Incorporating Food and Science

I probably should've said so earlier, but I'm currently a uni student studying science.
This semester I decided to take a subject called Food Chemistry, where we study structures and properties that make up foods! Pretty exciting stuff, I hoped I would be able learn different things to incorporate it into my cooking.

One of the things we've learnt is called the Maillard Reaction.
When chefs talk about browning food, they are talking about the Maillard Reaction. It is the reaction that between proteins and sugars. This gives foods a nice flavour and colour, that you can associate with a tasty steak, toasted breads and sweet and savoury caramelised onions!



In comparison to caramelisation, which is the process that occurs purely between sugars. In caramelisation, large molecules of sugars are heated and broken down into smaller units. This leads to sweet treats like caramel or making spun sugar!

A good clip to watch is Heston Blumenthal's 'How to Cook Like Heston' Beef episode, where he talks about the Maillard Reaction and how he incoporates it into cooking.

I hope you enjoy learning about food like I am! :)

S.

Chocolate Brownies!

As promised, here is my first experiment: Chocolate brownies!

Since it's been a pretty hectic week at uni, I figured I'd take a break and bake.
For this test I used Matt Preston's recipe and the overall result was good, but maybe a little on the rich side for me. If you're anything like me, you'll need a nice hot tea or coffee to wash it down. Otherwise, if you're a chocoholic, this'll be perfect for you!
Source: http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/restaurants-bars/matt-prestons-brownie-desserts/story-fn93ypt9-1226449840998

Ingredients:

• 200g Dark Chocolate - broken into small pieces
• 120g Unsalted butter - cut into small pieces
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 200g brown sugar
• 2 eggs - beaten
• 150g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• Chocolate chips (optional)
• Salt

Melting on a double boiler

 So first, preheat the oven to 170°C and line a square baking tin with baking paper.
After that you'll need to melt the butter and chocolate together. I think it's easiest to use the double-boiler method, where you have a saucepan of water on the stove at a low/medium heat and a glass bowl place on top with the butter and chocolate. Otherwise, microwaving is always useful but make sure to stir it every so often.

Smooth and shiny: liquid gold

Stir it often to ensure everything is melted and this is how it should look! Then add in your brown sugar. I did this in thirds to ensure any lumps were broken and incorporated evenly. By this stage your mixture should have cooled down, so add half of the egg mixture and mix well. Then add and mix the second half!

After adding in brown sugar

 Then I mixed flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl before sifting in the mixture one third at a time and folding it in.








After the flour mixture, I decided to make the brownies even more decadent and added chocolate buttons! Mix in the buttons and pour the mixture into your tin.

 Make sure to scrape the bowl clean! Otherwise you can leave some and lick the bowl clean instead :p
Bake the mixture for 20-40 minutes, depending on how large your tin is. As a guide, look for the surface to be firm to the touch and somewhat shiny. You can also use a toothpick or skewer to pierce the middle, if the skewer comes out clean you can take it out of the oven!

This is how the brownies turned out after baking: firm and crumbly on the surface, soft and moist in the middle!
Overall, I found these brownies to be very very very sweet. Maybe a little less sugar and less buttons would do the trick. Also, they turned out very crumbly and some pieces broke when I was cutting them up :(
That being said, with a few modifications I think this could end up being a go-to brownie recipe!
Currently, I'd rate this a 3 out of 5 for success. My search for the perfect brownie continues...
If you have a recipe for brownies, let me know and I may be able to give it a try!


Thanks for taking a look at my blog, it's early days and I'm still learning a lot. Hopefully, my skills in cooking and taking photos of my tests will improve over time!
Please follow along if you'd like to see more :)
S.

P.S. I wanted to dedicate this recipe to an old friend of mine, I promised them I would make them some brownies. Unfortunately, things happen and circumstances change. Maybe one day I'll be able to keep my promise.

Heads up!

Hey guys and gals!
Just letting you know, my plan is to make something this weekend!
Anyone want to take a guess at what it might be?
Here's a hint: Chocolate!

Please follow my blog if you're interested :)

S.

Hi!

Hi everyone!
This is my record of my adventures, where I search for and test recipes for delicious, mouthwatering foods!

I will try to update this as often as possible, so please bear with me!

S.