sprinklefingers

i’ve already told you that i got a new mixer. since her arrival this past saturday, i’ve been putting her through a battery of tests to see how she handles things. the result has been an overabundance of baked goods. which i have eaten almost all of myself. [stressful week, what can i say? stop it. shut. up.]

anyways, this mixer’s been working hard. and with all the batter around, i’ve been able to conduct a few experiments i’ve been batting (or battering. ha!) around.

one of my favorite cookbooks is bakewise by shirley corriher. it’s not a book for a dabbler. it’s a book for a serious home baker who’s serious about results - but most importantly - who’s serious about learning the intricate magic that is baking.

in this book she talks a lot about allowing batters to rest before baking them. this is a rule we follow at work very often, but, to be honest, it just didn’t seem that important to me at home. especially because at home i’m not making a batch of batter that will yield hundreds of cupcakes.

seriously, i’m babbling.

i’m getting to my point. i am.

i made vanilla cake batter, blueberry muffin batter AND buttermilk pancake batter specifically so i could see if allowing it to rest would have any effect on its end result.

i came to one conclusion: allowing two of these specific batters to rest is like sprinkling them with magic.

let me be clear: i am no food scientist. i can only report to you what i see (and eat.)

that said, here are the results of my giving it a rest:

vanilla cake batter:

see the photo below.

• short, stubby cupcake was baked immediately after batter was mixed.

• medium-sized cupcake was baked 30 minutes after batter was mixed.

• giant mutant cupcake was baked 1 hr after batter was mixed.

all were portioned precisely with a handy foodservice disher, all were exactly the same size. letting this batter sit around had a HUGE effect on its rise. wacky, huh?

blueberry muffin batter:

first, i have no photographic proof that i actually did this test, so you’ll just have to trust me.

i baked two rounds: one immediately after the batter was mixed, and one about an hour after the batter mixed, and there was no immediate discernible difference. the first batch (the one baked immediately after mixing) was soft and delicious - and that lasted 2 & 3 days after they were baked. the second batch (the one baked one hour after mixing) yielded denser, thicker muffins on days 2 & 3. and, yes, i ate almost all of these myself. so i know.

buttermilk pancake batter:

ditto on the photographic proof here. but, i did eat 8 of these pancakes myself, so i can attest to the validity of the results. and so can my thighs.

i made a triple batch of pancake batter. this yielded somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 pancakes (no, we did not eat them all in one sitting. remember, i make big batches of things and then freeze them.)

because i had a giant vat of batter on my hands, naturally it took me quite a while to scoop & griddle all of it.

to begin, i allowed ALL of the batter to rest for approximately 15 minutes. the first round of pancakes came out just as pancakes should. although, when two pancakes melded together on the griddle, it was kind of tough to cut them apart with the tip of my spatula.

i noticed no difference in the pancakes until i got a little more than halfway through the batter - so, approximately 45 minutes after the batter was initially mixed.

these pancakes - the ones baked later - were magnificent. i have actually never eaten such a delicious pancake. when the batter was dished out onto the griddle, they didn’t spread out as much as the others. instead, their circumference was smaller, and their height was taller. and they were like discs made of fluffy clouds. delicate, perfectly golden, crazy perfect. the first few rounds of pancakes had a chewier bite, while these just kind of melted away.

what gives? why does this happen? what’s going on with all this resting of batters?

well, it’s complicated. like i said, i’m no food scientist. but i can tell you that as batter rests, the flour is allowed to absorb more liquid which yields a softer, fluffier end product. additionally, the gluten you created by the mechanical act of mixing is allowed to then relax, which means your end product will be less chewy.

now, how do i explain the rise of the cupcakes as seen in the photo? this is where things get tricky and i have to rely on science for explanations. it has to do with bubbles in the batter. and any liquid that evaporates in the heat of the oven. and, of course, your leavening (that’s baking soda/baking powder, people.) there is an entire world of conflicting information on this topic. some people say allowing a batter to rest will cause it to deflate and therefore yield and end product with less rise. but in all of my years of mixing and baking cupcake batters, i have never once found this to be true. and my recent tests back me up - it seemed the more the batter rested, the bigger the cupcakes/pancakes got.

so, readers, i leave this one up to you. experiment with allowing your batters to rest. see what happens. it’s fun!