HOW DOES TIME AND TEMPERATURE

AFFECT IN BAKING COOKIE

INTRODUCTION

One of the concepts often overlooked in the baking industry is that baking is really
fundamental chemistry in action. Yes, we use ingredients that are on every home cook’s
pantry shelf and yes, we manipulate those ingredients to produce a wide variety of cookie
products. Not only do we change the ratio of flour to sugar to fat, but we add chemical
ingredients such as sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and leavening acids to produce
desired, controllable results.

The fundamental chemistry, if misused or not followed properly, will have a great effect on
the process and finished product results. Not weighing correct amounts, using the wrong
chemicals, incorrect order of addition, incorrect processes, and using the wrong heat levels
during baking all can affect the finished product and subsequent shelf life.

The search for the best cookie. For some, this is an unattainable goal. What is the perfect
cookie? Soft or crispy; chewy or crisp; caked and fluffy or dense; brown and tasty or moist
and light? Too many options! How do like your cookie prepared? The key to any baking is
precision in measuring. You can understand this by reading a small fraction of the incredible
amount of information available on measuring by volume (cups, tablespoons...) vs mass
(everything measured on a scale).

OVERVIEW

There are many factors that can alter your cookies, like your ingredients, equipment, how
much you mix the batter, the temperature of your kitchen and, of course, your cooking time
and oven temperature. In terms of ingredients, there are all different combinations or swaps
that will yield a different kind of cookie, like using cake flour instead of all-purpose flour,
baking soda instead of both baking soda and baking powder, super fine sugar instead of
brown sugar. Additionally, the way you mix your ingredients can alter your final product —
creaming the butter and sugar together is a vital step that incorporates air into the dough. If
creaming isn’t done properly, your cookies won’t have much volume because of the lack of
air in the dough. The whole cookie baking process is about preference and figuring out what
you like in your cookie. Play around with different ingredient combinations, temperatures and
cooking times to crack the code on which type of cookie you like the best.

Inside a baking cookie is a pretty busy place. As a cookie bakes a few things happen. Heat
will melt the fat causing the cookie to spread. Water will evaporate creating gas pockets
giving rise to the cookie and dry out cookie (especially at the edges). Egg and flour proteins
will denature as the cookie heats cross-linking trapping the expanding gasses. Starches will
hold water by hydrogen bonding and along with proteins set giving the cookie its final shape.
Leavening agents will generate gasses that, along with the water gasses will be trapped by
proteins and starches giving rise to the dough. Sugar will caramelize and mix with proteins to
produce Maillard brown flavors. The ratio of fats, proteins, sugars and liquid all impact each
of these steps. The final characteristics of a cookie depends on the types of each component
(fat, sugar, protein and liquid) are added or prepared. Carefully consider what each
component brings to the party and how they interact as we create a hypothesis to
experiment with baking the perfect cookie.

ANALYSIS

Time and temperature These work together in baking. A low temperature and
longer baking time yields crisper, thinner cookies; a higher temperature and
shorter baking time makes softer, thicker cookies. Equipment Ovens can vary, so for
accurate temperatures, check yours with a thermometer. When baked at a lower
temperature, the dough has more of a chance to spread out, leading to flatter, wider cookies.
Conversely, cookies baked at higher temperatures spread less. Even a difference of as little
as 50°F makes a big difference.

19

17

15
Water content [%]

13

11

3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Baking time [min]

wholegrain_D wholegrain_S wholegrain_W

Fig. 1. Moisture loss from wholegrain cookies with

The typical curves of temperature change in the middle of a cookie (made from T 850 flour)
during baking for the standard samples of 16 g water/225 g of flour, dry with 12 g water/225
g of flour and wet with 20 g water/225 g of flour are shown in Fig. 1.
Results show the same trend of temperature increase and decrease in the middle of a
cookie for all 18 sample types. During the first 300 seconds (5 minutes) of baking, the
temperature in the middle of the cookie increased to the boiling point (100.2-103.1 °C) which
than remained constant during the process of water evaporation. After water has evaporated
the temperature raised again and in a period of 320 seconds, the maximum observed
temperature ranged from 108 °C (for the control sample) up to 117 °C (for a sample mixed
with wholegrain flour_D). Water boiling point recorded in cookie samples is higher in relation
to the pure water boiling point because of dissolved substances found in the free water in
the. Lowest boiling point during baking was 100.2 °C and it was recorded in the control
sample which had the highest values of initial water content. A temperature of 103.1 °C
represents the boiling point recorded in the cookies which had the lowest initial water content
(sample made from wholegrain flour_D). It is assumed that it can relate to the concentration
of dissolved substances in free water but since it was not the subject of this study the
hypothesis cannot be confirmed. Heat transfer from the heated fluid (air in the oven)
through the surface of the cookie to the inside is used up on the water evaporation (phase
transfer). During the 10 minute period of baking, the cookies with higher initial water content,
has lower temperature in the middle compared with the cookies that has lower initial water
content. Comparison of the results recorded by measuring the temperature of all of the
samples shows that the boiling point is achieved in 300 seconds (5 minutes) regardless of
the flour type or water content which coincides with the time of establishing the constant loss
of moisture from the cookie samples (Fig. 2).
120

100
Temperature [°C]

80

60

40

20

0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
Time [s]

T 850_S T 850_D T 850_W

Fig. 2. Typical temperature profiles of the T 850 flour cookies with

Considering the loss of moisture during the baking process the reduction of mass has been
recorded (marked as baking loss). Statistically, there are two significantly different groups.
The first group consists of the control sample and the sample mixed with type T-400 flour
regardless of the initial water content while the second group consists of the samples made
from T-550, T-850 and T-110 flour types. A more significant decrease in mass has been
recorded in the first group of samples. If the samples are observed with respect to the initial
water content in the cookie dough the results indicate more significant decrease in mass in
the samples with higher initial water content. After baking (10 minutes) all samples of
cookies, regardless of initial water content, had equal water content. Due to the mentioned,
the statistical analysis shown the baking loss for samples with higher initial moisture content.
CONCLUSION
The results of temperature profiles in the middle of the cookies during baking have shown
the same trend of increase and decrease of temperature for all of the 18 sample types used
in the study regardless of the initial water content and used flour type. Samples with higher
initial water content have lower values of total colour difference in relation to the cookie
samples with standard and dry formula. It is possible to produce cookies with optimal brown
surface with lower acrylamide and HMF concentration baking wet cookies formula (20 g
water/225 g of flour) 10 min at 205 °C. Higher initial water content also significantly affects
texture properties. Cookie samples with wet formula are statistically significantly different in
hardness and work of breaking force from the standard and dry formula while there is no
statistically significant difference in fracturability of samples.Any treatment to reduce heat-
generated toxicants content in foods should keep the quality parameters unaffected by the
adjusted processing conditions.

REFERENCES

1.) https://www.snackandbakery.com/articles/94487-the-fundamental-chemistry-of-baking-
cookies
2.) https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/packages/baking-guide/cookies-and-bars/what-
temp-bake-chocolate-chip-cookies
3.) http://home.sandiego.edu/~josephprovost/Chem102_Lab_TheBestCookie.pdf
4.) https://www.finecooking.com/article/the-science-of-baking-cookies-2
5.) 10.17508/CJFST.2014.6.2.02