Cooking & Biscuits
The word cookie is derived directly from the Latin bis-coctus, that means baked twice and the etymology already reveals its weaknesses. The cooking is in fact only one of the thermic processes to which general foods are subject and biscuits in particular and its goal is to obtain a more digestible and pleasant product but also make it last longer over time.
Cooking is the most critical phase in both domestic and industrial users, which is basic for giving to the biscuits the appearance, taste, fragrance, flavor and shelf life that makes them be so successful. It is impossible to determine and recommend cooking conditions, the only option is to indicate reasonable intervals, which then will be adjusted with a lot of practice and patience.
Italy is considered the home of biscuits: it is told that the first to use special toasted bread were actually Roman soldiers. Ancient chronicles report that, as early as 31 BC, the soldiers were equipped with special provisions similar to “crackers” that still today are given to travelling soldiers
At industrial level the process of preparing and cooking biscuits is long and delicate, and you can see that already from the reception of the main raw materials, white flour, wheat flour, sugar and starch, which happens through a truck. For liquid raw materials (water, oil, fat, chocolate, creams, jams, milk, alcohol, etc.) are used small stainless steel tanks often heated or cooled as appropriate.
When raw materials are received, an accurate inspection is made to check the perfect state of conservation and to take samples; then they are weighed and mixed with the addition of yeast, which helps sugars fermentation; everything is then salted and this helps to give to the cookies “flavor” and intense color of the crust which we are used to.
Once biscuits are inside the oven, heat penetration occurs differently depending on the temperature and quality of dough, because a soft dough requires a higher temperature than a hard one that has a faster drying. When any product is introduced into the oven, its temperature rises due to heat diffusion that happens in different ways in different zones: the part in touch with the cooking surface receives heat by direct contact, while the remaining part receives heat through air and through the upper heating surfaces.
The reactions, which have as a consequence a series of irreversible and structural changes, must be carefully controlled through the heat quantity which is supplied and absorbed , moisture level and permanence time in the oven, to avoid that the quality of this tasty food is compromised.
However it is impossible, theoretically, to determine the “ideal” conditions of cooking, it is only possible to give reasonable intervals, during which adjustments must be operated, that only practice can determine.