Common Baking Terminology

Are you new to baking and getting overwhelmed by all the terminology? Well use this as your glossary to understand some common baking terminology, and get baking!

Get Comfortable with Common Baking Terminology

• Bake – To cook in an oven with dry heat. Always preheat your oven prior to baking.
• Beat – To mix in with quick, short rapid, motions with a whisk or fork to incorporate air.
• Blind-bake – Baking dough for pies or tarts either partially or completely without the filling. Usually uses pie weights or docking to prevent the dough from bubbling
• Blooming – In reference to gelatin. Blooming is soaking sheet or powder gelatin cold liquid until powdered gelatin hardens and sheet gelatin softens. This allows it to melt to be able to incorporate.
• Caramelize – The process of cooking sugar until it turns brown.
• Cream or Creaming – To beat one more ingredients together until smooth and fluffy, and usually while using the creaming method.
• Crumb – Reference to the texture of baked goods containing flour like breads and cakes.
• Cut In – The technique of mixing in butter into flour usually for pie doughs and biscuits. It’s the act of using a pastry cutter or bench scraper to cut the butter in with the flour into smaller, pea sized pieces.
• Dissolve – The act of mixing a powder or granule substance like sugar into a liquid until it dissipates into the liquid leaving no powder or granules behind.
• Dock – Poking holes in pastry, pie, or tart dough to prevent air bubbles from forming during blind or par baking.
• Double boiler – Also called a bain-marie or water bath. A pot of boiling water placed below a bowl with your ingredients to cook or melt. Often used for curds and egg yolk based desserts like sabayon.
• Drizzle – Pouring a thin stream of liquid like sauce or chocolate on top of something.
• Dusting – Coating something lightly with a powder like cocoa powder usually with a fine, mesh sifter.
• Egg wash – A mixture of beaten eggs with a little bit of salt to brush on certain bread products to give them a shine.
• Folding – Gently combining two or more ingredients delicately to prevent any deflation. Add in your lighter ingredient into the heavier ingredient. Place the spatula in the center, scoop up the side and turn over on itself. Turn the bowl and repeat.
• Glaze – Coat entirely or partially with a thick, sugar-based sauce like chocolate ganache.
• Ice bath – A small bowl of a liquid, usually a custard, placed in a large bowl of half ice, half water to cool down faster and prevent carry over cooking.
• Incorporated – Ingredients mixed together until evenly distributed.
• Kneading – Mixing bread dough together until enough gluten has developed.
• Macerate – Soaking fruits and/or vegetables in flavored liquid to soften the fruit and enhance and/or incorporate flavors.
• Melt – Changing the state of an ingredients from solid to liquid like chocolate or butter.
• Nappe – Means to coat the back of a spoon. It’s cooking vanilla egg custard sauce, called creme anglaise, to the specific temperature of 180*F and straining into an ice bath.
• Par-baking – Means baking half way. Usually meant for pies and tarts when you need to baking the shell half way through before adding the filling. Prevents the crust from underbaking and the filling over-baking.
• Peaks – Refers to the stiffness of whipped egg whites, meringues, and whipped cream. You can either soft, medium, or stiff peaks and the stiffness varies based on the recipe.
• Puree – Blending cooked fruit or vegetables into a sauce like consistency.
• Proofing – After kneading bread, the process of allowing the dough to ferment and produce carbon dioxide giving rise to the dough prior to baking.
• Retarding – Cooling bread dough to stop or slow the fermentation process.
• Ribbon stage – The state you get to when whipping sugar and egg yolks, and when you let it drizzle from the attachment, it streams with the look of a pale, shiny ribbon.
• Roux – A combination of flour and fat used to make pate a choux batter and savory sauces to thicken.
• Scalding – Bringing a liquid to almost a boil.
• Score – Used for baking bread. Making slices in the dough immediately prior to baking to allow steam to get out.
• Semifreddo – Means semi-frozen. An Italian dessert.
• Sifting – Pushing powdery substances through a fine mesh strainer like flour or cocoa powder.
• Slurry – A mixture of liquid and cornstarch used as a thickener.
• Steeping – Infusing a flavor into a liquid either a by heating the liquid or allowing to sit cold until flavorful.
• Supreme – The process of removing the individual citrus segments from the fruit.
• Tempering – The act of bringing two liquids to be blended together to a similar temperature before combining them completely.
• Whip – Aggressively and at a high speed mix liquids to aerate them.
• Zest – Removing the outer layer skin of a citrus fruit.