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Science behind Cooking: Introduction
Close your eyes for a moment and think about your favorite cake, pasta, and crusty bread. OK, you
can open your eyes now, and please do not drool on your computer! What was the cake you pictured
like? Was it light and fluffy? Did you imagine pasta with a silky, smooth texture? Was the bread you
pictured wonderfully chewy? Did it give your jaws a workout? In this science fair project, you will
explore an amazing substance in these foods, called gluten, and discover why these foods, all made
from wheat flour, have such different levels of tenderness and toughness.
Breads, bagels, pastas, cakes, cookies, crackers, muffins, pastries, pies, and pizza crusts. Are you
hungry yet? What do all these foods have in common? Traditionally, they are all made from wheat
flour , the fine powder made from grinding and sifting kernels of wheat, which are the edible part, or
fruit , of the wheat plant. Wheat (which is shown in Figure 1, below) is one of a small number of
cereal grains that comes from the 8,000 species of plants in the grass family. It first grew wild on
the high plains of the Middle East, and then about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, people in this area first
began to cultivate it. Today, it is the third most produced cereal grain in the world (corn is first, and
rice is a close second with wheat).
Figure 1. This drawing shows wheat, from the grass family of plants.
Why is wheat flour so popular? Well, when you mix water with most other flours (like those made with
the cereal grains mentioned above), what you get is a ball of paste that sort of sits there. Mix wheat
flour with water, though, and gradually, under repeated pressure, it transforms into something quite
lively. It is both plastic (can change its shape), and elastic (bounces back and returns to its original
shape). These unique qualities allow wheat dough to trap gas inside and expand, kind of like a
balloon, but not to the point of breaking. The gas comes from tiny plants called yeast, which give off
carbon dioxide. The gas can also come from the combination of acids and bases in the dough. This
expansion of the dough helps breads and other baked goods rise and become light and fluffy.
The plasticity and elasticity are made possible by the presence of an amazing composite of proteins
within the wheat kernel, called gluten. These proteins in gluten are long chains of amino acids, some
of the longest in the world, in fact, with chains around 1,000 amino acids long! The two major
proteins in gluten are called gliadins and glutenins. The gliadins (think of the word "glide") give the
gluten its plasticity because they act kind of like ball bearings or a lubricant. They allow the other
major protein, the chains of glutenins, to slide past each other without forming bonds.
By stirring (or more commonly, kneading) the dough, the gluten develops into long, interlaced
chains. Kneading is better for developing these chains because kneading is gentle -- it does not cut
the chains up. When you knead bread dough, you are creating gluten chains. If you were to skip the
kneading part, your bread would not rise very well -- all the carbon dioxide in the yeast would
bubble up to the top and escape, rather than being captured inside the elastic dough.
Gluten is also available in a few other cereal grains, notably rye and barley, but in lesser quantities
than in wheat. Wheat flours also vary in the amount of gluten they contain. Hard wheat is high in
gluten and is good for baking things that need toughness and strength, like yeasty breads, bagels,
and puff pastries. Soft wheat is low in gluten (high in starch) and is better for baked goods that need
to be tender, like pancakes, cookies, and pastries.
Besides the type of flour that a baker chooses, he or she can also control the gluten strength by
manipulating the dough, or by adding other substances to the dough. For example:
• Kneading or stirring the dough strengthens and organizes the gluten mesh.
• Adding salt also greatly strengthens the gluten mesh.
• Adding sugar limits the development of gluten.
• Adding acids weakens the gluten mesh.
• Adding fats weakens the gluten.
Legend has it that gluten was first discovered in the 7th century by Chinese Buddhist monks who
were looking for a substitute for meat in vegetarian cooking. When a ball of wheat dough is placed in
a bowl of cold water and then kneaded, the starch in the dough gradually falls away and dissolves in
the water, leaving behind a stringy, insoluble ball, most of which is gluten. The Chinese people call it
"the muscle of flour." This high-protein mass can then be cut into pieces and fried, steamed, or baked.
It has a chewy, meat-like texture. Even today, on a commercial scale, this cold-water rinse-and-knead
method is the process by which gluten is commonly extracted from wheat flour. In this food science
project, you will use this gooey, sticky process to find out which types of wheat flour contain the most
and the least gluten. You will discover that gluten comes from the Latin word for glue for good reason!
LINKS TO BE FOLLOWED
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL3-qxQZ_Kk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDEcvSc2UKA

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Science behind Cooking: Introduction

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