Food Science

9 breaks

The chemistry happening in your kitchen.

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Why a roast keeps getting hotter after you take it out: carryover cooking and the heat still on its way in You pull the roast at 60 °C, and five minutes later the probe says 66 °C. Nothing is heating it, so where did the heat come from? The answer is that an oven… Food Science4 min read Why a microwave leaves cold spots: a standing wave 12.2 cm long, and a chocolate bar that measures the speed of light Microwave ovens fill a metal box with radio waves 12.2 cm long. The waves bounce off the walls and add up into a standing wave, a frozen pattern of hot spots… Food Science5 min read Why honey never spoils: it isn't the sugar, it's the missing water Honey is rich, sweet and nutritious, so why don't bacteria and moulds move in? Because microbes need free water, and honey's sugar holds almost all of it… Food Science4 min read Why bread rises: yeast only inflates the bubbles your kneading put there Yeast doesn't blow bubbles into dough. It only inflates the ones your kneading already folded in. That means the number of bubbles is fixed early, and the… Food Science4 min read Why salt makes ice cream freeze: ice melting below 0 °C pulls out the heat Ice is already at 0 °C, so how can a handful of rock salt make it colder? Because salt makes ice want to melt below 0 °C, and melting costs energy: about 334… Food Science4 min read Why oil and water mix in mayonnaise: an egg yolk coats every droplet Oil and water refuse to mix, yet mayonnaise is about two-thirds to four-fifths oil and holds its shape on a spoon. One egg yolk does the work: its molecules… Food Science4 min read Egg yolk sets at a lower temperature than the white. So why is it runny? An egg yolk sets at about 70 °C. Most of the white needs about 80 °C. So why does a soft-boiled egg come out with a firm white and a runny yolk? Because… Food Science4 min read Stale bread isn't dry: its starch has quietly turned back into crystals Bread left on the counter turns hard and crumbly, and it looks like it dried out. It mostly didn't. In 1852 Jean-Baptiste Boussingault showed that bread sealed… Food Science4 min read Why popcorn pops, and why some kernels never do A popcorn kernel is a tiny, sealed pressure vessel. Its hard shell traps water inside the starchy core until heat turns that water to steam, and pressure… Food Science5 min read