Kitchen Chemistry

Every time you cook or bake, you are doing chemistry. Heating, mixing, and combining ingredients causes chemical reactions. Bread rises because of chemistry. Eggs change from liquid to solid because of chemistry. Your kitchen is one of the best science labs in your house.

Baking Is Chemistry

When you bake a cake, many chemical reactions happen. Baking soda or baking powder reacts with acids in the batter to produce gas bubbles. These bubbles make the cake rise and become fluffy. Heat causes proteins in eggs to firm up and hold the cake together. Sugar caramelizes and turns golden brown.

Cooking Changes Food

Cooking an egg is a chemical change. Heat makes the proteins in the egg unfold and link together. That is why a raw egg is liquid but a cooked egg is solid. When you toast bread, heat causes a reaction that turns the surface brown and crispy. This is called the Maillard reaction.

Fun Facts

• Cutting an apple turns it brown because a chemical reaction with oxygen occurs at the surface.
• Adding lemon juice to cut apples slows browning because the acid blocks the reaction.
• Popcorn, caramel, and bread all involve different chemical reactions caused by heat.

Did You Know?

The Maillard reaction is responsible for the delicious taste and smell of toasted bread, seared steak, roasted coffee, and baked cookies. It was named after French chemist Louis-Camille Maillard who studied it in 1912!