Original Observations
- How are different types of food made
- Who created bread
- Focus on breads?
- Cultures: First Nations, Inuit, European, Jamaican
- Bannock, French bread, Jamaican
- Different recipes, different tastes
- Why are breads different in different areas/cultures
- What are the roles of different ingredients
- flour
- yeast
- water
- milk?
- sugar
- salt
- oil?
- butter
Research Question
What makes breads from different cultures taste different with similar ingredients and recipes? What’s different between the breads?
Subtopics
- Bannock (Inuit and First Nations) (Bacon)
- Ingredients (what are the roles of each?)
- Recipes?
- Why and how was it created?
- Jamaican Bread (peppalover)
- Ingredients (what are the roles of each?)
- Recipes?
- Why and how was it created?
- French Bread (Danard)
- Ingredients (what are the roles of each?)
- Recipes?
- Why and how was it created
The Science of Bread – Flour
1. We decided to research the function of flour, when making bread but first we wanted to see how flour was made we watched the video below.
Baked Bread: how flour is made
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8vLjPctrcU
2. Next “Bacon” found a website that said that flour contains a protein called gluten. It also provided an activity that would let us see gluten in action.
How Bread Works Experiment 3
https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/edible-innovations/bread4.htm
Here is the suggested activity:
- Mix 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup flour in a bowl.
- Stir the mixture with a fork to wet the flour. What you will have initially is a lumpy, grainy mass.
- Lift the fork out of this mass. You will find that the mass is quite watery.
- Now keep stirring for about five minutes (set a timer for five minutes — it is a long time when you are stirring!). Over time, the batter will smooth out.
- Keep stirring, and a funny thing will happen when you lift the fork slowly from the bowl: The batter will have become quite elastic! Not elastic like a rubber band, but elastic enough that you’ll be able to pull away up to a 1-inch-long thread of batter with the fork. This mixture is now extremely smooth and not watery at all.
3. We wanted to research more about gluten before we experimented with flour so we also watch these videos:
What is Gluten? Glutenin/Gliaden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2YBXcDUMTk
Science: What is Gluten? Here’s How to See and Feel Gluten
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDEcvSc2UKA
This is some of what we learned:
- flour comes from any kind of ground grain
- most bread contains wheat flour
- two proteins found in wheat flour,
- gliadin and glutenin, form a stretchy substance called gluten.
- when you knead dough, you help gluten form long, threadlike chains
- these gluten chains help hold the carbon dioxide gas in, creating those tiny holes that create the airy texture of bread.
4. After watching the videos we decided to design our own procedure for creating gluten. Here it how we made gluten from flour and water;
- we used parchment paper and poured a 1/2 cup of flour on the parchment paper
- we made a hole in the shape of a volcano and added 125ml cup of water
- then we mixed it with our hands
- next we kneaded over and over again, until it became a doughy consistency
- we took 1/2 of the dough and baked it and it was as hard as a rock
- Then we cracked it open with a sharp knife and we saw all the air pockets
- the next day we washed the starch out of the dough by rinsing it with water
- we were left with pure gluten
Here we are kneading our flour and water mixture.
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We sent videos of each step to our lead Aspire Scientist, Matthew Gilbert
 | Next we remembered that we had learned that the gluten was actually surrounded by starch. And so we attempted to wash away the starch so that we |
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CAKE!
We learned about chemical reactions by baking 4 small cakes, leaving an important ingredient out of 3 of them. The ingredients below are for 1 cake.
What you’ll need
- A cupcake pan/liners
- Measuring spoons
- A cup or small bowl for the egg
- A small mixing bowl
Ingredients (for one cake)
- 6 tablespoons flour
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 2 or 3 pinches baking powder
- 2 tablespoons milk
- 2 tablespoons cooking oil
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
- Part of an egg (Break egg into a cup, beat until mixed. Use 1/3 of it. Save the rest for 2 of the other cakes.)
What to do:
- Use cupcake liners.
- Turn the oven on to 350 degrees.
- Mix all of the dry ingredients together.
- Add the wet ones (only use 1/3 of the egg).
- Stir until smooth and all the same color.
- Pour batter into the cupcake pan.
- Bake for 15 minutes.
- Do that for three more cakes.
- To observe the function of different ingredients
- Leave the oil out of one.
- Leave the egg out of another.
- Leave the baking powder out of the third.
- Cut each cake in half and look at the insides. Do they look different? Do they taste different?
- Write about, or draw pictures of, what you see and taste.
Here we are scooping our different cake mixtures (batter) into our cupcake pans.
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Obesrvations:
| Cake Flour All Ingredients | All-Purpose Flour All Ingredient | No Oil |
|---|---|---|
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| No Egg | No Baking Powder | |
|---|---|---|
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The TASTE and TEXTURE TEST in ACTION!
| Grade fives tasting our cupcakes | We cant get enough cupcakes! | Can't tell if they're good or not |
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Written Observations:
| Variable | Observations |
|---|---|
| All Ingredients All Purpose Flour | fluffy, moist, rose high in the pan |
| All Ingredients Cake Flour | very fluffy, moist, rose nicely |
| All Ingredients No Oil | brownish /dark, crunchy, very dry and spongy |
| All Ingredients No Egg | no air pockets, spongy play dough like consistency, very firm |
| All ingredients No Baking Powder | Flatest, spongy, no air pockets, not fluffy |
Conclusions:
Heat helps some chemical reactions to occur as the cake bakes:
| Variable | Purpose: What we think! | Purpose: After Researching! |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose of Cake Flour | makes gluten but it has less gluten then all purpose flour and it is fluffy | cake flour makes the cake have a finer, softer texture |
| Purpose All Purpose Flour | makes gluten a lot of gluten | the purpose of all purpose flour is to make a structure |
| Purpose of Oil | to make it not dry | oil makes the cake rich and tender |
| Purpose of Egg | makes it firm | eggs make the cake moist |
| Purpose of Baking Powder | make it rise and air pockets | baking power makes the cake rise and also it make a light texture and makes air pockets |