Compound Interest
It’s reaching that point in the year where warm weekends mean it’s time for barbecues out in the sun. Here’s a topical graphic, featured last year in C&EN, looking at the chemistry behind barbecuing food, and the compounds behind the smoky taste and flavour. Click here to see the full graphic!
As the chemistry of chocolate is a topic that’s been pretty much exhausted on the site (see here, here, here, here, and here), for the Easter weekend we’re instead homing in on the ‘egg’ side of Easter Eggs. For such a simple staple of the kitchen, the chemistry of eggs is surprisingly complex. Here we […]
It’s been a while since the last news on the book, but it’s still very much on its way – and here’s the cover to prove it! It’s out in the UK on October 8, 2015, and it’s already available to preorder on Amazon here. A little more information follows if this is the […]
Field-grown rhubarb will shortly be coming into season and appearing in supermarkets in the UK, so it seems like a good time to take a look at the chemistry behind this odd-looking vegetable. It’s mostly used in pies and desserts, but it’s only the stalks of the plant that we eat – and there’s a […]
There’s one chemical reaction that, whether you have an interest in chemistry or not, we all carry out on a regular, maybe even daily, basis. That reaction? The Maillard Reaction. This is a process that takes place whenever you cook a range of foods – it’s responsible for the flavours in cooked meat, fried onions, […]
If you’ve ever tried your hand at jam-making, you’ll know that it’s something of a tricky process. A number of factors need to be just right to achieve a perfectly set jam – and chemistry can help explain why. There are three key chemical entities that go into jam-making: sugar, pectin, and acids. Here, we’ll […]