Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site glacier.ARPA
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!glacier!reid
From: reid@glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid)
Newsgroups: net.cooks
Subject: Re: "Superstition" in Cooking
Message-ID: <2618@glacier.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 25-Dec-85 11:13:07 EST
Article-I.D.: glacier.2618
Posted: Wed Dec 25 11:13:07 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Dec-85 00:56:19 EST
References: <386@zaphod.UUCP>
Reply-To: reid@glacier.UUCP (Brian Reid)
Distribution: net
Organization: Stanford University, Computer Systems Lab
Lines: 45

In article <386@zaphod.UUCP> dkatz@zaphod.UUCP (Dave Katz) writes:

> I can see no reason to spend time stirring the chocolates together when
> they will be so well blended in the remaining steps.

> Another is I always sift the salt and flour and other dry
> ingredients together and have yet to find ANYTHING in the screen at the
> bottom of the sifter.

Without seeing the details of your icing recipe I would be willing to bet
you that the chocolate blending step is important. I am certain that the
flour sifting is important (see below).  Assuming that you have a
sufficiently discriminating palate you can learn the answer for yourself by
making the icing recipe both ways and seeing how the result differs. 

When making recipes that have oil, water, and dry ingredients, it is often
important to mix things together before adding another class of ingredients,
because the presence of, say, flour or water, will often prevent the sugars
and oils in chocolate from blending uniformly. This will result in an icing
that is differentially sweet--one bite will be overly sweet and the next
will be bitter. 

In your baking, I can answer without seeing your recipe. Sifting is a vital
step in most baking.  The purpose of sifting is not to remove foreign
objects, it is to blend, aerate, and give a uniform consistency. Blending
salt and flour together before adding liquids gives a much more uniform
distribution of the salt in the finished batter or dough, and sifting flour,
even by itself, aerates the flour to a "standard" density so that you can
measure the flour with a measuring cup instead of weighing it with a scale.

Part of "learning to cook" involves learning why things should be done.
Cookbooks in general are just hints and explanations for people who know how
to cook. I learned how to cook in a high school Home Economics class, which
in my enlightened school system was open to boys as well as girls (Ingham
county, Michigan).  There are a few books on the market that teach about
cooking. 

For a heavy-duty scientific explanation, often more than you ever wanted to
know, try @i[On food and cooking] by Harold McGee [Charles Scribner's sons,
1984]. For a nice technology-oriented cookbook by two retired Home Ec
teachers, see @i[How Cooking Works] by Sylvia Rosenthal and Fran Shinagel,
Macmillan 1981.
-- 
	Brian Reid	decwrl!glacier!reid
	Stanford	reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA