In today’s lab I made pitta ‘mpigliata, best described as italian cinnamon rolls. My lab partner Sabrina was out sick today so I did this recipe by myself. At first it was a little difficult and overwhelming since this recipe had two separate parts and overall seemed slightly more complicated than our other two labs. So in order to tackle the recipe I started by making the stuffing.
After I had finished the stuffing, I moved it off to the side and gathered the ingredients for the dough. When the other group was done with the mixer, I started on the dough.
I floured the table and my rolling pin before I began so that the dough did not stick. It was quite easy to roll out because of this and I got it to be a not so pretty looking, thin blob.
At this point Dr. Colabroy came over to help me since I was by myself, and I did not have a chance to take a picture of cutting and covering the dough with stuffing, but Dan and Louie and Fran and Amanda lent me some of their pictures.
I was able to make four strips with my sheet of dough, two of my rolls were pretty big and tghe toehr two were kinda tiny.
After they were rolled, I put them in the oven for about 40 minutes, but during the last 10-15 minutes or so I brushed them with egg whites.
I took them out when their insides had reached 180 degrees Fahrenheit.
THE SCIENCE!
Question 1: Cake flour protein content is about 7-8%, which means that it has less gluten. This makes the final product less chewy and a lot softer than bread or all-purpose flour which has significantly more protein.
Question 2: Kneading makes and breaks hydrogen bonds to form the gluten matrix but it also needs water. So, when oil is added it repels water and prevents a stronger gluten matrix from forming.
Question 3:What is the chemical effect of baking powder on this recipe? What would you expect to be the outcome if the baking powder were omitted? Baking powder is made up of sodium bicarbonate and acids. It is used for leavening and it causes dough to rise. However, if we did not use it in this recipe the dough wouldn’t rise.
Even though this was hard to do by myself, I had a lot of fun. This lab was more creative than the others since I got to change my stuffing a little bit and put what I wanted in it. I also loved how even though they might not look too beautiful in these pictures, I was very proud of them. Now here is a video of me eating my masterpieces.
