• Question: What science would you say goes into baking cakes?

    Asked by ArchaeologistDigSite to Ali on 13 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Alison Thomson

      Alison Thomson answered on 13 Nov 2014:

      Loads of science!
      For example, the eggs that you add to your cake have something called albumin in them, and when you heat it up it starts to ‘denature’ the proteins (i.e. change their shape), so they all start to stick together, and that is pretty much the glue that holds the whole cake together.

      The baking powder makes the cake rise because when you heat it up the carbon dioxide inside it gets much bigger and is in gas form, so it makes bubbles in the cake mix and so makes the cake rise.

      Pretty cool huh?!

      I like to think that if I had a career as a baker, my scientific expertise would help me to be the best baker out there!

      Heston Blumenthal is really famous for using difference things in science in his cooking and baking, like when he puts ice-cream in liquid nitrogen so that it goes reeeeally cold!

      Hope that answered your question!

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