Baked Goods

In industrial baking the aim is usually consistency of shape: every piece looking alike and pressed the same way. Homestyle production deliberately abandons that aim; surfaces and edges come out diff…

What separates açma from poğaça is not the filling but how the dough is worked. Poğaça dough is kneaded and shaped in one piece, while açma dough is oiled, folded and opened again; that process leave…

Filled bakery items bring a taste of their own, which is as much a limitation as an advantage. Jam does not go on a cheese-filled item, and an olive-filled one is not served with honey. The filling d…

A layered dough changes where the filling sits. In a single-piece dough the filling is placed in the middle and stays there; in a folded, opened dough it enters between the layers and spreads across …

Canteen selling has a constraint of its own: time. A break lasts fifteen minutes and part of that goes on the queue; a student cannot sit down with a plate but takes the product and eats while walkin…

In baked goods it is rare for the filling to be visible; in most products it stays inside the dough and only appears when bitten. Olive is an exception, because its colour is markedly darker than the…

In kitchens serving large numbers, menu decisions are not made on taste and cost alone; the risks a product can create while being eaten are counted too. Hard, small pieces come first among those ris…

Melting fillings create a problem that has to be managed in baking. Chocolate becomes fluid at a lower temperature than cheese; placed directly in the middle of the dough it liquefies in the oven, es…

The success of a catering table depends less on variety than on balance. A table made up only of savoury items becomes monotonous after a while; guests do not want a second item of the same profile a…

Rolled borek is a format designed to produce standard portions. The pastry is cut to the same width, the filling is weighed in and the piece is rolled up; every unit comes out at the same weight and …

The technical problem with spinach borek is water. Most of spinach's weight is water, and that water is released during baking; held inside the filling it wets the pastry from within, and the borek t…

Potato filling behaves in its own way in borek making. Boiled and mashed, the starch it releases binds the filling; it does not melt and run like cheese, nor stay granular like minced meat. The resul…