My curiosity got the better of me so I decided to purchase some Parkay Squeeze margarine spread and to conduct a hydration bake test using that product.
For my test, I decided to try to emulate the PJ Garlic sauce from a weight perspective. To do this, I added some dried garlic powder, a bit of soybean oil, and a bit of salt to the Parkay Squeeze margarine spread. I allowed a little slack in my numbers to account for the small amounts of the other ingredients used in the Parkay Squeeze product. The ingredients and their weights were as follows:
26 grams, Parkay Squeeze margarine spread (60% vegetable oil)
1.134 grams soybean oil (1/4 t.)
0.60 grams of dried garlic powder
0.17 grams, salt (1/32 t.)
Total weight = 27.904 grams
I put the above mixture into a metal jar lid (with a weight of 12 grams) and heated it in my countertop oven for about 1 1/2 hours. My oven does not have very accurate temperature control but I estimate that the temperature varied between 200-230 degrees F, particularly with the many door openings to check the progress of the test. After about a half hour, I noticed that the mixture was bubbling. I continued the test until I saw that the bubbling had pretty much subsided. I then let the mixture cool and weighed it on my small digital scale and did some calculations to determine how much water was in the test sample. The number I came up with was 35.9%. Previously, I indicated that according to the NutritionselfData.com website a generic 60% vegetable oil margarine spread contains about 37.5% water. That is a difference of only 1.6%. That difference is small enough to lead me to believe that there may be some merit to conducting hydration bake tests with margarine-based products.
One of the things that I noticed when I conducted the test is that there was some residue of solid ingredients that settled at the bottom of the mixture. Quantitatively, it seemed to be more than the amount of dry garlic powder that I used for the test. I believe what may have happened is that the dry garlic powder was rehydrated by the water in the Parkay Squeeze product and increased in volume.
When I have a chance, I may repeat the above experiment but use only the Parkay Squeeze product. That should tell me if the residue was solely attributable to the dried garlic powder. And the test might confirm the results of the above test with respect to water content.
Peter