82
votes
Accepted
Can one bake a cake with a cooked egg instead of a raw one?
I would say no. The function of the egg in the cake is to go in raw, mix with the other stuff, and once the raw egg has penetrated and coated the other ingredients thoroughly, bind it all together ...
- 7,132
79
votes
Accepted
Why drain soaked rice?
Apart from water, rice is mainly made from starch. Starch is initially packed in a crystalline structure that is not soluble. However if you soak it for long enough or expose it to heat, the starch ...
- 2,155
48
votes
Accepted
Why do shrimp / lobster / crab turn pink or red when cooking?
Crustaceans like shrimp, lobsters, crabs and crayfish have a pigment called astaxanthin in their shells.
Astaxanthin belongs to the terpines class of chemicals of which the carotenoid ¹ class is a ...
- 5,837
33
votes
Is there a way to dilute oil?
It doesn't actually dissolve. It disperses (easily seen as some will eventually settle out). The distinction is important, as dissolving could be solved by time or heat.
A few things may help when ...
- 45.2k
31
votes
Accepted
How long should I keep minced garlic in lemon juice?
There is no need to give it time; the few seconds the garlic spends in the lemon juice while you're figuring out what goes in next is already enough.
The thing here is that the acid isn't making the ...
- 2,431
30
votes
Accepted
Does sputtering butter mean that water is present?
Yes, your butter contains water - which is perfectly normal.
While oil is 100% fat, butter is only around 80%1 fat plus some protein and ca. 15% water.
Regarding your question where the water comes ...
- 60.5k
27
votes
Accepted
Why does rapeseed oil turn sticky but coconut oil doesn't?
It is a chemical quality of the oil called "iodine number". There is nothing you can do about it, it is as inherent in the oil as its smoke point. Oils with a low iodine number create hard polymers, ...
- 140k
26
votes
Does mayo "break"/decompose if you stop whisking then whisk the other way?
Welcome to the world of urban legends and old wives' tales.
Handmade mayonnaise can be a fickle thing to create if you don't work within the laws of physics and chemistry and don't achieve the ...
- 60.5k
25
votes
Accepted
Why does my deep fryer say not to use peanut oil?
On the T-fal USA website, they address this in their FAQ section. (A quick check on the UK Tefal site shows the same question.) Regardless of which model of fryer you have, it seems that all of their ...
- 9,052
22
votes
Can one bake a cake with a cooked egg instead of a raw one?
It is possible, but only if you do not want it to act as glue.
are the chemical processes of boiling an egg and cooking it inside the dough fundamentally different?
As mentioned in earlier answers ...
- 1,622
21
votes
Accepted
Can any liquid food be beaten into a mousse?
Chocolate is a solid at room temperature, strawberry puree is not, so I strongly doubt that the strawberry would result in a foam.
The reason chocolate would form a solid foam is that it is largely ...
- 16.2k
20
votes
Why drain soaked rice?
Arsenic reduction
To add to what @ShiftyThomas said
Now, some ways of cooking rice reduce arsenic levels more than others. We carried out some tests with Prof Meharg and found the best technique ...
- 301
20
votes
Why is it that veggies, fruit, and meat need to be salted or sugared when fermented to avoid pathogens, but milk and yogurt don't?
With all fermentation the goal is to create an environment where tasty microbes will thrive and harmful microbes won't.
One way to do this is by changing the chemistry or temperature of the ...
- 47.6k
17
votes
Is there a way to dilute oil?
To answer your question as stated: no, there is no way to dilute oil, at least not in a sense that would be helpful for your situation.
In cooking, there are basically only three edible liquids: water,...
- 140k
16
votes
Accepted
Cheese soufflé with bread cubes instead of egg whites
There is nothing to explain here - the claim is simply wrong.
You can certainly put bread in custard and subject it to heat. It is traditionally done in French toast, for example. I could even buy ...
