Pastry
Blind baking is structural, and the beans are doing real work
An unweighted pastry case slumps down the sides and puffs up in the base. The weight is holding the shape while the starch sets and…
Tanushree Kar
Contributing writer, Bakemens
Tanushree writes the science pieces and used to teach chemistry to teenagers.
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12 articles
Pastry
Six turns gives 729 layers, and the seventh makes things worse
Layer counts in laminated pastry are simple arithmetic with a hard ceiling. Past a certain thinness the sheets merge and the lift…
Baking Science
Gluten is two proteins and water is what introduces them
There is no gluten in a bag of flour. It forms the moment water arrives, and everything you do afterwards decides how strong a…
Baking Science
Starch gelatinisation is what turns wet batter into crumb
Somewhere between about 60 and 80C, starch granules absorb water and swell into a gel. That transition is the moment a batter…
Baking Science
Caramelisation and Maillard get confused, and they are not the same
One needs only sugar and a lot of heat. The other needs protein and starts much lower. Telling them apart explains why some things…
Baking Science
Oven spring is gas expansion, and it stops when the crust sets
The dramatic rise in the first ten minutes is not the yeast working harder. It is physics, and it has a hard deadline.
Baking Science
Fermentation makes gas, but the flavour comes from the bacteria
Yeast is the engine and the bacteria are the seasoning. Separating those two roles explains why a fast loaf tastes of nothing and a…
Baking Science
Egg proteins set between about 62 and 82C, and that governs everything
Yolk and white coagulate at different temperatures, which is why custard curdles, meringue sets and cake crumb holds together at…
Baking Science
Water hardness, chlorine and pH: what your tap does to dough
Water is a third of a dough by weight and it is not chemically neutral. Its mineral content and pH have measurable effects, though…
Pastry
A laminated yeast dough is fermenting and layering at the same time
Croissants and Danish pastries ask one dough to do two jobs whose ideal conditions directly contradict each other, which is why the…
Baking Science
Invert sugars hold onto water, which is why honey cakes stay soft
Swapping one sweetener for another changes far more than sweetness, because some sugars pull moisture out of the air and others do…
Baking Science
Egg yolk is an emulsifier, and that is most of what it does in a batter
The lecithin in a yolk is the reason a rich batter can hold fat and water together at all, and it explains several faults that look…