "ground zero" - even if it got only a few degrees too warm.
In my second repetition tonight, and the third of three, I brought the butter up to 70 degrees, and then sent the temperature back and forth about six times between 66 and 70 degrees, trying to get the temperature exactly to 68.4 degrees. Talk about fun! Well, I finally succeeded, and I immediately did the experiment. The final temperature was 70.5 degrees, and the weight was 204 grams.
Well, this temperature rise of 2.1 degrees was still a lot more than the first two repetitions I did of this procedure. I never really over-warmed the butter - that 70.5 was as warm as it got - but I conclude that going back and forth with the temperature a bunch of times, even with a lower limit, has an effect on it. However, this time the weight, hence the amount of air incorporated, was in line with my previous repetitions, and I feel I can average this value with the first two to get a real number for volume increase during creaming of Crystal Farms butter, from a starting temperature of 68.4 degrees.
So the data from three repetitions was:
Starting Temperature:
68.4 - 68.5 - 68.4
Ending Temperature:
69.1 (change of 0.7) - 68.8 (change of 0.3) - 70.5 (change of 2.1)
Weight of creamed butter/sugar, not including weight of cup:
197g - 204g - 204g
Percent volume increase during creaming:
31.0% - 26.5% - 26.5%
The average percent volume increase was 28.0% +- 2.6%
The average temperature change was 1.03 F. +- 0.95 F. if I include the last repetition, or 0.5 F. +- 0.28 F., if I do not include the last repetition.
I think the last number for change in temperature, though an average of only two repetitions, is the better number to use, because I observed twice that messing around with the temperature a lot makes the temperature rise more during creaming. I don't think it's worth doing a fifth repetition, because every creaming experiment uses a whole pound of butter and two cups sugar, and these numbers, especially the change in temperature during creaming, just are't that critical. It really bugs me, though, not to have three!
I didn't bake any cookies from this experiment, so no photo. Next I'll cream the butter for two minutes starting at around 70.5 degrees and see if those two degrees' difference causes there to be more air in the dough after mixing in the flour, and the cookies to come out less flat.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Repeat of Low-Temperature Mixing Again Yields Bad Results
I repeated the two-minute creaming time experiment and got the same results as this morning. Here are this morning's measurements and this evening's:
Starting Temperature:
68.4 - 68.5
Ending Temperature:
69.1 (change of 0.7) - 68.8 (change of 0.3)
Weight of creamed butter/sugar, not including weight of cup:
197g - 204g
Percent volume increase during creaming:
31.0% - 26.5%
Weight after mixing in the flour, not including cup:
247g - 247g
Percent volume increase during creaming and mixing:
0% - 0%
The weight of one level cup after mixing in the flour was exactly the same this morning and this evening, less than what I measured when I simply mixed melted butter, sugar, and flour. I think I need to use this weight, 247 grams, as representing the weight with no air, rather than the 253 grams I measured with melted butter.
The baked cookies came out the same way again, quite flat, spreading even on the William-Sonoma Goldtouch Commercial Quality Cookie Sheet. There was more pitting on the Wilton pan than I saw this morning, for some reason. The photo of the cookies from the Wilton pan is attached.
These experiments are now using Crystal Farms unsalted butter.
This procedure definitely doesn't make good cookies. The exact same procedure worked much better when I let the butter warm to 75 degrees, and then cooled it back down to 68.9.
I want to get one more creaming measurement with Crystal Farms butter for two minutes' creaming time at this starting temperature. I won't bother to make those cookies - it's clear now how that works out. After the creaming measurement, my next experiment will also be two minutes creaming and two minutes mixing, but I'll raise the starting temperature to 70.5, which would allow an ending temperature for creaming this is around the same temperature of other experiments with two minutes' mixing that worked out well. See my posting from March 14. The only difference between this experiment and the ones reported on March 14 would be the creaming time; the temperature at which flour was added would be the same for those other experiments that worked out OK. If it does work, I'd also be expecting the volume of air remaining in the dough after mixing in flour to then be the same as in the other experiments that work, i.e. somewhat more than 0%!
Bad Butter Cookies - Why?
Today I made another batch of butter cookies, with butter creamed for two minutes and flour mixed in for two minutes. After baking, the cookies were relatively flat - flatter than I've been making lately, using six minutes of creaming and 2-3 minutes of mixing. Worse, a few of the cookies show a little pitting, even on the William-Sonoma Goldtouch Commercial Cookie Sheet. What's wrong, exactly?
My last post reported I had some problems with butter than had been warmed to 75 degrees, then cooled back down. I baked the cookies, but hadn't done a taste test at the time of my last post. I will confirm that they didn't come out too badly, but they were in fact slightly denser than the cookies I'd been making. By denser, I mean that they were slightly flatter. The ones on the Wilton pan spread more than with the six-minute cookies, but even the ones on the Goldtouch sheet were slightly flatter, though they didn't spread much. The denseness meant that they were less crumbly when I bit into them, maybe slightly harder.
The cookies I baked today will be even more in that direction. The cookies on even the Goldtouch sheet spread.
Today I had no problems with the butter. I set it out, its temperature went up to 70.5 which is not high, I cooled it to 66 (a little too cool), and then it warmed again to 70.5, and I then cooled it again to 68.4, at which point I made the cookies. A little more messing around with temperature than I wish, but not all that much fluctuation, and definitely not to warm temperatures.
I was very interested in the measurements I made after creaming and mixing in flour today. I am going to give results from a couple of days ago, followed by the result today.
Start temperature:
68.9 - 68.4
End temperature:
72.5 (change of 3.6) - 69.1 (change of 0.7)
Weight of one cup of butter/sugar after creaming, minus weight of the cup:
227 - 197
Increase in volume through creaming:
13.7% - 31.0%
Weight of one cup of dough after mixing, minus weight of the cup:
234 - 247
Increase in volume through creaming and mixing:
3.9% - 0%
The first thing is the temperature of the butter in the experiment. Both started out at about the same temperature, but the butter that had been warmed to 75 degrees, then cooled, for some reason wound up 3.6 degrees higher after only two minutes creaming, while the temperature that had not gotten overly warm only went up 0.7 degrees during mixing. After having done many experiments now, I can say that 3.6 degrees change is a pretty large change. I don't know why it would be different, but over-warming the butter, even to 75 degrees, definitely makes a difference.
My last post said that the volume increase I found with the butter that I'd warmed to 75 degrees, then cooled, was far less than what I'd found and posted for the same two minutes of creaming on January 31. Well, I made a mistake - I just now realized that the volume increase in the January 31 posting was for one cup of butter and sugar each creamed in my small mixing bowl, but now I'm creaming two cups of butter and sugar each in my large mixing bowl. The creaming always goes faster in the small mixing bowl.
However, comparing apples to apples, my last experiment to today's experiment, the butter that had not been warmed too much increased in volume more than twice as much during creaming as the butter that had been over-warmed, then cooled. The difference between 13.7% and 31.0% is quite a large one. I would say that it is related to what happened with the butter the other day when it went up to 75 degrees temporarily before I creamed it.
So were the results today better? No! So what's that say? I'm not sure yet.
After I mixed in the flour, the weight of a level cup of dough was actually more, yes, more, than I measured when I just mixed melted butter with sugar and flour. I recorded the volume increase through the mixing step today as 0%. I can add that the dough I formed into rolls for the refrigerator had a very solid feel, and had a consistency like light-weight clay. That seems to bear out the lack of air in the dough after mixing.
And what happened when I made the cookies with 0% volume increase after mixing flour? They were flat, and some were pitted, that's what!
Very interesting. The cookies that had less air in them from creaming - and much less air than when I cream for six minutes as I had been doing recently with good success - had more air in them after mixing the dough, and baked to better cookies than the ones that had more air after creaming but less air, actually no air, after mixing the dough.
