Learn the science behind:
The starting point of your food: the INGREDIENTS. They’re key to making a successful product, so you’d better understand them. What they’re made of, how they work, and what to look out for when choosing just exactly which ingredient to use.
Long before kale was a super food, and a real hit in foodie land, we Dutch used to eat it all the time during the winter months. We’d use it to make ‘boerenkoolstamppot’ which is mashed potatoes mixed with lightly…
Should you buy a banana ripe or unripe? And what about strawberries? Or pineapple, avocado, green beans or Brussels sprouts? Your first reaction might be that it depends. It can depend on when you’ll be eating it. If you don’t…
Ever seen a blueberry pancake recipe and transferred it into a banana one? Or saw this cool new cake flavour that you applied on ice cream? A lot of product and recipe development starts this way. You see an interesting…
Have you ever looked closely at the label of your ice cream containers? If you did, you might have noticed ingredients on there that you don’t normally use when making ice cream at home. Often, these are called emulsifiers and…
Whoever decided to make red velvet cake must have had some strong bright red color at hand. Red velvet cakes also contain a good amount of dark brown cocoa powder. It’s not easy to color these products red. Unless, that is,…
When entering the cookie isle in most large American supermarkets you will probably run into this large blue section, full of similar packages. Full of Oreo cookies. It’s one of the biggest cookie brands in the US and has claimed…
One of the challenges of homemade ice cream is to make the ice cream scoopable, straight from the freezer. Often, ice creams tend to become really hard in the freezer, requiring either patience, or a microwave (30s at 360W) to…
Sugars are hot nowadays. Is it still ok to eat sugars? Should you eat honey instead of regular sugar? Or would it be better to stick to maple syrup or dates in your pies? And what about those (artificial) sweeteners,…
Carrots are orange, aren’t they? No, not necessarily! Purple and yellow carrots are a relatively new variation of carrots in our supermarket (at least in my perception, until I found out it’s actually the purple ones that were there before…
Colour is so important in food. A colour can make or break a food (or drink for that matter). But it also gives you a cue as to what flavours to expect. Research has shown repeatedly that the colour of…
Who doesn’t like bubbly, melty, brown cheese on top of a pizza, lasagna, quiche or just about anything else? Even though I’m not the biggest melted cheese fan (I prefer a good Dutch or French cheese, at room temperature), it…
In some cases, making and using fresh homemade pasta is worth it. In lasagna for instance where the pasta will actually absorb some of those sauces and doesn’t need as long to cook in the oven if it’s fresh. However,…