Science of Milk Explained in One Image (Infographic)

The science of food is fascinating. Whether it is while baking a cake or frying a steak, I keep on looking into the science of my food. In order to do that best, you should understand the science of your ingredients! Today we’ll be discussing milk using an infographic summarizing the most important milk science.

Of course, ‘regular’ milk starts with a farm and a cow (or many). Once you’ve collected the milk, further processing can start. Processing of cow’s milk is highly interesting and complex process. Milk contains mostly water besides protein, fat and sugar (lactose). When processing milk the processing companies will want to use as much of the milk in a financially attractive way. The infographic gives you a nice overview. Of course, there are a lot of posts on this blog which talk about milk. Here are several suggestions to improve your understanding for the role of milk in foods even better.

Milk forms the basis for a lot of different products: the fat is used for making butter and cream (also clotted cream, a famous part of a British high tea). The proteins play an essential role in making cheese, which you can also do at home, paneer is a simple make at home type of cheese. When making creme patissier or most other milk puddings you will notice that a layer can be formed on top of the product, the so-called skin. That’s also milk in action.