Category: Chemistry

Few people acknowledge the chemistry that is involved in baking—we tend to rely on recipes and simply take them for granted. After all, they work! Most recipes tell you to put a certain amount of butter, flour, eggs, and sugar, stir them, then bake. What makes a cake different than a brownie or a cookie…

It seems intuitive that a solid of a particular substance would sink when placed inside the liquid form of that substance (a solid ball of argon will sink in a bowl of liquid argon.) And yet, we have icebergs, ice sheets to skate on, and ice cubes floating at the top of our lemonades. Despite…