until it forms a homogeneous mass, then
rested. The large proportion of fat limits
gluten development, thus providing
tenderness, and also acts as a kind of water
repellant, thus providing a barrier against
cooking juices. The precooking swells and
gelates some of the flour starch, which takes
up water and gives the dough a thick,
workable consistency in place of an elastic
gluten structure.
Cookies
Common cookies are simple pleasures, but the
microcosm of all cookies is a summa of the
baker’s art. Cookies include sweet bitesized
baked goods of all sorts: crumbly and
laminated pastries, wafers, butter and sponge
cakes, biscuits, meringues, nut pastes. The
term comes from the medieval Dutch for
“little cake.” The French equivalent is petits
fours, or “little oven goods,” and the German