I am tentatively concluding that the amount of air left in the dough after mixing is quite important. What I want to find out is whether repeating this experiment with butter that has not been overwarmed keeps turning out the same way, in other words, does mixing in the flour at around 69 degrees result in all the air being chased out of the dough. That would hint that it's important to mix the flour into slightly warmer butter. But I can't come close to being sure of that until I'm pretty sure that this happens every time. When I cream for six minutes, the temperature always goes up higher during the creaming process, so I am mixing the dough into somewhat warmer butter. With the butter I over-warmed and then cooled but used the other day, the temperature went up more than usual during two minutes of creaming, so the flour was also mixed into warmer butter, and the result was better (though not ideal). It will be fascinating if I find the same thing in a repeat experiment!
My last post reported I had some problems with butter than had been warmed to 75 degrees, then cooled back down. I baked the cookies, but hadn't done a taste test at the time of my last post. I will confirm that they didn't come out too badly, but they were in fact slightly denser than the cookies I'd been making. By denser, I mean that they were slightly flatter. The ones on the Wilton pan spread more than with the six-minute cookies, but even the ones on the Goldtouch sheet were slightly flatter, though they didn't spread much. The denseness meant that they were less crumbly when I bit into them, maybe slightly harder.
The cookies I baked today will be even more in that direction. The cookies on even the Goldtouch sheet spread.
Today I had no problems with the butter. I set it out, its temperature went up to 70.5 which is not high, I cooled it to 66 (a little too cool), and then it warmed again to 70.5, and I then cooled it again to 68.4, at which point I made the cookies. A little more messing around with temperature than I wish, but not all that much fluctuation, and definitely not to warm temperatures.
I was very interested in the measurements I made after creaming and mixing in flour today. I am going to give results from a couple of days ago, followed by the result today.
Start temperature:
68.9 - 68.4
End temperature:
72.5 (change of 3.6) - 69.1 (change of 0.7)
Weight of one cup of butter/sugar after creaming, minus weight of the cup:
227 - 197
Increase in volume through creaming:
13.7% - 31.0%
Weight of one cup of dough after mixing, minus weight of the cup:
234 - 247
Increase in volume through creaming and mixing:
3.9% - 0%
The first thing is the temperature of the butter in the experiment. Both started out at about the same temperature, but the butter that had been warmed to 75 degrees, then cooled, for some reason wound up 3.6 degrees higher after only two minutes creaming, while the temperature that had not gotten overly warm only went up 0.7 degrees during mixing. After having done many experiments now, I can say that 3.6 degrees change is a pretty large change. I don't know why it would be different, but over-warming the butter, even to 75 degrees, definitely makes a difference.
My last post said that the volume increase I found with the butter that I'd warmed to 75 degrees, then cooled, was far less than what I'd found and posted for the same two minutes of creaming on January 31. Well, I made a mistake - I just now realized that the volume increase in the January 31 posting was for one cup of butter and sugar each creamed in my small mixing bowl, but now I'm creaming two cups of butter and sugar each in my large mixing bowl. The creaming always goes faster in the small mixing bowl.
However, comparing apples to apples, my last experiment to today's experiment, the butter that had not been warmed too much increased in volume more than twice as much during creaming as the butter that had been over-warmed, then cooled. The difference between 13.7% and 31.0% is quite a large one. I would say that it is related to what happened with the butter the other day when it went up to 75 degrees temporarily before I creamed it.
So were the results today better? No! So what's that say? I'm not sure yet.
After I mixed in the flour, the weight of a level cup of dough was actually more, yes, more, than I measured when I just mixed melted butter with sugar and flour. I recorded the volume increase through the mixing step today as 0%. I can add that the dough I formed into rolls for the refrigerator had a very solid feel, and had a consistency like light-weight clay. That seems to bear out the lack of air in the dough after mixing.
And what happened when I made the cookies with 0% volume increase after mixing flour? They were flat, and some were pitted, that's what!
Very interesting. The cookies that had less air in them from creaming - and much less air than when I cream for six minutes as I had been doing recently with good success - had more air in them after mixing the dough, and baked to better cookies than the ones that had more air after creaming but less air, actually no air, after mixing the dough.
I am tentatively concluding that the amount of air left in the dough after mixing is quite important. What I want to find out is whether repeating this experiment with butter that has not been overwarmed keeps turning out the same way, in other words, does mixing in the flour at around 69 degrees result in all the air being chased out of the dough. That would hint that it's important to mix the flour into slightly warmer butter. But I can't come close to being sure of that until I'm pretty sure that this happens every time. When I cream for six minutes, the temperature always goes up higher during the creaming process, so I am mixing the dough into somewhat warmer butter. With the butter I over-warmed and then cooled but used the other day, the temperature went up more than usual during two minutes of creaming, so the flour was also mixed into warmer butter, and the result was better (though not ideal). It will be fascinating if I find the same thing in a repeat experiment!
Friday, March 19, 2010
Warmed Butter Does Not Cream After Cooling
Things have been moving slowly on the cookie front this week. I didn't do any baking last weekend. On Tuesday, St. Patrick's Eve so to speak, I tried an experiment with two minutes' creaming and two minutes' mixing. It didn't get very far, because something untoward happened.
I took the butter out in the morning. It was a nice day, warm outside, and when I got home after work and checked the temperature of the butter, it was 75. Much too warm for the experiment. I cooled the butter down to 68.9 and creamed it with the sugar. It didn't seem to behave well. When I was done I weighed it, and a level cup of the creamed butter and sugar was 272 grams. Well, so what? But I checked that against the last time I creamed Crystal Farms butter for two minutes. I posted that on January 31, 2010, and recorded a weight of only 228 grams after 2 minutes creaming. The difference between 272 and 228 grams is huge. I wasn't sure what was wrong. I noticed something else, too - it was 68.9 degrees when I started, but about 73 degrees when I finished, e.g. the temperature went up over three degrees in two minutes of creaming. Huh? I messed around with the butter a lot trying to get it to around 69 degrees, and I figured I'd done something to it. I didn't even proceed.
Today I set the butter out in the morning again, and again it was 75 degrees when I came home. Guess I can't do that any more, now that it's warm out. Well, this time I got it to 68.7 degrees without much trouble. After two minutes of creaming, the weight was 281 grams, even more than before, and the temperature again had gone up around three degrees.
Well, that's very interesting. I don't think I like it much, though. First of all, to continue to get comparable results to what I've been doing, I apparently have to take the butter out when I get home. I suppose the good news is that, if the room temperature is 75, then maybe it will really only take an hour to get to 68+ degrees, like all the books say it should. Tomorrow I'll do that and find out for sure.
The other thing is, it sure shows you have to be careful with the temperature if creaming the butter with sugar is part of the recipe! (Maybe). The point of creaming is to whip air into the butter. If the amount of air whipped in varies tremendously, it could obviously affect the results. And as far as I'm concerned, messing about with the temperature of the butter is MOST annoying.
Anyway, today I said "Heck with it, might as well make the cookies." So I proceeded to mix in the flour as usual and baked the cookies. The weight of one level cup of the dough after adding the flour and mixing was 287 grams. Compare that to the results I posted on March 14. It's a few grams more than the 275-281 gram weights in those mixing experiment, which were all after six minutes of creaming. In other words, the extra four minutes of creaming did seem to result in slightly more air being incorporated into the butter than with my two minutes of creaming today.
I finished baking the cookies, and although I haven't done a direct taste test comparison, I don't see that the cookies are really different from the ones I made with six minutes of creaming.
Because of the 75-degree starting temperature of the butter, I don't think I can use this experiment as a direct comparison. That high temperature simply introduces too large a change to the procedure. I'll need to do it a third time tomorrow, with butter that simply comes up to 68-69 degrees and is then creamed, without having going through the 75-degree stage. I want to see whether adding flour to butter that is creamed less than six minutes reduces the volume to exactly the same amount as with six minutes, or to a smaller volume. I can't really get the answer if the shorter creaming time leaves the butter with too little air in it to lose much when the flour is added, like what happened today.