- 140k
16
votes
Can any liquid food be beaten into a mousse?
The beating of a liquid to a foam is not unique to a chocolate-and-water mixture. Neither is it something that works with any random liquid. What you need is an emulsion or a colloid which contains ...
- 140k
15
votes
Accepted
How does sunlight degrade cooking oil?
The main enemy of oil is oxidation, which is the reaction of the constituent molecules with oxygen. How fast oxidation occurs will depend on the type of oil you consider. For example, unsaturated fat ...
- 2,155
15
votes
Accepted
How does deglazing work?
It seems like there are 3 sub-questions to this question:
Physical level
Adding liquid in the pan creates steam, a moist, hot gas which is able to move between the solids of the fond and lift the fond ...
- 328
14
votes
Accepted
What is the film on top of tea?
The scum on the top of the tea is due to hard water (ie calcium carbonate) deposits combining with the tea and reacting with oxygen, this article has some more details if you are looking for them. I ...
- 77.2k
13
votes
Is there a way to dilute oil?
I invented a method to facilitate dissolving of protein powder shakes for an Innocentive contest. It worked pretty well but I did not win so there must be a better method out there.
The idea is that ...
- 6,626
12
votes
Accepted
Why does my banana bread have a moist top?
You've partially answered your own question:
When wrapped in foil, the water contained naturally in the ingredients will re-moisturise the banana bread.
a. To reduce:
don't wrap it
leave it in the ...
- 5,837
12
votes
Accepted
Can I use washing soda to cook noodles?
No, you cannot use normal washing soda for cooking because you cannot count on the purity of the product.
Even if the chemical formula is identical, the standards for manufacturing chemicals intended ...
- 1,897
11
votes
Accepted
How to calculate the pH of a lye solution?
The exact number will depend on what exactly your lye is composed of. Lye usually refers to either sodium hydroxide (NaOH) or potassium hydroxide (KOH). For the purposes of the calculations I'm going ...
- 226
11
votes
Accepted
Does cumin contain curcumin? If not, where does the name come from?
From the opening of the Wikipedia article on curcumin you presumably saw:
Curcumin is a bright yellow chemical produced by some plants. It is the principal curcuminoid of turmeric (Curcuma longa), ...
- 58.4k
10
votes
Accepted
what makes red tomato sauce turn orange in colour?
Update:
It's been a few years but there now is a definite answer to this question.
@PegDat is correct. The Tomatoes Oxidize when they are exposed to air and turn orange.
This was proved using ...
- 9,631
10
votes
Is salty tongue effect normal after eating sichuan peppercorns?
Yes. This happens to me. Some scientists are investigating the possibility of using the peppercorns as a means of reducing people's salt intake.
Potential of Szechuan pepper as a saltiness enhancer, ...
- 101
10
votes
How acidic does a mixture have to be for milk to curdle?
Milk's natural pH is about 6.5, just slightly acidic. If it approaches a pH of 5.5, the casein proteins lose their negative charge and the micelles no longer repel each other, meaning they start to ...
- 869
10
votes
Accepted
How can I substitute dutch chocolate cocoa for flour and maintain proper recipe PH in this cookie recipe?
I doubt this is an acidity issue. Most flour is pretty neutral, the reason your cookies seem dry is that they are dryer. Cocoa powder is about 7% moisture, source doc here, whereas flour is about 14% ...
- 77.2k
9
votes
Accepted
How long is garlic butter safe, and why is it not a botulism risk like garlic in oil?
I suspected that @FuzzyChef's answer was essentially correct, but I felt that the question was not conclusively answered without sources, so I ended up never accepting an answer. Thankfully, Linda ...
- 482
9
votes
How acidic does a mixture have to be for milk to curdle?
This article by Bean Scene magazine describes an experiment they carried out to determine just that:
When we adjust the pH in smaller steps, we start to get a picture of the conditions that cause ...
- 12.1k
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