The chemistry of cookies Stephanie Warren
In a time-lapse video,
it looks like a monster coming alive.
For a moment, it sits there innocuously.
Then, ripples move across its surface.
It bulges outwards,
bursting with weird boils.
It triples in volume.
Its color darkens ominously,
and its surface hardens
into an alien topography
of peaks and craters.
Then, the kitchen timer dings.
Your cookie is ready.
What happened inside that oven?
Don’t let the apron deceive you!
Bakers are mad scientists.
When you slide the pan into the oven,
you’re setting off a series
of chemical reactions
that transform one substance, dough,
into another, cookies.
When the dough reaches
92 degrees Fahrenheit,
the butter inside melts,
causing the dough to start spreading out.
Butter is an emulsion,
or mixture of two substances
that don’t want to stay together,
in this case, water and fat,
along with some dairy solids
that help hold them together.
As the butter melts,
its trapped water is released.
And as the cookie gets hotter,
the water expands into steam.
It pushes against the dough
from the inside,
trying to escape through the cookie walls
like Ridley Scott’s chest-bursting alien.
Your eggs may have been home
to squirming salmonella bacteria.
An estimated 142,000 Americans
are infected this way each year.
Though salmonella can live for weeks
outside a living body
and even survive freezing,
136 degrees is too hot for them.
When your dough reaches
that temperature, they die off.
You’ll live to test your fate
with a bite of raw dough
you sneak from your next batch.
At 144 degrees,
changes begin in the proteins,
which come mostly
from the eggs in your dough.
Eggs are composed of dozens
of different kinds of proteins,
each sensitive to a different temperature.
In an egg fresh from the hen,
these proteins look
like coiled up balls of string.
When they’re exposed to heat energy,
the protein strings unfold
and get tangled up with their neighbors.
This linked structure
makes the runny egg nearly solid,
giving substance to squishy dough.
Water boils away at 212 degrees,
so like mud baking in the sun,
your cookie gets dried out
and it stiffens.
Cracks spread across its surface.
The steam that was bubbling
inside evaporates,
leaving behind airy pockets
that make the cookie light and flaky.
Helping this along
is your leavening agent,
sodium bicarbonate,
or baking soda.
The sodium bicarbonate reacts
with acids in the dough
to create carbon dioxide gas,
which makes airy pockets in your cookie.
Now, it’s nearly ready
for a refreshing dunk
in a cool glass of milk.
One of science’s tastiest reactions
occurs at 310 degrees.
This is the temperature
for Maillard reactions.
Maillard reactions result
when proteins and sugars break down
and rearrange themselves,
forming ring-like structures,
which reflect light in a way
that gives foods like Thanksgiving turkey
and hamburgers
their distinctive, rich brown color.
As this reaction occurs,
it produces a range of flavor
and aroma compounds,
which also react with each other,
forming even more complex
tastes and smells.
Caramelization is the last reaction
to take place inside your cookie.
Caramelization is what happens
when sugar molecules
break down under high heat,
forming the sweet, nutty,
and slightly bitter flavor compounds
that define, well, caramel.
And, in fact, if your recipe
calls for a 350 degree oven,
it’ll never happen,
since caramelization
starts at 356 degrees.
If your ideal cookie is barely browned,
like a Northeasterner on a beach vacation,
you could have set
your oven to 310 degrees.
If you like your cookies
to have a nice tan,
crank up the heat.
Caramelization continues
up to 390 degrees.
And here’s another trick:
you don’t need that kitchen timer;
your nose is a sensitive
scientific instrument.
When you smell the nutty, toasty aromas
of the Maillard reaction
and caramelization,
your cookies are ready.
Grab your glass of milk,
put your feet up,
and reflect that science
can be pretty sweet.