So much for my experiment tonight!
I took the butter out in the morning. It was a nice day, warm outside, and when I got home after work and checked the temperature of the butter, it was 75. Much too warm for the experiment. I cooled the butter down to 68.9 and creamed it with the sugar. It didn't seem to behave well. When I was done I weighed it, and a level cup of the creamed butter and sugar was 272 grams. Well, so what? But I checked that against the last time I creamed Crystal Farms butter for two minutes. I posted that on January 31, 2010, and recorded a weight of only 228 grams after 2 minutes creaming. The difference between 272 and 228 grams is huge. I wasn't sure what was wrong. I noticed something else, too - it was 68.9 degrees when I started, but about 73 degrees when I finished, e.g. the temperature went up over three degrees in two minutes of creaming. Huh? I messed around with the butter a lot trying to get it to around 69 degrees, and I figured I'd done something to it. I didn't even proceed.
Today I set the butter out in the morning again, and again it was 75 degrees when I came home. Guess I can't do that any more, now that it's warm out. Well, this time I got it to 68.7 degrees without much trouble. After two minutes of creaming, the weight was 281 grams, even more than before, and the temperature again had gone up around three degrees.
Well, that's very interesting. I don't think I like it much, though. First of all, to continue to get comparable results to what I've been doing, I apparently have to take the butter out when I get home. I suppose the good news is that, if the room temperature is 75, then maybe it will really only take an hour to get to 68+ degrees, like all the books say it should. Tomorrow I'll do that and find out for sure.
The other thing is, it sure shows you have to be careful with the temperature if creaming the butter with sugar is part of the recipe! (Maybe). The point of creaming is to whip air into the butter. If the amount of air whipped in varies tremendously, it could obviously affect the results. And as far as I'm concerned, messing about with the temperature of the butter is MOST annoying.
Anyway, today I said "Heck with it, might as well make the cookies." So I proceeded to mix in the flour as usual and baked the cookies. The weight of one level cup of the dough after adding the flour and mixing was 287 grams. Compare that to the results I posted on March 14. It's a few grams more than the 275-281 gram weights in those mixing experiment, which were all after six minutes of creaming. In other words, the extra four minutes of creaming did seem to result in slightly more air being incorporated into the butter than with my two minutes of creaming today.
I finished baking the cookies, and although I haven't done a direct taste test comparison, I don't see that the cookies are really different from the ones I made with six minutes of creaming.
Because of the 75-degree starting temperature of the butter, I don't think I can use this experiment as a direct comparison. That high temperature simply introduces too large a change to the procedure. I'll need to do it a third time tomorrow, with butter that simply comes up to 68-69 degrees and is then creamed, without having going through the 75-degree stage. I want to see whether adding flour to butter that is creamed less than six minutes reduces the volume to exactly the same amount as with six minutes, or to a smaller volume. I can't really get the answer if the shorter creaming time leaves the butter with too little air in it to lose much when the flour is added, like what happened today.
So much for my experiment tonight!
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Effect of Mixing Times with Crystal Farms Butter II
I have attached a photo of butter cookies made the same way, with Crystal Farms butter, except for the time spent mixing after adding the flour to the creamed butter and sugar. The three cookies on the top were baked on the Wilton EverGlide nonstick pan. The ones on the bottom were baked on the Williams-Sonoma GoldTouch Commercial Cookie Sheet. The times, left to right, were one minute mixing, two minutes mixing, and three minutes mixing.In general the cookies from the Wilton pan are a little larger, though it doesn't show so much in the photo. The cookies from the Williams-Sonoma sheet apparently don't spread as much - they come from the same batch of dough and even the same refrigerated rolls, so that's the only explanation.
The cookies from the one-minute mixing are obviously a disaster. These are actually the only butter cookies I've made on the Williams-Sonoma pan that didn't come out well. One minute mixing simply isn't enough. The two-minute cookies aren't quite as regular as the three-minute cookies. The non-circular shape from the Williams-Sonoma pan's two-minute sample was because the dough broke as I was cutting the cookie slices and I tried to put Humpty back together again. It didn't work very well! Of course, it tastes fine. However, you can see that the two-minute cookie on the Wilton pan had a fairly uneven surface, while the three-minute cookie was nice and smooth. That was representative of the entire sheetful. I also baked a batch of cookies mixed for two-and-a-half minutes. Those cookies looked just like the three-minute cookies.
Yesterday's post shows that pretty much all the air is knocked out of the dough by even one minutes' mixing, and from 1.5 minutes forward, additional mixing has no effect on air in the dough. That means the irregularities in the surface are simply from ingredients not being sufficiently dispersed amongst each other. For these cookies, 2.5 minutes mixing with my Sunbeam Mixmaster mixer, 20 seconds with half the flour and then 2.5 minutes with all of it, is perfect. Further mixing may or may not hurt, but it doesn't help, either.
I have a few additional interesting photos of the one-minute cookies, which I will post next time.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Effect of Mixing Times with Crystal Farms Butter I
I have been busy last week with a set of experiments on mixing flour into the cookie dough. The impetus for these experiments was that I saw the volume of the cookie dough was greatly reduced as the flour was mixed in. The creaming of butter with sugar really expanded the volume in the bowl, and then adding the flour seemed to drop it back down. I wanted to get some real indications of how much the volume was changing.
I made batches of butter cookies and, except for one of the batches, did everything the same except for varying the mixing time. I mixed the flour into the dough for 1 minute, 1.5 minutes, 2 minutes, 2.5 minutes, and 3 minutes. Three minutes of mixing flour with the creamed butter was the amount of time I found made reasonable cookies on the Wilton EverGlide pans using Weyauwega brand butter.
I was also curious whether the mixing time could be reduced if the cookies are made with Crystal Farms brand butter, since the overall quality of the cookies is so much improved with that brand and various texture problems simply go away.
I think the results are pretty interesting. They show that almost all the air is removed from the dough almost immediately, definitely by the time the dough is reasonably well mixed. That makes me wonder what the real purpose of creaming butter and sugar is. I imagine that smaller amounts of flour would reduce the volume less, but cookies do have a good amount of flour. Maybe it matters more for other kinds of cookies, but the effect of increasing the volume during creaming seems to have no effect on the baking results of these cookies.
Now, there is another hypothesis – maybe the main effect of creaming isn’t so much in the air left in the cookie dough when they are baked, but in how well the flour gets coated with butter. Maybe the coating goes better when the butter is fluffier. I’ll do some other mixing experiments with less creaming to see how that works out.
Anyway, here is the data. For each mixing time, the measurements are:
Temperature start of creaming
Temperature end of six minutes of creaming
Weight of level cup of creamed butter and sugar (including the cup)
Weight of level cup of dough with flour (including the cup)
1 minute
70.1 – 71.9 – 230g – 269g
1.5 minutes
68.3 – 70.8 – 225g – 280g
2 minutes
69.6 – 70.8 – 228g – 275g
2.5 minutes
69.5 – 71.0 – 234g – 281g
3 minutes
69.3 – 70.8 – 227g – 281g
I didn’t mix the flour in for the 1-minute time the same way as I did for the others. I saw with the 1.5-minute mixing time that the dough didn’t want to hang together very well – there were big gobs with one consistency and big globs with a slightly different consistency, and when I made the rolls of dough for refrigeration the rolls were almost in sections. Obviously not good. It was due to inadequate mixing with only 1.5 minutes of time. I figured it would be even worse with only 1 minute, so for the 1-minute experiment I added the flour in gradually over the minutes’ time, tablespoon by tablespoon, madly tossing it in from the 4-cup measuring cup I had it in, but bit by bit. Usually I dump two cups in, mix for 20 seconds, then dump the rest in, and mix for the measured amount of time (and so the “3 minutes” time is actually 3 minutes and 20 seconds, for example). The dough for the 1-minute time didn’t actually wind up mixed any better, and the cookies came out very poorly indeed. Apparently 1 minute of mixing is a viable mixing time at all.
