Saige Hanson- Fogarty

May 20th, 2019

“The Chemistry of Food and Cooking”- Project Reflection

​ Chemistry DP Update

● How does the ingredients you experimented with affect the food’s overall
characteristics? ​Be specific and discuss the chemical structure of the ingredient and the
chemical structures of the aspects of the food the chosen ingredient interacted with as part
of your answer!

Different flours, is the ingredient that my partner and I experimented with to see the
different effects banana bread had when baked with. The three flours we used were bread, all
purpose, and coconut flour which we were testing the moistness, elasticity, and how much the
bread rose. These three flours are all different from each other in so many ways, Bread flour has
a higher protein content, which leads to more stability, form and rise in the dough which allows
it to hold its shape better. All purpose flour has a lower protein content, resulting in lighter,
shorter breads, which makes it an ideal flour for cookies and cake. ​Coconut flour also provides a
good source of protein. While coconut flour does not contain gluten the type of protein found in
many grains it does not lack protein. It contains more protein than enriched white flour, rye flour,
or cornmeal and about as much as whole wheat flour.​ The higher content of gluten in bread flour
makes it ideal for airy, chewy bread, rather than dense bread.

● In what way(s) are cooking and doing science similar and in what way(s) are they
different? How are a cook and a food scientist similar or different?

Science and cooking are the same because cooking is just a type of science. Science has a
lot of different type and you can’t just classify cooking as one there are multiple different types
of cooking in science. Everything that you do in cooking or in the kitchen happens in chemistry.
When making bread, making cookies, cooking meat or cooking veggies it all comes down to
chemistry. Even when you are setting up for your meal it is the same as setting up for a lab in
chemistry. There different aspects and ingredients that you are putting together to create a
reaction with one other. The different results could come from the temperature of something that
you are heating or even cooling that could make something delicious at the end. Different people
can compare a lab to a kitchen can be a little more cleaner.
There are also some differences between cooking and science which food is a really big
one. With cooking you are adding so much of different things together to create something
delicious. All humans care about the the ending taste. But when in science, the expectation are
such an experiment. Scientist care about finding their end result and being able to have data.
Science and cooking have some differences but they are basically the same one but with different
techniques of how they experiment with different things.