If you want to bake something with an orange flavour, recipes will more often than not, not use orange juice. Instead, you will use orange zest (or both). But why is that the case? That orange zest is actually...
Welcome to FoodCrumbles.com!
Here we love to dig just a little deeper into food and science. We explain how food is made, how it's preserved & packaged and what the role of the ingredients in your food are. We also analyze recipes, so you understand why a recipe is the way it is! Last but not least, we give you tools to develop a basic understanding of food science! Have fun browsing around and don't forget to ask a question if you can't find the answer here!
Latest articles
Food Science Basics
Just getting started in the world of food science and want to get your fundamentals straightened out? No problem, we've got a good selection of articles for you.
Lactic acid fermentation in food
Yogurt, sauerkraut, pickles, none of these products would exist without lactic acid fermentation. This is a series of chemical reactions that transforms your ingredients into something pretty different (and delicious)...
Colours in fruits & vegetables
Have you ever noticed how fruits and vegetables have a wide variety of colours? The spectrum goes from orange to purple to green to bright red. It’s amazing how nature has developed all these bright and beautiful...
Sugar cooking & Temperature stages
Whenever making caramel, marshmallows, honeycomb or just about any other sugar candy you’ll often find that recipe either tells you to boil a sugar syrup to a certain temperature. Or, they’ll tell you to...
Cake Science
Peanut butter brownies with cocoa powder
Seeing the huge number of peanut butter chocolate recipes on the internet, it just has to be a good combination. In cooking shows on tv a chocolate peanut butter dessert can give you raving reviews and even Chef Watson...
Cake donut science – How they’re made
There was a time when I thought a donut was a donut. Just a light brown fried ring with a glaze on top. Of course, there are a tons of glazes & fillings but, being non-American, I never realized there are quite...
Bread Science
10 ways to shape a bread
Have you tried making a nice round bread, only to end up with a flat, deflated disk? It just wouldn’t hold its shape, despite your care. There are several reasons as to why this might have happened: you might not...
Vegetable Science
Ice Cream Science
Philadelphia style ice cream – An eggless chocolate ice cream
Before reading the book ‘Hello, my name is ice cream‘, I had never heard of Philadelphia style ice cream. Most of the ice creams I made myself were either by making a custard which I then churn in the ice...
How ice cream is made in a factory
Whether you make one bowl of ice cream at home, or 1000 liter in a factory, the science of ice cream stays the same. You’d still want small ice crystals, to make a super smooth ice cream and you’d like to...
Meat Science
Fruit Science
Spoilage of orange juice – a lesson in microbiology
In our home we don’t drink a lot of juices or soft drinks, it’s mainly water, tea, coffee and maybe some lemonade. Nevertheless, when we have visitors we tend to stack up on some juice, often orange juice as...
Vegetable and fruit texture – On turgor and plant cells
Poached pears are soft and juicy, whereas a ripe fresh pear has a nice crunch to it. Raw carrots crunch and you need a firm bite to break a bit of, but, the carrots which have been boiling in your soup for more than an...
Cheese Science
Pie Science
Choosing & Using pears – On pear texture & pear pie
Ever wondered why there’s ample recipes for apple pies and barely any for pear pies? Besides the difference in taste and texture, it’s probably a cultural thing as well (we have >8 varieties of apples in...
On choosing & storing fresh strawberries
Summer’s there! Warm temperatures, sun and long long light days. Living in the Netherlands, summer is no guarantee for nice weather, rain and cold(er) days are no exception. Summer for me is a synonym for berries...
