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Air expands when it’s heated. Cooks use this fact in many cooking processes in order to get a texture of holes through the food. Pastry would be a concrete slab and steamed puddings solid rubber if it wasn’t for the tiny particles of air that expand to raise the texture. Remember this when handling various types of mixture. Everything must be cold when handling pastry – some cooks chill the dough – so that the cold air will expand more. Pastry must not be carelessly handled, or the air particles will be lost. When stiffly beaten egg-whites are folded into a mixture the word ‘fold’ is used to emphasize the gentle way the bubbles must be handled. Wet mixtures for cakes are beaten like mad to get air into them. Batter mixtures are best if beaten just before cooking.

Self-raising flour has bicarbonate of soda – a raising agent – added to it to produce bubbles. Beating such mixtures can reduce the effectiveness of the raising agent. Yeast does exactly the same (although, because oven heat halts the action of the yeast, the raising takes place in a warm kitchen before the actual cooking).