I don’t think there’s much to gain from the temperature measurements – I just took them out of habit. The interesting information comes from the weight measurements.
Remember that the weight of 1 cup of butter and sugar before creaming at all is 312g (including the weight of the cup), and the weight of one cup of flour, butter and sugar in the recipe proportions but without any air (and including the weight of the cup) is 297g. From those numbers, I can calculate what percentage the volume increases due to air in the dough. All the experiments cream the butter for 6 minutes. The volume increases during creaming due to air were:
46.6%
50.1%
48.2%
43.3%
49.2%
It’s interesting to compare these increases using Crystal Farms butter with the increase with Weyauwega brand butter. For Weyauwega brand, the average volume increase for 6 minutes of creaming, using 2 cups of butter and 405 grams of C&H granulated sugar, was 47.7% +- 2.47%.
For Crystal Farms butter, the average volume increase for 6 minutes of creaming was 47.5% +- 2.68%.
In other words, the effect of creaming on volume using Crystal Farms and Weyauwega brand butters is essentially identical.
Now look at the volume increase after the flour is added (compared to when no air is present), for various mixing times:
1 minute
13.0%
1.5 minutes
7.5%
2 minutes
10.0%
2.5 minutes
7.1%
3 minutes
7.1%
These aren’t numbers to average, so there is some variation from the “true” means of the measurements. But you can see that the greatest amount of air is present after one minute of mixing, and it drops to about half that very quickly. The amount of air after 0 minutes might be close to the 47% at the end of creaming. You can see the numbers go down very quickly after adding the flour, and when I am mixing I see it happen visually.
I have baked the cookies, of course, and have photos, which are interesting. I’ll post them tomorrow.
I made batches of butter cookies and, except for one of the batches, did everything the same except for varying the mixing time. I mixed the flour into the dough for 1 minute, 1.5 minutes, 2 minutes, 2.5 minutes, and 3 minutes. Three minutes of mixing flour with the creamed butter was the amount of time I found made reasonable cookies on the Wilton EverGlide pans using Weyauwega brand butter.
I was also curious whether the mixing time could be reduced if the cookies are made with Crystal Farms brand butter, since the overall quality of the cookies is so much improved with that brand and various texture problems simply go away.
I think the results are pretty interesting. They show that almost all the air is removed from the dough almost immediately, definitely by the time the dough is reasonably well mixed. That makes me wonder what the real purpose of creaming butter and sugar is. I imagine that smaller amounts of flour would reduce the volume less, but cookies do have a good amount of flour. Maybe it matters more for other kinds of cookies, but the effect of increasing the volume during creaming seems to have no effect on the baking results of these cookies.
Now, there is another hypothesis – maybe the main effect of creaming isn’t so much in the air left in the cookie dough when they are baked, but in how well the flour gets coated with butter. Maybe the coating goes better when the butter is fluffier. I’ll do some other mixing experiments with less creaming to see how that works out.
Anyway, here is the data. For each mixing time, the measurements are:
Temperature start of creaming
Temperature end of six minutes of creaming
Weight of level cup of creamed butter and sugar (including the cup)
Weight of level cup of dough with flour (including the cup)
1 minute
70.1 – 71.9 – 230g – 269g
1.5 minutes
68.3 – 70.8 – 225g – 280g
2 minutes
69.6 – 70.8 – 228g – 275g
2.5 minutes
69.5 – 71.0 – 234g – 281g
3 minutes
69.3 – 70.8 – 227g – 281g
I didn’t mix the flour in for the 1-minute time the same way as I did for the others. I saw with the 1.5-minute mixing time that the dough didn’t want to hang together very well – there were big gobs with one consistency and big globs with a slightly different consistency, and when I made the rolls of dough for refrigeration the rolls were almost in sections. Obviously not good. It was due to inadequate mixing with only 1.5 minutes of time. I figured it would be even worse with only 1 minute, so for the 1-minute experiment I added the flour in gradually over the minutes’ time, tablespoon by tablespoon, madly tossing it in from the 4-cup measuring cup I had it in, but bit by bit. Usually I dump two cups in, mix for 20 seconds, then dump the rest in, and mix for the measured amount of time (and so the “3 minutes” time is actually 3 minutes and 20 seconds, for example). The dough for the 1-minute time didn’t actually wind up mixed any better, and the cookies came out very poorly indeed. Apparently 1 minute of mixing is a viable mixing time at all.
I don’t think there’s much to gain from the temperature measurements – I just took them out of habit. The interesting information comes from the weight measurements.
Remember that the weight of 1 cup of butter and sugar before creaming at all is 312g (including the weight of the cup), and the weight of one cup of flour, butter and sugar in the recipe proportions but without any air (and including the weight of the cup) is 297g. From those numbers, I can calculate what percentage the volume increases due to air in the dough. All the experiments cream the butter for 6 minutes. The volume increases during creaming due to air were:
46.6%
50.1%
48.2%
43.3%
49.2%
It’s interesting to compare these increases using Crystal Farms butter with the increase with Weyauwega brand butter. For Weyauwega brand, the average volume increase for 6 minutes of creaming, using 2 cups of butter and 405 grams of C&H granulated sugar, was 47.7% +- 2.47%.
For Crystal Farms butter, the average volume increase for 6 minutes of creaming was 47.5% +- 2.68%.
In other words, the effect of creaming on volume using Crystal Farms and Weyauwega brand butters is essentially identical.
Now look at the volume increase after the flour is added (compared to when no air is present), for various mixing times:
1 minute
13.0%
1.5 minutes
7.5%
2 minutes
10.0%
2.5 minutes
7.1%
3 minutes
7.1%
These aren’t numbers to average, so there is some variation from the “true” means of the measurements. But you can see that the greatest amount of air is present after one minute of mixing, and it drops to about half that very quickly. The amount of air after 0 minutes might be close to the 47% at the end of creaming. You can see the numbers go down very quickly after adding the flour, and when I am mixing I see it happen visually.
I have baked the cookies, of course, and have photos, which are interesting. I’ll post them tomorrow.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Weight of Cookie Dough with No Air Content
My next few experiments will be some detailed experiments using Crystal Farms Butter, which I have found can make excellent butter cookies. There is a lot of talk about the creaming of butter and sugar having the purpose of adding air to the cookie dough - which, of course, it does. I noticed that the volume of the dough seems to be greatly reduced as I mix the flour in. Naturally, the cookies that get baked contain the flour! So is there really a point to creaming the butter and sugar if mixing in the flour causes all the air to be removed?
Well, if that's what happened, there would indeed be no point to the creaming - but of course, that's not what actually happens. But what does happen, exactly? I want to measure how mixing the flour in changes the volume of the dough, and additionally get data on creaming with Crystal Farms butter like I got with Weyauwega butter. To do this, I will use the same method I used to measure incorporation of air during the creaming process. That starts with determining the weight of one cup of dough with no air. The weights of level cups of dough after creaming and mixing in flour are in inverse proportion to the amount of air in the dough, so a key point in each experiment will be to weigh a cup of the dough after creaming and mixing the flour for various amount of time. That will be compared with a cup of dough with no creaming or mixing. And naturally, then we'll see how the cookies actually turn out.
This is a pretty short post - I've been gone for the weekend and have little data to report. However, I have one key data point.
The weight of one cup of butter cookie dough, including butter, flour, and sugar but no air, and including the weight of the cup (54g) is 297 grams.
I obtained this weight by melting two sticks of Weyauwega brand butter, stirring in 248 grams (about 2 cups) of Pillsbury Best flour, and then using a fork to stir or mash in well 203 grams of C&H cane sugar:
2 sticks Weyauwega brand butter
248 grams Pillsbury Best flour
203 grams C&H cane sugar
This is half the amount I usually use for a recipe, just to save money on ingredients. I don't think that matters at all.
