Sabtu, 18 April 2009

Why are Japanese biscuits stored in a warm, dry place?

Why are Japanese biscuits stored in a warm, dry place

Japanese biscuits are mada from a meringue mixture to whitch ground almonds or roasted ground hazelnuts have been added. They are baked in a cool aven, allowed to cool ad are then trimmed with a plain, sharp-edged cutter so that they are all the same size. Alternatively they may be stenciled onto prepared baking sheets using specially made rubber stencil mats.

When baked and sooled, those not required for immediate use should be placed boxes and stored in warm dry place. By doing this the biscuits remain hard and quite dry. If the biscuits are allowed to remain in a damp or humid atmosphere they would go very soft and it would be imposible to handle them at the time of making up.

The dried biscuits are commonly sandwiched in pair with buttercream and then finished in a variety of ways. After they have been made up in tis way they soften owing to the uptake of moisture from the air to the cream. The highproportion of undissilved sugar makes the product hygroscopic and so liable to attract moisture. This often limits the shelf-life of such products.

Why are macaroons baked in a cool oven?

Why are macaroons baked in a cool oven

Most product containing high percentages of suga should be baked in cooler oven or they will burn rapidly. Sugar caramelizes at high temperatures and becomes hard. In the case of macaroons, the oven should be cool enough to allow the product to ‘grow’ by the expansion of the air cells beaten in to the paste and to flow out to the correct size before the albumen of the egg whites in coagulated. A hot oven would not only burn the products but would cause rapid coagulation of the albumen and prevent full growth taking place, so that the final product would be of small volume and poor shape.