Category "chemistry"

Can any liquid food be beaten into a mousse?

Hervé This discovered that one can make chocolate mousse with chocolate and water only. This recipe is shown in this MasterChef video, and also detailed

Why does beating egg whites with cold water increase the volume of incorporated air

From Wikipedia, beating an egg white after adding a small amount of cold water considerably increases the amount of foam produced. Why? What is changed by add

Why adding soda without vinegar to the cake batter?

I have this well-rated chocolate cake recipe that I have not baked yet. It's ingredients (among others) are 175g self-raising flour 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda My

Is "mintiness" a well-defined thing?

I perceive a similarity in taste and odour between spearmint and peppermint, and I describe both as minty. The smell, taste and cooling sensation of peppermint

How can I extract menthol powder from fresh mint/peppermint?

I have peppermint/mint growing in my garden backyard. I want to make Ice Cream for children and they are asking for some flavour paan ice cream in Hindi (mint i

How do egg whites help to keep fats inside a cake?

Recently I tried to bake a cake (Caprese) from: ground almonds butter dark chocolate sugar eggs I melted chocolate and butter, mixed all of this with whipped su

What are the effects of various dairy ingredients in quiche?

What are the effects of various dairy ingredients in quiche? Leaving aside the fact that a dish using cheese is not, technically, "quiche", I've looked into 5 d

Disolving chocolate in vodka?

I wanted to make a chocolatey drink, but creme de cacao is way too sweet. So I decided to try making chocolate vodka. I added about 3/4 cup of 63% chips (Guitta

What happens on a microscopic or molecular level when meat "melts in your mouth"?

The phrase "melts in your mouth" has been applied to meat very commonly, but I was wondering about what actually happens on a molecular level to give that appea

Can homemade vinegar be safely sealed in a bottle?

When I've read kombucha recipes a last recommended step was to bottle the liquid, allow some gas buildup to carbonate it, and then refrigerate it to stop the ba

How does deglazing work?

If you put a steak or a chicken into a hot pan which is not completely non-stick, it is likely to stick to it a bit and leave a residue when you flip it. That i

What makes sencha karigane sweeter than sencha?

Why does the addition of stems and veins to the tea increase the sweetness of the brew? Is there a specific chemical in the stems and veins of tea leaves that's

Maillard Reaction at Higher Pressures

The Maillard Reaction requires temperatures of 140 to 165 Degrees Celsius; hence "browning" cannot be achieved with water when cooking under normal conditions s

Why does my deep fryer say not to use peanut oil?

I got a Tefal deep fryer for Christmas (yay!) which has an automatic filtering system so you can re-use oil multiple times. When reading through the manual it s

Can flour be made from breadcrumbs? [duplicate]

Can flour be made from breadcrumbs, or is flour → bread an irreversible chemical reaction? I'm wondering if new bread can be made from gr

Why would a fully-developed dough lose consistency (elasticity / extensibility)?

I've been experimenting with panettone and I've come across the issue time and time again of losing dough consistency while mixing the secondo impasto (i.e. the

Will adding alcohol or fruit to a posset prevent it from setting?

I want to make an orange posset and I understand that the acidity in the fresh orange juice will need to be increased by reducing the liquid by 50%. I also want