Have you ever eaten some delicious food and wondered what’s in it? There are lots of core ingredients to make bread, or cakes and pastry. Let’s learn about them one by one.

Flour
Flour is made from ground wheat grains. Its original name, trigo, comes from Portuguese which means wheat. Flour contains carbohydrates, protein, folic acid, vitamin E and fiber. One of the types of protein in flour is gluten. A higher protein content means it also contains more gluten, and this causes more elasticity in processed products. Flour with a low protein content is good to make cookies, while high-protein flour is better for making bread.

Butter or Margarine?
Butter is made of milk, while margarine is made from vegetable fat, hence the different colors. Margarine is more yellowish than butter. By default, it also has a different flavors. Butter is more savory and has a smoother aroma. Many people say margarine is healthier, because it is made from vegetable fat. However, this is not always the case, because margarine undergoes lots of processing to get it into its margarine shape and this can effect the nutrition content. As an emulsifier, margarine will make the cake dough less brittle due to its denser texture.

Not just Sugar
Sugar is made of sugarcane extract, which has been used as a natural sweetener for a long time. However, these days, many people say sugar sweetness is bad for one’s health. So what are the alternatives? Many people opt for honey, but actually there is another ingredient that is similar in taste to sugar, it’s the stevia leaf that originated from South America. Its scientific name is Stevia rebaudiana. It is said to be 30 times sweeter than sugarcane. Lots of products are said to be extracted from stevia, but non-factory-processed products will be better.