STEM Fair: Day 2 (of 8)- Part One

There are three parts to today.  

One: Look at how much research you did yesterday!

We spent yesterday learning about the essentials of kitchen chemistry.  Here are all of your submitted notes!  Can you identify the big ideas from all of the combined notes?

• [Cake rising] is not like how bread rises, bread rises when yeast that you add to the dough feeds off to the sugars-
• you at least need sugar eggs and flour to make it rise
• When you are making cakes you can replace a lot of the ingredients.
• Anne Spurkland replaced sugar, flour, eggs, milk and butter when baking cake.
• She replaced sugar with dates.
• She replaced butter with coconut fat.
• She replaced eggs with pumpkins.
• All about proportions
• Baker = all about ingredients
• Cook = can tweak recipes
• Two proteins in flour, glutenin and gliadin
• When you add water to the flour to hydrate the ingredients, the flour proteins bond and create gluten. 
• When dough rises, gluten threads touch and create more links. 
• While inside the oven, the proteins and starches in flour transform into the webbing inside a loaf of bread.
• Lower protein content in pastry, cake, and all-purpose flour creates a less rigid gluten network and a finer crumb.
• One problem with all-purpose flour is that it is all over the place in protein content. 
• If you have high-protein flour, it’s going to suck in water like crazy and form dough. 
• At 92 degrees F, the butter melts, causing the dough to spread out 
• Salmonella bacteria from eggs die out at 156 degrees F, making cookies edible
• At 356 degrees ferenheight, the carmelization effect starts, giving cookies a slightly bitter taste
• The proteins in the eggs in cookies will get tangled and later reform into ring-like shapes which reflect light off cookies, giving them a brown-ish color
• Cookies are dome-shaped because when the water in the cookies boils, it turns into steam which presses against the top of the dough from inside in attempt to "escape"
• baking soda + vinegar = CO2
• need sugar
• need flour + oil
• sugar caramelizes at 320 degrees F
• sugar must be +, < the flour in weight
• eggs, liquid = flour
• 1 tsp of baking powder per cup of flour
• when putting cookies in oven a chemical reaction starts
• when dough reaches 92 degrees F the butter melts causing the dough to spread out
• butter is an emulation, made of 2 things: butter, water, along with dairy
• cookie gets hotter water turns to steam pushing cookie up
• when dough is 132 degrees F the bacteria dies
• 144 degrees F proteins changed
• egg protein are coiled strings when 144 degrees F they expand and tangle with the others
• makes runny dough into solid
• at 212 degrees F water dries out making cookies dry and crack
• the baking soda creates a gas making air pockets
• when proteins, sugar combined making the brown and aromas
• milk is the least important
• butter isn't that important
• if no yeast then don't need flour
• flour and moist = gluten
• more knead = more gluten
• pockets of air made by carbon dioxide
• baking powder is made of different things
• air bubbles get trapped in the batter
• baking is a chemical reaction
• egg add structure, color, and taste
• fat makes the cake moist
• leavened makes cakes rise
• flour gives structure to baked goods, glutenin and gliadin are in flour, when water is added to them gluten is created
• kneaded builds networks
• protein flour sucks water, non-protein doesn't unless you add more flour
• pound cakes traditionally have the proportion
• slight differences in recipe can make big difference
• people are making food (soy-based bread) that has properties that can help combat prostate cancer
• food (like science) is very complicated
• in cake-- flour makes structure-- baking powder/soda makes airiness-- eggs hold it together-- butter/oil tenderize-- sugar sweetens-- milk or water provides moisture
• protein + flour = gluten
• baking soda and baking powder add bubbles and make expand
• when the oven reaches 92 degrees F the butter in the dough melts causing the dough to flatten into a cookie
• butter is an emulsion, made by water, fat, and a few dairy solids that help hold the butter together.  An emulsion is 2 substances that do not want to stay together.
• don't have to use a timer because your nose will know when it's ready
• as the butter in the cookie melts the water is released and the water turns to steam
• eggs often have salmonella bacteria but they die at 136 degrees F  [and] can't survive 32 degrees F
• water boils away at 212 degrees F causing the cookie to dry and stiffen making cracks on the surface of the cookie
• the steam in the cookie evaporates leaving air pockets that make the cookie light and flaky
• one of science's tastiest reactions occur at 310 degrees F causing a Miallard Reaction.  Miallard Reactions occur when proteins and sugars break down and rearrange themselves in a ring-like shape that reflects off your cookie making it brown.
• caramelization happens when sugar molecules breakdown under high heat and that is what gives you the sweet nutty, and slightly bitter taste to your cookie.  Caramelization happens at 356 degrees F until 390 degrees.