Hattie McKenzie

12/07/2021

12/26/2020

Cranberry Apple Rose Custard 🥧🍎🌹

Chemical Bake-Down🧪: Although the ingredients of a custard are simple: eggs, milk and sugar, the chemistry of custards is a difficult business! The eggs are the most crucial chemical stars⭐️. So how does custard thicken? It's all in the molecular magic of egg proteins 🥚. When you heat up your batter, the yolk proteins begin to denature (around 150 F 🌡). At this temperature, the interactions that support their structure break apart, leaving a long chain of amino acids floating around. Importantly, the sugar and milk help to slow this process down to keep the chains from re-binding and coagulating too quickly, which would result in a solid interconnected mess! By coating the proteins, sugar acts as a buffer by blocking their ionic attraction to other molecules around them. This is important- in a custard, you want the egg yolks to make a minimal amount of bonds so the texture is just right 🍮.

Pro tip ✔️: When baking custards, temperature is crucial and coagulation will begin to occur around 180-185 F. To ensure your custard is baked to perfection 👌🏼 use a water 💦 bath for optimal heat transfer!

12/26/2020

❄️☃️WINTER EDITION ☃️❄️
Blueberry Snowflake Cheesecake 🍮🫐

Chemical Bake-Down 🧪: many don’t realize it... cheesecakes are just custards that happen to be made with cream cheese instead of milk. Like custards, cheesecakes rely on eggs for their thickening power🥚. Thickening occurs when raw egg proteins unwind and link together, which is exactly what happens when eggs cook🍳. Also important are the emulsifiers found in the egg yolk—lecithin and lipoproteins—these are what help give the cheesecake a smooth texture🍮.

The biggest challenge in baking cheesecakes is preventing cracks. Cheesecakes need very gentle heat to prevent the curdling. Beyond a certain heat threshold, the proteins tighten up and form curds, and if overcooked, the proteins will shrink, causing the cake to dry out and lead to cracks.

So how do I bake my cheesecakes to avoid cracking? It's all about understanding the heat transfer. The simplest way to avoid cracks is to optimize the temperature 🌡 and cooking time ⏱ , but you also can play with other variables. Sugar slows cooking by blocking the coagulation of proteins, so adding more provides an extra barrier against overcooking. Another option is to cut an egg out of the recipe. Fewer eggs means fewer proteins, a slower rate of coagulation, and slower cooking.

Here’s my scientific approach: I bake my cheesecakes at a low temperature (275 F) for 1.5-2 hours until the outer 2" are set and the center is still somewhat jiggly. Then, I turn the oven off and let it sit in the warm oven for 1 more hour. The gentle, slow cooking process ensures that there are no drastic changes to the chemistry of the batter. Finally, to prevent cracking as the cake cools, run a thin knife around the edge of the pan to loosen it from the sides, let it cool completely to room temperature, and then chill it in the refrigerator at least 8 hrs before serving.

PRO TIP ✔️: adding sour cream to your batter will result in an incredibly creamy, sensuous, luxurious combination that’s perfect for a rich dessert cheesecake 🍰🤩

12/26/2020

🎅 🎄CHRISTMAS EDITION 🎄🎅
Cranberry Apple (cinnamon) Rose Custard🌹🍎🥧

Cinnamon is always a trusty sidekick when it comes to spicing up my favorite desserts around the holiday season! 🎄 Even the smallest amount can drastically change a dish! And you bet there’s science behind cinnamon...👩🏼‍🔬🤓😋

Chemical Bake-down🧪: you might be surprised to learn that cinnamon is actually the bark of a tree🌲, and not a fruit or a seed like a lot of other spices. Because it’s made of bark, it’s composition is similar to that of tree stalks🪵, made primarily of carbohydrates (>50%) and fibers (>20%). While these molecules are what give the cinnamon bark its structure, where does that unmistakeable cinnamon flavor come from? The small percentage of the cinnamon stick that actually has that powerful cinnamon flavor is made up of the essential oils in the stick. These essential oils are a complex mixture of a lot different molecules, each with their own flavor. In the case of cinnamon, over 80% of the oil is made of cinnamaldehyde (C9H8O). Even though smelling cinnamaldehyde will make you think of cinnamon, alone It won’t make the flavor complete. A lot of other molecules are at play in producing that complex aromatic cinnamon flavor. These include eugenol, eugenal acetate, cinnamyl acetate, cinnamyl alcohol, methyl eugenol, benzaldehyde and linalool (and there are lots more!). It is this mixture of molecules that gives cinnamon its unique aromatics. (And also why general artificial flavors often fail to fully replicate the true complexity of so many spices and herbs!)

Pro tip ✔️: Add 1/2 tsp of cinnamon to your next batch of classic chocolate chip cookies 🍪! My grandma taught me this trick when I baked with her as a little girl 👧🏼👵🏼You won’t be disappointed!

09/12/2020

2020: a series brought to you by weddings, sponsored by cakes & ft. ALL the friends 🎂🌄🍾💍