Baking Ingredients

What flour, sugar, fat, eggs, leaveners and salt each do in a bake, so you know what changes when you swap one.

Flour

Flour gives a bake its structure. Mixed with water, two of its proteins form gluten, a stretchy network that traps gas. More protein means more gluten: chewier bread, but tougher cakes.

Cake or pastry

Protein:
Low
Use it for:
Tender cakes, delicate pastry.

All-purpose

Protein:
Medium
Use it for:
Almost everything: cookies, quick breads, pancakes, pie crust, everyday bread.

Bread

Protein:
High
Use it for:
Chewy yeast breads and pizza.

Whole wheat

Protein:
High, but the bran cuts the gluten
Use it for:
Nuttier, denser bakes; it drinks more liquid, so start by swapping a quarter of the white flour.

00

Protein:
Varies
Use it for:
A very finely milled Italian flour, used for Neapolitan-style pizza and pasta.

The more you mix flour with liquid, the more gluten develops. That's what you want in bread dough and what you avoid in muffins and pancakes; see mixing methods.

Sugar

Sugar does far more than sweeten. It holds on to moisture (softer, longer-keeping bakes), browns the crust, makes cookies spread and keeps cakes tender. Cutting the sugar in a recipe by more than about a quarter changes the texture, not just the taste.

  • Granulated: the default.
  • Brown: granulated sugar with molasses. It's moister and slightly acidic, so it makes cookies chewier and helps baking soda work.
  • Powdered (confectioners'): finely ground with a little cornstarch, for icings and some shortbreads. Not a one-for-one swap for granulated.

Fat

Fat makes bakes tender by coating flour so less gluten forms, and it carries flavor.

  • Butter has the best flavor. It's only about 80% fat; the rest is mostly water, which turns to steam and helps flaky doughs lift.
  • Oil is pure fat and stays liquid, so it makes moist, soft cakes and quick breads, but nothing flaky or creamed.
  • Shortening is pure fat that stays solid at room temperature: tender, flaky crusts with little flavor.

Butter's temperature changes the result as much as the amount:

Cold

How it feels:
Straight from the fridge, firm.
Used for:
Pie crust, biscuits, scones: pieces of it make flaky layers.

Softened

How it feels:
About 65°F (18°C). A finger presses a dent without sinking in; it's cool, not shiny or greasy.
Used for:
Creaming with sugar for cookies and cakes.

Melted

How it feels:
Liquid, cooled until just warm.
Used for:
Brownies, many quick breads, pancakes: denser and chewier.

Eggs

Eggs bind, add structure as they set, help things rise (especially beaten), and add richness from the yolk. Recipes mean large eggs unless they say otherwise.

Baking soda and baking powder

Both make bubbles of carbon dioxide that lift a batter, but they aren't interchangeable.

Baking soda

What it needs:
An acid in the recipe: buttermilk, yogurt, sour cream, brown sugar, honey, natural cocoa, lemon juice.
Notes:
About 3–4 times stronger than baking powder. It starts working as soon as it's wet, so bake soon after mixing. It also helps browning.

Baking powder

What it needs:
Nothing: it's baking soda with a dry acid already mixed in.
Notes:
Most sold in the US is double-acting: some lift when it's wet, more in the oven's heat.

Many recipes use both: soda to balance an acid ingredient, powder for the rest of the lift. Too much of either tastes bitter or soapy and can make a bake rise fast and then sink.

Dutch-process cocoa has been treated to remove its acidity, so it doesn't activate baking soda the way natural cocoa does. Recipes written for one aren't always right with the other.

Yeast is a different kind of leavener, living rather than chemical; see yeast dough.

Salt

A little salt makes sweet things taste more like themselves, and in bread it strengthens gluten and keeps the yeast in check.

Salts differ a lot by volume: a teaspoon of table salt is about twice as salty as a teaspoon of Diamond Crystal kosher salt, because kosher flakes are bigger and pack loosely. In these recipes plain "salt" means table or fine sea salt; see the spoon weights.

Milk, buttermilk and yogurt

Milk adds moisture, richness and browning. Buttermilk, yogurt and sour cream do the same and add acid, which tenderizes and feeds baking soda; that's why the pancakes use both buttermilk and soda. No buttermilk? See substitutions.

If you change one thing

Less sugar

Expect:
Paler, drier, less tender; cookies spread less.

More flour

Expect:
Drier, denser, more cakey; cookies spread less.

Melted butter instead of softened

Expect:
Denser and chewier; cookies spread more.

Oil instead of butter

Expect:
Moister and softer, less buttery flavor, nothing flaky.

Bread flour instead of all-purpose

Expect:
Chewier and taller; tougher in cakes.

Brown sugar instead of white

Expect:
Moister, chewier, more caramel flavor.

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