This is not ideal, though. First of all, it's not Crystal Farms brand butter. If these were critical numbers, I would of course use Crystal Farms brand butter, since I will be comparing against numbers with Crystal Farms butter. But I reason that the weight of one cup of melted butter should be the same no matter what brand of butter I use. If it were margarine versus butter, I can imagine some difference in weight, but two brands of butter, both stated to contain the same percentage of fat, should weigh the same within the accuracy of my scale. I have the Weyauwega butter in my refrigerator and won't be using it for any other cookies in the near future, but don't have any Crystal Farms butter at the moment, so I am choosing to simply use Weyauwega butter for this number.
Second, when I make dough, I add sugar, then flour, to butter at 68-71 degrees, not to melted butter. The 70-degree butter may actually have some air in it, and adding flour to creamed butter may bring some extra air in with it that is not added when adding flour to melted butter. However, I am not well-equipped to measure the amount of air in 70-degree butter or creamed butter mixed with flour, but somehow with "0 mixing time". What I need is some number against which to measure reduced weights due to air. I assume that any air in butter rises to the surface when the butter is melted, so at least it's a known starting point. Or at worst, the air does not leave the butter when it is melted. The real point is to get the weight of a cup of dough without any of the air that would be added by creaming with sugar, or lost or added by mixing creamed butter with flour. I think melting the butter, then stirring or mashing in the sugar and flour is the easiest way to create the equivalent dough without added air. If the butter is not melted, it is much too hard to mix in the other ingredients without adding a good quantity of air.
I simply weighed one cup, rather than taking several sample measurements. It would be better to take several sample measurements and average them. But the fact is, if this measurement were more accurate, the effect would be to make the percentages of incorporated air I calculate later more accurate. But I ask myself, "How much more accurate?" I guess more accurate by 1% or less. That amount of error simply doesn't matter in these experiments. Also, the only conclusions that matter are made by comparing results. Whatever error there is in this value will carry on into all the results from all these experiments. The comparisons of later results won't be changed in any way if I have a number here that's 2 grams too low, 2 grams too high, or even exactly correct to the nearest microgram. Basically, it just doesn't seem worth spending even one minute to get the most accurate number possible here - and in reality, it would probably cost me several dollars and several hours' time. I choose not to spend the money or time, and will simply use the number "297 grams" for the basis of volume calculations after mixing flour, as I use the weight 312 grams for the basis of volume calculations after creaming, but before mixing in the flour.
Finally, I didn't weigh the sticks of butter. I didn't do that, because I don't measure out butter by weight when I make cookies, or even measure it out by volume. My recipe actually says "2 cups" of butter, but I simply use four sticks. It's possible there is a slightly different amount of butter in two sticks of Weyauwega butter and two sticks of Crystal Farms butter, but then there could also be variation between packages of Crystal Farms butter. The only accurate thing to do is always to use the same weight of butter, but that's not really all that useful. I do weigh out the sugar and flour because I have observed significant differences between level cups of those ingredients, especially between brands and types of product (granulated sugar versus superfine sugar, for example) but I don't imagine much difference between butter sticks between brands. It wouldn't hurt for me to double-check later, though. I'll at least do that. But even if sticks of butter differ in weight by five grams, there is no way that would affect the weight of a level cup of dough by as much as one gram. There just isn't a reason to worry about it, as far as I am concerned.
I don't think this is perfection itself, that's for sure! But what the heck, I think it's plenty good enough.
I hope to start reporting results of these experiments this week.
Well, if that's what happened, there would indeed be no point to the creaming - but of course, that's not what actually happens. But what does happen, exactly? I want to measure how mixing the flour in changes the volume of the dough, and additionally get data on creaming with Crystal Farms butter like I got with Weyauwega butter. To do this, I will use the same method I used to measure incorporation of air during the creaming process. That starts with determining the weight of one cup of dough with no air. The weights of level cups of dough after creaming and mixing in flour are in inverse proportion to the amount of air in the dough, so a key point in each experiment will be to weigh a cup of the dough after creaming and mixing the flour for various amount of time. That will be compared with a cup of dough with no creaming or mixing. And naturally, then we'll see how the cookies actually turn out.
This is a pretty short post - I've been gone for the weekend and have little data to report. However, I have one key data point.
The weight of one cup of butter cookie dough, including butter, flour, and sugar but no air, and including the weight of the cup (54g) is 297 grams.
I obtained this weight by melting two sticks of Weyauwega brand butter, stirring in 248 grams (about 2 cups) of Pillsbury Best flour, and then using a fork to stir or mash in well 203 grams of C&H cane sugar:
2 sticks Weyauwega brand butter
248 grams Pillsbury Best flour
203 grams C&H cane sugar
This is half the amount I usually use for a recipe, just to save money on ingredients. I don't think that matters at all.
This is not ideal, though. First of all, it's not Crystal Farms brand butter. If these were critical numbers, I would of course use Crystal Farms brand butter, since I will be comparing against numbers with Crystal Farms butter. But I reason that the weight of one cup of melted butter should be the same no matter what brand of butter I use. If it were margarine versus butter, I can imagine some difference in weight, but two brands of butter, both stated to contain the same percentage of fat, should weigh the same within the accuracy of my scale. I have the Weyauwega butter in my refrigerator and won't be using it for any other cookies in the near future, but don't have any Crystal Farms butter at the moment, so I am choosing to simply use Weyauwega butter for this number.
Second, when I make dough, I add sugar, then flour, to butter at 68-71 degrees, not to melted butter. The 70-degree butter may actually have some air in it, and adding flour to creamed butter may bring some extra air in with it that is not added when adding flour to melted butter. However, I am not well-equipped to measure the amount of air in 70-degree butter or creamed butter mixed with flour, but somehow with "0 mixing time". What I need is some number against which to measure reduced weights due to air. I assume that any air in butter rises to the surface when the butter is melted, so at least it's a known starting point. Or at worst, the air does not leave the butter when it is melted. The real point is to get the weight of a cup of dough without any of the air that would be added by creaming with sugar, or lost or added by mixing creamed butter with flour. I think melting the butter, then stirring or mashing in the sugar and flour is the easiest way to create the equivalent dough without added air. If the butter is not melted, it is much too hard to mix in the other ingredients without adding a good quantity of air.
I simply weighed one cup, rather than taking several sample measurements. It would be better to take several sample measurements and average them. But the fact is, if this measurement were more accurate, the effect would be to make the percentages of incorporated air I calculate later more accurate. But I ask myself, "How much more accurate?" I guess more accurate by 1% or less. That amount of error simply doesn't matter in these experiments. Also, the only conclusions that matter are made by comparing results. Whatever error there is in this value will carry on into all the results from all these experiments. The comparisons of later results won't be changed in any way if I have a number here that's 2 grams too low, 2 grams too high, or even exactly correct to the nearest microgram. Basically, it just doesn't seem worth spending even one minute to get the most accurate number possible here - and in reality, it would probably cost me several dollars and several hours' time. I choose not to spend the money or time, and will simply use the number "297 grams" for the basis of volume calculations after mixing flour, as I use the weight 312 grams for the basis of volume calculations after creaming, but before mixing in the flour.
Finally, I didn't weigh the sticks of butter. I didn't do that, because I don't measure out butter by weight when I make cookies, or even measure it out by volume. My recipe actually says "2 cups" of butter, but I simply use four sticks. It's possible there is a slightly different amount of butter in two sticks of Weyauwega butter and two sticks of Crystal Farms butter, but then there could also be variation between packages of Crystal Farms butter. The only accurate thing to do is always to use the same weight of butter, but that's not really all that useful. I do weigh out the sugar and flour because I have observed significant differences between level cups of those ingredients, especially between brands and types of product (granulated sugar versus superfine sugar, for example) but I don't imagine much difference between butter sticks between brands. It wouldn't hurt for me to double-check later, though. I'll at least do that. But even if sticks of butter differ in weight by five grams, there is no way that would affect the weight of a level cup of dough by as much as one gram. There just isn't a reason to worry about it, as far as I am concerned.
