What is fast food?
Fast food is food made and served quickly, often in a few minutes. It works because everything is standardised: fixed recipes, fixed portion sizes, pre-prepared parts and a fixed order of work.
- Types: burgers, sandwiches, pizza, wraps and rolls, fries, fried chicken, and local fast foods like pav bhaji, vada pav, kebab rolls, noodles and momos.
- Service styles: counter service, drive-through, takeaway, home delivery, food courts, kiosks and food trucks.
- Equipment: griddle, deep-fat fryer, conveyor oven, salamander, bain-marie (keeps food hot), cold display.
- Good and bad: cheap, fast and consistent, but often high in fat, salt and sugar. Healthier choices: grilled not fried, whole-grain bread, salads, smaller portions.
Food safety is vital: keep hot food above 63 °C and cold food below 5 °C, and follow first-in-first-out stock use.
Introduction to baking: ingredients and their jobs
Baking cooks food by dry, hot air in an oven. Bakery products include bread, buns, cakes, biscuits (cookies) and pastry.
- Flour: strong (high-protein) flour for bread, soft flour for cakes and biscuits. Its proteins form gluten, a stretchy net.
- Liquid (water, milk, eggs): joins the flour, makes steam, lets gluten form.
- Raising agents: biological (yeast), chemical (baking soda, baking powder) and mechanical (air beaten in, steam).
- Sugar: sweetness, food for yeast, soft texture, brown colour.
- Salt: flavour, strengthens gluten, slows yeast.
- Fat (butter, oil, shortening): makes products soft and short, keeps them fresh longer.
Bakers weigh ingredients (in grams), because weight is more exact than cups.
How dough rises and bakes
Yeast is a tiny living fungus. It eats sugar and gives off carbon dioxide (CO₂) and a little alcohol (fermentation). Best at about 25–35 °C; hot water above about 55 °C kills it.
Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) gives CO₂ when it meets an acid (curd, lemon, buttermilk) and heat. Baking powder = soda + a dry acid, so it only needs moisture and heat.
In the oven
- Gas expands and water turns to steam: the product puffs up (oven spring).
- At about 60–80 °C proteins set and starch swells (gelatinises): the shape is fixed.
- The dry surface goes above about 140 °C and browns (Maillard reaction and caramelisation).
Common oven temperatures: cakes 160–180 °C, bread 200–230 °C, puff pastry 200–220 °C, biscuits 170–190 °C.
Common bakery products and faults
- Bread: mix → knead → first rise (proving) → knock back → shape → final proof → bake → cool.
- Cake: creaming (fat + sugar beaten), whisking (eggs + sugar) or all-in-one method.
- Biscuits: rubbing-in or creaming; little rise; crisp.
- Pastry: short crust (rubbing fat into flour), puff pastry (folded layers of fat and dough).
Faults
Cake sinks: too much raising agent or door opened early. Bread dense: dead yeast or too little kneading. Pale crust: oven too cool. Burnt crust, raw inside: oven too hot.
Try it
Mix a spoon of baking soda with lemon juice and watch the fizz. That is the CO₂ that lifts a cake. Then use the 3D sliders to find the right oven time.
Key formulas and definitions
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Worked examples
1. A bread recipe has 1,000 g flour and 600 g water. What is the water as a baker’s percentage?
600 ÷ 1,000 × 100 = 60%.
2. You want to make 2.5 kg of dough using 1,000 g flour: 60% water, 2% salt, 2% yeast. Is the total right? Scale it to 1.5 kg flour.
Total = 1,000 + 600 + 20 + 20 = 1,640 g (not 2.5 kg). For 1.5 kg flour: water 900 g, salt 30 g, yeast 30 g; total 2,460 g ≈ 2.5 kg.
3. A burger shop serves 100 g patties. How many patties come from 12 kg of minced mixture?
12,000 ÷ 100 = 120 patties.
4. A cake rose well then sank in the middle. Give two likely causes.
Too much baking powder (gas expanded too much before the cake set), or the oven door was opened before the structure set, letting the heat drop.
Common mistakes
- Using very hot water with yeast and killing it; use lukewarm water (about 35 °C).
- Using baking soda without any acid; it then tastes soapy and gives little rise.
- Measuring flour in cups and getting different amounts each time; weigh it.
- Thinking fast food is only Western; vada pav, dosa counters and noodle stalls are fast food too.