Over mixing

[Soul_Venom]

I am currently attending my second quarter of culinary classes. One of my classes is baking basics. I am having a real problem with over mixing my batters. I just can't seem to tell when it is enough vs too much. Nearly everything I am putting out  muffins, biscuits, cakes, it's all having this same issue. Are there any tips you can share for avoiding this or recognizing that point of perfection?

[Lisa Shock]

Try putting your mixer on a lower speed so that the moment doesn't go by so quickly. Try to remember that you want the ingredients to just (barely) be mixed evenly, no more. With a mixer, that's often just 5-20 seconds.  By hand, it can be going around the bowl with a spoon or spat about ten times. Look at the paddle in the mixer and see if you can tell how many times it goes around the bowl. More than 15 rotations is generally unnecessary. Don't worry so much about every last little lump, most will bake out anyway -and, if you sift your flour you won't have much of a lump problem anyway.

 

Also, do not let mixed batters sit around much unless (like for crepes) the recipe tells you to rest it. Wet flour sitting around means that gluten is developing and in some cases, you'll get a result that appears like it was overmixed.

 

With biscuits, if you're making them on the bench, you just want the shaggy mass to come together. You can press into shape and cut them with very little manipulation. A light hand is the key to light biscuits. Try to remember that biscuits are not yeasted bread and you want to avoid anything like kneading.

 

Good luck! Hope this helps!

[chromedome]

Lisa pretty much covered it.

 

If you haven't baked much before culinary school, or have only baked from mixes, you'll be expecting your batters and doughs to look smooth. A lot of the time, that's a mistake. With muffins and coffee cakes, for example, they're pretty much just "dump and stir": You want the dry ingredients to be moistened and that's about it. Cakes are more variable, depending on the recipe and the method, but as a rule you don't want to mix them very much either.

 

If you're making a cake that relies on beaten eggs or egg whites for its volume, you'll need to just fold the eggs and the rest of the batter very gently until they're...not incorporated, as such, but "well acquainted." A common trick is to tip 1/4 to 1/3 of the eggs into the batter and stir them in, which lightens and softens the main batter and makes it easier to fold in the fluff without losing most of your air.

 

For more specific assistance, you can ask about individual recipes. A high-ratio cake is different from a coffee cake, which is different from biscuits and so on, so generalized advice will only get you so far. I leaned on the collective wisdom at eG occasionally, back when I was in culinary school, and will happily pay it forward.

[scott123]

Overmixing is gluten development.  If you work with pastry flour and stick to pastry flour based recipes, less protein = less propensity to form gluten.