I don't think this is perfection itself, that's for sure! But what the heck, I think it's plenty good enough.
I hope to start reporting results of these experiments this week.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Weyauwega Butter Creaming Experiment - Series one, Part 4
On February 11, I posted results from a series of creaming experiment. The six-minute time seemed way out of line. In all my subsequent experiment, I chose to cream for six minutes in order to get a firm handle on six-minute creaming data. First, here are the results I posted before:
minutes - change in temp F. - wt. ingredients - %volume increase
0 - NA – 258 - 0
1 – -0.5 - 226 - 14.2%
2 – -0.5 - 194 - 33.0%
3 – 0.8 - 189 - 36.5%
4 – 0.7 - 173 - 49.1%
5 – 1.1 – 171 - 50.9%
6 – 2.4 - 182 - 41.8%
8 – 2.0 - 166 - 55.4%
10 – 4.5 - 169 - 52.7%
13 – 7.0 - 165 - 56.4%
Here are 6-minute creaming results since - weights, including the cup, followed by temperature start and end (sometimes I forget to record the end temperature):
243 - 68.6
228 - 69.3 - 71.0
226 - 68.7
225 - 68.7
229 - 68.4 - 70.6
228 - 68.9 - 70.5
233 - 69.1 - 72.3
234 - 68.5 - 70.9
218 - 69.5 - 72.0
237 - 70.3 - 73.8
228 - 68.5 - 71.5
Looking at temperature changes only, six minutes of creaming raised the temperature by these amounts - starting temperature first (in degrees Fahrenheit), followed by temperature change, ordered by temperature change:
68.9 - 1.6
69.3 - 1.7
68.4 - 2.2
68.5 - 2.4
69.5 - 2.5
68.5 - 3.0
69.1 - 3.1
70.3 - 3.5
That's quite a lot of variation in how much the temperature rose during creaming, isn't it? Is there any correlation between temperature change and starting temperature?
The greatest rise in temperature happened when the starting temperature of the butter was also the highest. In addition, three of the four experiments with greatest temperature change have starting temperatures above 69.0, while of the four experiments with least temperature change, only one has a starting temperature above 69.0.
It appears as though the higher the starting temperature, the more the temperature rises during creaming. Warmer butter behaves differently. Specifically, it is easier to beat air into, but it also loses the air that is beat into it easier. Warmer butter probably coats flour grains more easily. From a practical standpoint, it's nearly impossible to bring butter or anything else to a given temperature within a tenth of a degree, so about all one can do is make some observations. Since the procedures following the creaming step in making the cookies varied, I can't really say what the effect of a warmer end temperature is on the cookies.
Here is the weight and temperature data again, sorted by final weight, followed by the final temperature when it was recorded:
218 72.0
225
226
228 71.0
228 70.5
228 71.5
229 70.6
233 72.3
233 72.3
237 73.8
243
There seems to be some correlation between final weight and final temperature. I am going to throw out the highest and lowest weights - probably something unusual happened with those experiments, such as there was a huge bubble of air in the cup buried in the butter while I weighed it, or something was touching the edge of the scale. That leaves the data as:
225
226
228 71.0
228 70.5
228 71.5
229 70.6
233 72.3
233 72.3
237 73.8
It's too bad I forgot to record the end temperatures with those lowest two weights, but from what is left we can clearly see that a higher temperature results in a higher final weight, meaning less air being whipped into the butter - or perhaps, less air being whipped in means a higher final temperature. I don't think that means if we warm the butter to 120 degrees it will get way more air whipped into it! But at temperatures near room temperature, this looks to be a true statement.
Those were the weights with the cup. The weights without cup and the percent volume increase assuming a starting weight of 213 grams were:
171 - 50.9%
172 - 50.0%
174 - 48.3%
174 - 48.3%
174 - 48.3%
175 - 47.3%
179 - 44.1%
179 - 44.1%
The averaged data for 6-minute creaming of Weyauwega brand butter is:
Percent Volume Increase = 47.7% +- 2.47%
The "+- 2.47%" is the standard deviation, which indicates how variable the number is. 68% of all results will fall within one standard deviation of the mean, so in other words, 68% of all creaming efforts for six minutes with Weyauwega butter and my mixer starting between 68 and 71 degrees Fahrenheit will whip enough air into the butter and sugar to yield a volume increase of between 45.2% and 50.2%.
Temperature change = 2.5 F. +- 0.67 F.
Going back to the original creaming results of all times, I can use this figure for the 6-minute results, yielding:
0 - NA – 258 - 0
1 – -0.5 - 226 - 14.2%
2 – -0.5 - 194 - 33.0%
3 – 0.8 - 189 - 36.5%
4 – 0.7 - 173 - 49.1%
5 – 1.1 – 171 - 50.9%
6 – 2.5 - 174.8 - 47.7%
8 – 2.0 - 166 - 55.4%
10 – 4.5 - 169 - 52.7%
13 – 7.0 - 165 - 56.4%
So that's kind of interesting. The volume increase is still lower than every other time from 4 minutes onwards. The thing to do would be to get averages for the other times as well in order to get equally accurate numbers to compare with. However, I'm focusing on butter cookies and have decided that Weyauwega brand butter makes lousy butter cookies following my procedure, so I'm not going to do that at this time. I'll get some results with Crystal Farms and Land o' Lakes butter at some point, but I have some other things to do first.
I have data from two 6-minute creaming efforts with Crystal Farms butter:
Crystal Farms: final weight not including cup, start temperature, end temperature
193 - 69.6 - 72.5
180 - 70.1 - 72.3
Assuming the same starting weight of 312 grams, those yielded volume increases of 61.8% and 73.3%. Compared to Weyauwega butter's 47.7%, that's quite a difference!
That raises a really interesting question - do the Crystal Farms cookies come out better than the Weyauwega cookies because of some quality of the butter that cannot be reproduced with Weyauwega butter, or do they come out better because there is more air being whipped into them for whatever the reason?
CORRECTION: After first posting this, I see I made a big goof - a starting weight of 312 grams includes the weight of the cup, and the number I needed to use in the volume calculations is 258 grams. So the two crystal farms experiments yielded volume increases of only 33.7% and 43.3%. The second measurement is not much different from Weyauwega butter. A future post gives more accurate measurements.
Well, every single time I have made the cookies with all sorts of variations, the Weyauwega cookies come out poorly unless an egg is added to them. I think I could do an experiment of creaming without sugar, to get the volume up to what it was with the Crystal Farms butter, and then add the sugar and go from there, which would isolate the effect of the amount of air whipped in. I really doubt that the results will be any different, though. It's possible, but I doubt it very much. I think the thing to do is to go with my gut feeling that Weyauwega butter simply does not make good butter cookies, and forget about doing further experiments with it. It's not like anybody will die if I make the wrong decision! If anyone wants to do that experiment and let me know what happens, I'd be delighted to report the results. For me, onward and upward with better butter!
minutes - change in temp F. - wt. ingredients - %volume increase
0 - NA – 258 - 0
1 – -0.5 - 226 - 14.2%
2 – -0.5 - 194 - 33.0%
3 – 0.8 - 189 - 36.5%
4 – 0.7 - 173 - 49.1%
5 – 1.1 – 171 - 50.9%
6 – 2.4 - 182 - 41.8%
8 – 2.0 - 166 - 55.4%
10 – 4.5 - 169 - 52.7%
13 – 7.0 - 165 - 56.4%
Here are 6-minute creaming results since - weights, including the cup, followed by temperature start and end (sometimes I forget to record the end temperature):
243 - 68.6
228 - 69.3 - 71.0
226 - 68.7
225 - 68.7
229 - 68.4 - 70.6
228 - 68.9 - 70.5
233 - 69.1 - 72.3
234 - 68.5 - 70.9
218 - 69.5 - 72.0
237 - 70.3 - 73.8
228 - 68.5 - 71.5
Looking at temperature changes only, six minutes of creaming raised the temperature by these amounts - starting temperature first (in degrees Fahrenheit), followed by temperature change, ordered by temperature change:
68.9 - 1.6
69.3 - 1.7
68.4 - 2.2
68.5 - 2.4
69.5 - 2.5
68.5 - 3.0
69.1 - 3.1
70.3 - 3.5
That's quite a lot of variation in how much the temperature rose during creaming, isn't it? Is there any correlation between temperature change and starting temperature?
The greatest rise in temperature happened when the starting temperature of the butter was also the highest. In addition, three of the four experiments with greatest temperature change have starting temperatures above 69.0, while of the four experiments with least temperature change, only one has a starting temperature above 69.0.
It appears as though the higher the starting temperature, the more the temperature rises during creaming. Warmer butter behaves differently. Specifically, it is easier to beat air into, but it also loses the air that is beat into it easier. Warmer butter probably coats flour grains more easily. From a practical standpoint, it's nearly impossible to bring butter or anything else to a given temperature within a tenth of a degree, so about all one can do is make some observations. Since the procedures following the creaming step in making the cookies varied, I can't really say what the effect of a warmer end temperature is on the cookies.
Here is the weight and temperature data again, sorted by final weight, followed by the final temperature when it was recorded:
218 72.0
225
226
228 71.0
228 70.5
228 71.5
229 70.6
233 72.3
233 72.3
237 73.8
243
There seems to be some correlation between final weight and final temperature. I am going to throw out the highest and lowest weights - probably something unusual happened with those experiments, such as there was a huge bubble of air in the cup buried in the butter while I weighed it, or something was touching the edge of the scale. That leaves the data as:
225
226
228 71.0
228 70.5
228 71.5
229 70.6
233 72.3
233 72.3
237 73.8
It's too bad I forgot to record the end temperatures with those lowest two weights, but from what is left we can clearly see that a higher temperature results in a higher final weight, meaning less air being whipped into the butter - or perhaps, less air being whipped in means a higher final temperature. I don't think that means if we warm the butter to 120 degrees it will get way more air whipped into it! But at temperatures near room temperature, this looks to be a true statement.
Those were the weights with the cup. The weights without cup and the percent volume increase assuming a starting weight of 213 grams were:
171 - 50.9%
172 - 50.0%
174 - 48.3%
174 - 48.3%
174 - 48.3%
175 - 47.3%
179 - 44.1%
179 - 44.1%
The averaged data for 6-minute creaming of Weyauwega brand butter is:
Percent Volume Increase = 47.7% +- 2.47%
The "+- 2.47%" is the standard deviation, which indicates how variable the number is. 68% of all results will fall within one standard deviation of the mean, so in other words, 68% of all creaming efforts for six minutes with Weyauwega butter and my mixer starting between 68 and 71 degrees Fahrenheit will whip enough air into the butter and sugar to yield a volume increase of between 45.2% and 50.2%.
Temperature change = 2.5 F. +- 0.67 F.
Going back to the original creaming results of all times, I can use this figure for the 6-minute results, yielding:
0 - NA – 258 - 0
1 – -0.5 - 226 - 14.2%
2 – -0.5 - 194 - 33.0%
3 – 0.8 - 189 - 36.5%
4 – 0.7 - 173 - 49.1%
5 – 1.1 – 171 - 50.9%
6 – 2.5 - 174.8 - 47.7%
8 – 2.0 - 166 - 55.4%
10 – 4.5 - 169 - 52.7%
13 – 7.0 - 165 - 56.4%
So that's kind of interesting. The volume increase is still lower than every other time from 4 minutes onwards. The thing to do would be to get averages for the other times as well in order to get equally accurate numbers to compare with. However, I'm focusing on butter cookies and have decided that Weyauwega brand butter makes lousy butter cookies following my procedure, so I'm not going to do that at this time. I'll get some results with Crystal Farms and Land o' Lakes butter at some point, but I have some other things to do first.
I have data from two 6-minute creaming efforts with Crystal Farms butter:
Crystal Farms: final weight not including cup, start temperature, end temperature
193 - 69.6 - 72.5
180 - 70.1 - 72.3
Assuming the same starting weight of 312 grams, those yielded volume increases of 61.8% and 73.3%. Compared to Weyauwega butter's 47.7%, that's quite a difference!
That raises a really interesting question - do the Crystal Farms cookies come out better than the Weyauwega cookies because of some quality of the butter that cannot be reproduced with Weyauwega butter, or do they come out better because there is more air being whipped into them for whatever the reason?
CORRECTION: After first posting this, I see I made a big goof - a starting weight of 312 grams includes the weight of the cup, and the number I needed to use in the volume calculations is 258 grams. So the two crystal farms experiments yielded volume increases of only 33.7% and 43.3%. The second measurement is not much different from Weyauwega butter. A future post gives more accurate measurements.
Well, every single time I have made the cookies with all sorts of variations, the Weyauwega cookies come out poorly unless an egg is added to them. I think I could do an experiment of creaming without sugar, to get the volume up to what it was with the Crystal Farms butter, and then add the sugar and go from there, which would isolate the effect of the amount of air whipped in. I really doubt that the results will be any different, though. It's possible, but I doubt it very much. I think the thing to do is to go with my gut feeling that Weyauwega butter simply does not make good butter cookies, and forget about doing further experiments with it. It's not like anybody will die if I make the wrong decision! If anyone wants to do that experiment and let me know what happens, I'd be delighted to report the results. For me, onward and upward with better butter!
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Last night I made a batch of the butter cookies with Weyauwega butter, but no baking powder. The other difference from my procedure was that, instead of creaming for 6 minutes, I creamed for only three minutes, trying to reduce the gas in the dough even further. The resulting cookies sans baking powder weren't very good. They were flat and crunchy-hard, definitely more so than usual with the Weyauwega butter. Even though I mixed for three full minutes, they showed some pitting. That surprised me - I thought reducing the gas in the dough would help remove the pitting, but it didn't.
That's it for Weyauwega butter for these cookies.
I got some great compliments on the frosted butter cookies I took to the celebration last Sunday! I guess I'm doing something right. :-)
That's it for Weyauwega butter for these cookies.
I got some great compliments on the frosted butter cookies I took to the celebration last Sunday! I guess I'm doing something right. :-)
Monday, March 1, 2010
Butter - A Major Discovery!
Butter - A Major Discovery!
I did a ton of baking over the weekend. A friend asked me to bring cookies to a special event, and I made a double batch of butter cookies and actually baked all of them for a change. Wow, that was a job! The next morning my son was good enough to help frost them all. Good thing, or I wouldn't have had them done on time!
This was no time for major experiments - these cookies were supposed to come out well, so I used my best times to get good results, and sprang for butter I know gives a better taste - Crystal Farms Unsalted Butter.
What a difference! The taste was as I expected. What I didn't expect was the huge difference in the quality of cookies coming off the Wilton pan. If you've been reading along, you know that the Wilton pan has been consistently been giving overly flat cookies, most often in conjunction with overly large gas bubbles interfering with a nice chewing texture. They tend to come out a bit on the hard crunchy side. Not horribly so, but not remotely the way I'd choose to have them. When I bake on gentler pans, like an insulated baking sheet or the Williams-Sonoma Goldtouch Commercial Cookie Sheet, they come out gently crunchy, really beautifully well. I discovered that the difference between excellent cookies and so-so cookies on the Wilton pan, and probably any inexpensive non-stick baking sheet, is using suitable butter.
I've been using Weyauwega brand butter from Star Dairy in Wausau, because it's less expensive. When I used the Crystal Farms butter this weekend instead, there was not much difference between the cookies baked on the Wilton pan and the ones baked on the Williams-Sonoma pan! It was downright shocking!!!! The only difference I notice is that the cookies from the Wilton pan are a little flatter and denser. They spread just a bit more than the cookies from the Williams-Sonoma pan, and because they feel denser when I chew them, I conclude they didn't rise as high from the baking powder they contained.
Last week I baked cookies with egg yolks and egg whites, and those cookies didn't spread on the Wilton pan, either. They also had a nice texture. I thought the flavor from the eggs made a pretty obvious difference in the way the cookies tasted, though, and I feel so happy to have found that it simply is not necessary to add eggs to these cookies when I use the right butter, even when they are baked on inexpensive pans!
I did try one variation between the two big batches of dough I made up, though. I used 0.5 teaspoons of baking powder with one batch, and only 0.25 teaspoons of baking powder with the other. For the cookies baked on the Wilton pan, the cookies with less baking powder were slightly harder. For the cookies baked on the Goldtouch pan, I couldn't tell any difference between the 0.5 and 0.25 teaspoon cookies. The amount of hardness was more like the Wilton cookies with 0.25 teaspoons of baking powder even though the cookies from the Goldtouch pan were higher, which surprised me.
I still want to try less baking powder in the cookies baked on the Wilton pan using Weyauwega butter. However, it's obvious to me now that I shouldn't do any more experiments using Weyauwega butter when the cookies I'm making have high butter content like these butter cookies do. I think the Weyauwega brand butter is good butter and it really is less expensive, and there may be some cookies it works fine for, but I doubt it will ever work for butter cookies on inexpensive non-stick pans, unless the egg portions are added, in which case the cookies do come out OK.
I noticed something else interesting when I was making these cookies. I creamed the butter and sugar for six minutes and the volume really bulked up. But when I added the flour and beat for three minutes, the volume went way down again. I could see it happen as I turned the bowl - the dough got smaller and smaller, the longer I beat it. Obviously the flour was somehow removing the air I'd put into it with the creaming. I don't really have a way to measure how much of the air remained. One thing that seems worth trying is seeing what happens when I reduce the mixing time with this better butter. Two minutes of mixing wasn't quite enough for the Wilton pan before - the baked cookies were pitted. Is it enough with Crystal Farms butter? If it is, the cookies might be just a little less flat on the Wilton pan, which is a plus.
In looking around on the Internet, I see time and again people saying that Land o' Lakes butter is the best for baking. I tried it before Christmas and didn't really see any difference between it and Crystal Farms, except for a very subtle difference in flavor. I certainly need to try Land o' Lakes butter again with my best butter cookie procedure, though.
I have seen a couple of people say that Land o' Lakes Super Creamy butter is the best for cookies. I checked the Land o' Lakes Web site, and there is no Super Creamy butter listed there - they must not make it any more. They don't carry it where I shop, either. However, I saw that Crystal Farms makes a European Style butter which has slightly higher fat content, which was the supposed benefit of the Land o' Lakes Super Creamy butter as well. I need to give that a try. I happened to talk to a shopper at the store who mentioned another brand of European style butter that the store I've been shopping at didn't carry, but other local stores do. I'll have to try that as well.
A while ago, I started some experiments to measure how much air creaming brought into the butter. The six-minute time was way off. For all the batches I've made recently I creamed for six minutes, so I have a number I'm quite confident of for the six-minute creaming times. I'll report the final creaming results for Weyauwega butter in my next post.
I did a ton of baking over the weekend. A friend asked me to bring cookies to a special event, and I made a double batch of butter cookies and actually baked all of them for a change. Wow, that was a job! The next morning my son was good enough to help frost them all. Good thing, or I wouldn't have had them done on time!
This was no time for major experiments - these cookies were supposed to come out well, so I used my best times to get good results, and sprang for butter I know gives a better taste - Crystal Farms Unsalted Butter.
What a difference! The taste was as I expected. What I didn't expect was the huge difference in the quality of cookies coming off the Wilton pan. If you've been reading along, you know that the Wilton pan has been consistently been giving overly flat cookies, most often in conjunction with overly large gas bubbles interfering with a nice chewing texture. They tend to come out a bit on the hard crunchy side. Not horribly so, but not remotely the way I'd choose to have them. When I bake on gentler pans, like an insulated baking sheet or the Williams-Sonoma Goldtouch Commercial Cookie Sheet, they come out gently crunchy, really beautifully well. I discovered that the difference between excellent cookies and so-so cookies on the Wilton pan, and probably any inexpensive non-stick baking sheet, is using suitable butter.
I've been using Weyauwega brand butter from Star Dairy in Wausau, because it's less expensive. When I used the Crystal Farms butter this weekend instead, there was not much difference between the cookies baked on the Wilton pan and the ones baked on the Williams-Sonoma pan! It was downright shocking!!!! The only difference I notice is that the cookies from the Wilton pan are a little flatter and denser. They spread just a bit more than the cookies from the Williams-Sonoma pan, and because they feel denser when I chew them, I conclude they didn't rise as high from the baking powder they contained.
Last week I baked cookies with egg yolks and egg whites, and those cookies didn't spread on the Wilton pan, either. They also had a nice texture. I thought the flavor from the eggs made a pretty obvious difference in the way the cookies tasted, though, and I feel so happy to have found that it simply is not necessary to add eggs to these cookies when I use the right butter, even when they are baked on inexpensive pans!
I did try one variation between the two big batches of dough I made up, though. I used 0.5 teaspoons of baking powder with one batch, and only 0.25 teaspoons of baking powder with the other. For the cookies baked on the Wilton pan, the cookies with less baking powder were slightly harder. For the cookies baked on the Goldtouch pan, I couldn't tell any difference between the 0.5 and 0.25 teaspoon cookies. The amount of hardness was more like the Wilton cookies with 0.25 teaspoons of baking powder even though the cookies from the Goldtouch pan were higher, which surprised me.
I still want to try less baking powder in the cookies baked on the Wilton pan using Weyauwega butter. However, it's obvious to me now that I shouldn't do any more experiments using Weyauwega butter when the cookies I'm making have high butter content like these butter cookies do. I think the Weyauwega brand butter is good butter and it really is less expensive, and there may be some cookies it works fine for, but I doubt it will ever work for butter cookies on inexpensive non-stick pans, unless the egg portions are added, in which case the cookies do come out OK.
I noticed something else interesting when I was making these cookies. I creamed the butter and sugar for six minutes and the volume really bulked up. But when I added the flour and beat for three minutes, the volume went way down again. I could see it happen as I turned the bowl - the dough got smaller and smaller, the longer I beat it. Obviously the flour was somehow removing the air I'd put into it with the creaming. I don't really have a way to measure how much of the air remained. One thing that seems worth trying is seeing what happens when I reduce the mixing time with this better butter. Two minutes of mixing wasn't quite enough for the Wilton pan before - the baked cookies were pitted. Is it enough with Crystal Farms butter? If it is, the cookies might be just a little less flat on the Wilton pan, which is a plus.
In looking around on the Internet, I see time and again people saying that Land o' Lakes butter is the best for baking. I tried it before Christmas and didn't really see any difference between it and Crystal Farms, except for a very subtle difference in flavor. I certainly need to try Land o' Lakes butter again with my best butter cookie procedure, though.
I have seen a couple of people say that Land o' Lakes Super Creamy butter is the best for cookies. I checked the Land o' Lakes Web site, and there is no Super Creamy butter listed there - they must not make it any more. They don't carry it where I shop, either. However, I saw that Crystal Farms makes a European Style butter which has slightly higher fat content, which was the supposed benefit of the Land o' Lakes Super Creamy butter as well. I need to give that a try. I happened to talk to a shopper at the store who mentioned another brand of European style butter that the store I've been shopping at didn't carry, but other local stores do. I'll have to try that as well.
A while ago, I started some experiments to measure how much air creaming brought into the butter. The six-minute time was way off. For all the batches I've made recently I creamed for six minutes, so I have a number I'm quite confident of for the six-minute creaming times. I'll report the final creaming results for Weyauwega butter in my next post.
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