Cooking with Chemistry: Hard Candy
Posted on October 31, 2011 Comments (2)
The video by Richard Hartel, professor of food engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, demonstrates how the molten liquid candy cools to form what from a technical standpoint actually is a glass. Unlike window glass made of silica, this tasty glass is made of sugar.
Viscosity describes a fluid’s internal resistance to flow and may be thought of as a measure of fluid friction. Water has very little viscosity (unless it is frozen). Thick honey has higher viscosity (especially if it is cooler – I keep my honey in the fridge and it does not flow very quickly).
As I have said before if I had understood the chemistry behind cooking as a kid I think I would have been much more interested in cooking.
Related: Understanding the Chemistry Behind Cooking – The Man Who Unboiled an Egg – Tracking the Ecosystem Within Us
Categories: Engineering, Science
Tags: chemistry, cooking, Engineering, food, fun, kids, Madison, science webcasts
2 Responses to “Cooking with Chemistry: Hard Candy”
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November 4th, 2011 @ 3:55 am
Nice, Thank you for such wonderful information. I hope it would an effective project for my chem class. Thank you for sharing.
July 4th, 2012 @ 10:23 am
The earliest documentation of fireworks dates back to 7th century China…