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Felise Lam

Investigative work

1. Aim:To investigate how different types of fat (butter[control], pastry margarine and vegetable

fat(shortening) affect the colour, flavour, texture(tenderness), height and flakiness of 100g short

crust pastry wafers.

2. Method:Control:

Basic short crust pastry recipe using 50g butter.

Control Variation 1 Variation 2

50g butter 50g pastry margarine 50g vegetable fats

Basic recipe of short crust pastry:

Ingredients Method

100g plain flour

50g butter

2tbsp cold water

1. Preheat oven to 2100C2. Sift the flour3. Rub fat into the flour4. Add the water all at once to the fat and flour mixture5. Mix with a palette knife to form a firm but not hard dough6. Knead the pastry very lightly with the fingertip until smooth and evenly

mixed7. Roll the pastry on a lightly floured board8. Use short, sharp strokes in a forward direction9. Allow the pastry to rest in a cool place for 10 minutes10.Cut pastry into equal size with 0.5cm thickness11.Bake in a hot oven of 2000C for 20 minutes

Materials and equipment list:

Amount Items

1 Table spoon

1 Plastic sieve1 Palette knife

1 Rolling pin

1 Measuring jug

1 Fork

3 Mixing bowl

1 Plastic food wrap

6 Baking tray

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Precautions:

1. Keep mixture cool during preparation2. All ingredient used must be measured accurately3. Use the same temperature of cold water4. Flour for rolling out the pastry must be the same5. Fat should be kept in the refrigerator until time to use it6. Fat used must be cold and fresh7. Handle the dough lightly8. Do not stretch the pastry during rolling out or the pastry will shrink during baking9. Leave pastry to relax and cool before baking10.Cook in hot oven11.Add water all at once to the fats and flavour mixture to give even texture of pastryHow to ensure experiment is carried out fairly?

1. Time taken for mixing fats and flour must be the same2. Roll to same thickness3. All fats must be kept in refrigerator until time to use4. Allow all pastries to rest for the same time5. Oven must be preheated 5 minutes before baking6. All pastries must be baked at the same temperature of 2000C

Data collection methods

1. Record surface appearance(greasy, very greasy, sunken in the middle, rough surface, smooth surface)

2. Record colour(golden brown, burnt, pale yellow, pale)

3. Record crumbliness (texture)Test the crumbliness of the wafers by breaking one piece of wafer into two and examine the

flakes. (which breaks more easily)

4. Measure heightStack all the samples of wafers. Measure the total height using a metric ruler.

5. TastePlace the wafer in the mouth and chew. Record the mouth feel. Rinse mouth thoroughly

with water.

6. Repeat for each of the samples.

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Information Synthesis

3. ResultsObservation chart

Characteristic Control

(butter)

Variation 1

(pastry margarine)

Variation 2

(shortening)

Appearance/ colour Golden brown 5 Whitish Yellowish 3 Pale 2

Average

height

(cm)

Before 0.5cm 0.5cm 0.5cm

After 0.93cm 3 1.3cm 5 1.07cm 4

Texture

(tenderness)

Dry,Crumbly 5 Soft,Flaky 3 Flaky,Crumbly 5

Taste Buttery 5 Bland 3 Weak 2

Flakiness

Characteristic Rating scale

1 2 3 4 5

Appearance/Colour Burnt Pale Pale yellow Yellow Golden brown

Height Before 0.5cm 0.5cm 0.5cm 0.5cm 0.5cm

After

Texture mushy chewy Soft and flaky Slightly flaky Crumbly

Taste Tasteless Weak Bland Slightly

Buttery

Buttery

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Explanation of star diagram

Control (butter)

The star diagram is evenly distributed and covers the largest area. This shows that butter has the best

results of all the variations in terms of taste, appearance and colour. It also means that it has the most

appealing characteristic of all the samples.

Variation A (pastry margarine)

The star diagram is covers the smallest area of the diagram. This shows that pastry margarine has the

poorest results and which also means that it has the least appealing characteristics of all the threepastry. However it is the highest for the height which means it has the best results for height.

Variation B (vegetable fat)

The star diagram covers a slightly smaller area than butter. This means that it yields the second best

results among the three pastry. It is also the best in texture and appearance. Thus it is the second most

appealing pastry of all the samples.

Conclusion

Introduction

Fats make pastry tender by shortening the strands of gluten in the dough. They also add colour, flavor

and texture to baked products. The type of fat used affects the characteristics of the finished products.

In this experiment, three pastry wafers each using a different fat are made. One is made with butter.

Another is made with pastry margarine. The third one is made with vegetable fat, which is oil that had

been hydrogenated to make it solid. The pastries using different fats are made into wafers and baked on

0

12

3

4

5Appearance

Colour

Height(cm)Texture

TasteButter

Pastry Margarine

Vegetable Fat

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a baking tray. After baking, the wafers were evaluated to determine the effects of using each type of

fats.

Explain results

Butter is the best of the three types of fat used.

Texture

The pastry made with vegetable fat had the best flaky texture and was also very tender. Following

vegetable fat was pastry margarine. The last one that was the least flaky was butter. This is so as the

vegetable fat gives a very good shortening effect while butter does not. Instead, butter gives a more

crispy texture to the pastry compared to the other to variations.

Flavour

Butter gives very good flavour to the pastry and makes the pastry very tasty. It gives a very strong

buttery flavour. As for pastry margarine, the flavour is not as good as it lacks flavour. It does not add

much flavour to the pastry and thus causes it to be bland. Finally, vegetable fat gives the least flavour as

it itself does not have much taste. It makes the pastry very tasteless and it is not tasty at all. Thus butter

is the best.

Colour

Butter gave a very nice golden brown and smooth appearance. Pastry margarine only gave a slight

yellowish pale colour which was not very appetising. Vegetable fat gave a very pale colour which made it

the last of the three.

Closing paragraph

To conclude, this experiment shows that different types of fats does affect the texture, flavour and

tenderness of short crust pastry. Our experiment concluded that using butter results in the pastry have

very good flavour, colour and texture. This is followed by pastry using pastry margarine and lastly by

vegetable fat.