• Cooking with Chemistry

 

 

Cooking with Chemistry

Cooking with Chemistry was first presented as a one-day hands-on workshop for teachers at ChemEd 97, held at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, August 3-7, 1997.

Click on one of the titles below to read some experiments and activities from Cooking with Chemistry, a work in progress, by David A. Katz:

These are PDF files and require Acrobat Reader

Food Additives - What They Do

Beef Jerky - A Method to Preserve Food Without Refrigeration

Butter:

Butter in a Bottle

Blender Butter

Candy Making:

Partial Thermal Degradation of Mixed Saccharides With Protein Inclusions with Teacher Notes

Taffy: Partial Thermal Degradation of a Mixed Saccharides Triol Solution with Teacher Notes

Lollipops

Cheese Making:

Easy Cheese

Mozzarella

Chromatography of Food Colors with Teacher Notes This experiment is based on an FDA procedure using a liquid ion exchange resin to extract the food colors.

Chromatography of Food Colors This experiment is a modification of the previous procedure. This uses a piece of wool yarn to extract the food colors.

Dry Ice Root Beer

Energy of a Peanut (calorimetry) with Teacher Notes

Glue from Milk

Ice Cream:

Effect of Freezing Point Depression on Mixed Saccharides-Protein Solutions with Teacher Notes

Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream

Iron From Cereal with Teacher Notes and a Letter from General Mills responding to an inquiry about the iron in the cereal

Make Your Own Orange Drink: An experiment in how additives affect our food

Map Your Microwave

MOLasses Cookies A treat for MOLE Day (6:02 am to 6:02 pm on October 23 every year)

Peanut and Nut Butters

Molecular Gastronomy

Chocolate Chantilly A molecular gastronomy process to make a chocolate mousse

Fruit Juice Caviar A molecular gastronomy process to make caviar-type beads of fruit juice.

30-Second Microwave Chocolate Cake

Pickling:

Zip-Lock Pickles Make barrel-type pickles in a zip-lock bag.

Quick Pickles Pickles in about an hour using standard cucumbers

Quick Cabbage Salad (Quick Slaw) in as little as an hour

Corned Beef

Popcorn

Popcorn Unerstanding why popcorn pops

Microwave Popcorn How microwave popcron works and how you can make low calorie popcorn in your microwave.

Potato Chips:

Potato chips

Potato Chip Tasting

Determination of Fat in Potato Chips

Testing the Waters: How Good is That Bottled Water and How Effective is Your Water Filter with Teacher Notes

Titration: Standardization of a Base and Analysis of Stomach Antacid Tablets with Teacher Notes

Biscuits:

The Great Biscuit Baking Trials

Yeast:

How Yeast Works

Philadelphia soft pretzels

Root beer/Birch beer

Ginger ale

Measurement Equivalents for Science Activities

Mass-Volume Equivalents of Common Chemical Solids

Grades of Purity of Chemicals

Temperature Chart

Some Reference Books on Chemistry and Cooking

McGee, Harold, On Food and Cooking, Revised and updated edition, Scribners, 2004

McGee, Harold, The Curious Cook, Collier Books, 1990

Grosser, Arthur E., The Cookbook Decoder, Beaufort, 1981

Corriher, Shirley O., Cookwise, Morrow, 1997

Corriher, Shirley O., Bakewise, Scribner, 2008

Rosenthal, Sylvia, and Fran Shinagel, How Cooking Works, Macmillan, 1981

Coultate, Tom, and Jill Davies, Food, The Definitive Guide, Royal Society of Chemistry, 1994

Beckett, Stephen T., The Science of Chocolate, Royal Society of Chemistry, 2008

Clarke, C., The Science of Ice Cream, Royal Society of Chemistry, 2004

 

Photo courtesy of Aztec Press, Pima Community College