Yesterday’s bake was a quasi-experiment. It was combination of scientific method and curiosity that yielded tasty results. I whipped up 30 naan breads and filled four of my five trials with a different vegetable combination. The control trial had no filling. Now, reading this you might be thinking, “Jonny, why did you spend four hours yesterday […]

The post The Mystery of Naan (Update #8) appeared first on Upperclass Monroe Scholars Summer Research Projects.

Yesterday’s bake was over in a flash! After spending entire days on the 6 classic yeasted breads that I baked before this 7th experiment, I was shocked to be pretty much done with my Irish Soda Breads after just two and a half hours. The reason for this time reduction was not due to any sort […]

The post The Effect of Kneading Time on Irish Soda Bread Structure (Update #7) appeared first on Upperclass Monroe Scholars Summer Research Projects.

Look, I’m going to level with you. This experiment did not yield the quantitative data typical of a food science project. Instead, my main goal during this bake was to see if using different varieties of potatoes in a classic yeasted loaf would change any/all of the qualitative aspects of the bread itself. I used russet […]

The post The Effect of Using Different Types of Potatoes on Irish Freckle Bread Quality (Update #6) appeared first on Upperclass Monroe Scholars Summer Research Projects.

Hello all! This week’s first bake was the classic sandwich loaf! The sandwich loaf is a surprisingly time-consuming creation that doesn’t get made in the home very much anymore due to the proliferation of store-bought breads that fill millions of lunchboxes around the nation every single day. One of the quickest and most scrumptious meals […]

The post The Effect of Various Flours on the Classic Sandwich Loaf (Update #4) appeared first on Upperclass Monroe Scholars Summer Research Projects.

Pumpernickel is a dark, molasses-based loaf that retains a note of sweetness without compromising the deep flavor of other supporting ingredients (unsweetened chocolate, cornmeal, caraway seeds, and mashed potatoes). The relatively bizarre mixture of ingredients that go into making a stellar pumpernickel are manipulated by first mixing most of them together under low heat on […]

The post The Effect of Flour Ratios on Pumpernickel Air Pockets (Update #3) appeared first on Upperclass Monroe Scholars Summer Research Projects.

Yesterday I finished up baking my 12 loaves of challah and took measurements for each trial. Over a period of 6 hours I prepared 6 different batches of dough (one extra because I forgot to vary anything in the second batch that I prepared – so, hey, extra control data and extra yummy bread) which […]

The post The Effect of Egg Treatment on Challah Density (Update #2) appeared first on Upperclass Monroe Scholars Summer Research Projects.

The baker in me has been on a golden-crusted rollercoaster of emotions for the past three days. Promising myself that I would start my bread science research project after my sister moved to Paris, I felt a sense of both eagerness and loneliness as I returned home from the airport as the only child in the house. Then […]

The post Pitas and Pocket Size (Update #1) appeared first on Upperclass Monroe Scholars Summer Research Projects.

Food science is a burgeoning field that draws from a variety of “traditional” scientific disciplines such as biology, chemical engineering, and biochemistry in an attempt to better understand food processes and ultimately improve food products for the general public. In my project, I will focus on combining traditional home baking with the scientific method in […]

The post Abstract: Bread Science appeared first on Upperclass Monroe Scholars Summer Research Projects.

“Risky Food: Understanding Potentially Disadvantageous Taiwanese Food Trade Restrictions.” I plan to research two cases in which Taiwanese fears about the safety of imported food led to trade restrictions. In the first case, fears of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) and the food additive ractopamine led to restrictions on US beef. Restrictions have been […]

The post Risky Food: Abstract appeared first on Freshman Monroe Scholars Summer Research Projects.

Apologies for the delayed posting of my first blog! Since I’m both researching and interning in Washington D.C. this summer, I’m dynamically learning about time management, work-based harmony, and task completion. This blog post details the research I conducted in the first three weeks of May. Since my research process is segmented around my internship, […]