The Chemistry of Chocolate Chip Cookies

Introduction

My project was done on Chocolate Chip Cookies. There are several reasons for why I choose to do chocolate chip cookies, one is because I love chocolate chip cookies, my mom makes the best! And another is because I was curious what happens when we put these little balls of dough in the oven and they come out flat delicious cookies. My life is affected by chocolate chip cookies because I would have never know why everyone loves these delicious things that are greatly amazing.

Composition of ...

• Crisco: 1 c
• White sugar: ¾ c
• Brown sugar: ¾ c
• Vanilla:½ T
• Eggs:2
• Flour:2 ¼ c
• Salt: 1t
• Baking Soda: 1t
• Chocolate chips:2 c
• This is what my mom and I use to make the best chocolate chip cookies in the world.

Main Chemicals, Compounds, Components

-Flour:

how: wheat was grinded up, first with the Romans. Then it went to England in 1879. In 1930s, flour became enriched with iron, niacin, thiamine, and riboflavin. 1940s, mills start to enrich flour and folic acid was added to the list in the 1990s

what: wheat has been grinded up to make flour

when: 6000BC

why: staple in our diet, its a grain

where: Roman, then England

-Sugar:

how: sugar remained unimportant until the indians discovered methods of turing sugarcane juice into graduated crystals that were easier to store and to transport

what: sugar is from a plant called sugar cane, the world had sugar cane plants all over the globe. They used to have blacks pick it as part of their labor.

when: ancient times and middle ages(8th century)

why: for sweetness(people used just chew raw sugarcane to extract the sweetness)

where: South Asia and southeast Asia (China)

Chemistry's Role

• Sugar:
  • is naturally made, it is not made in a lab or by man, but when we cook it is man made is when we dye the sugar
• Flour:
  • is naturally made, but when we use it in baking, it is man made.
• Baking Soda:
  • the chemistry behind baking soda is that it has chemical reactions with brown sugar, cocoa, and chocolate(in chocolate chip cookies) there are more but that is just in chocolate chip cookies. Baking soda is also man made in the way that we use it(baking cookies and other goodies).
• Flour/ Sugar:
  • Combines proteins with the sugar. Makes the dough stinky, which helps with the rising of the dough.
  • proteins and sugars break down and rearrange so that it’s forming a ring like structures.
• The real live chemistry of baking chocolate chip cookies
  • The video:
    • when dough reaches 92 degrees F, butter inside melts causing the dough to spread out and triple in volume.
    • butter: an emulsion- mixture of 2 substances that don't want to stay together (water and fat)
    • at 144 degrees F protein starts to change- come from eggs in dough
    • water boils away at 212 degrees F, gets dries out, cracks emerge across the surface of the cookie, stream then evaporates
    • after steam evaporates, leaving behind air pockets that makes the cookies flakey, sodium bicarbonate( baking soda-NaHCO3) to help with the process of flaking: sodium bicarbonate reacts with acids in dough to create carbon dioxide gas (makes airy pockets in cookie)
    • 310 degrees F, (tasty reactions) maillard reactions proteins and sugars break down and rearrange forming ring like structures, reflects light giving them the rich brown color, aroma and color
    • Caramelization is the last reaction that takes place in our cookies
    • caramelization sugar molecules breaking down under heat
    • 350 degrees:caramelization won’t happen( not all the time)
    • 356 degrees:caramelization happens(but in my mom’s over carmelization happens)

Background Research

• Gave me info about the person who invented the chocolate chip cookie
  • Ruth Wakefield:
    • graduated from Framingham State normal School Department of HouseHold Arts,1924 was when she graduated.
    • Worked at Toll House Inn, she baked, her and her husband bought the Toll house inn.
    • recipe was originally butter drop do cookies.
    • She substituted baker’s chocolate for semi-sweet chocolate bar but the chocolate bar didn’t melt it simply softened.
• place of origin
  • United States at a Toll House Inn that was run by Ruth Wakefield and her husband. Accidently invented in 1930.
• What is it?
  • A object of deliciousness, a chocolate chip cookie
• What is it made of? Does it have a food label?
  • carbon
  • oxygen
  • hydrogen
  • sodium
  • sulfur
  • chlorine
• What chemicals are in it?
  • salt(NaCl)
  • eggs(C720H1134N218S50241)
  • sugar: C12H22O11
  • Vanilla: C8H8O3
  • Flour: C 6H10O5
  • baking soda: NaHCO3
  • Crisco:
    • soybean oil
    • palm oil
    • monoglycerides
    • diglycerides(C3H6) or (2OH)
    • TBHQ( C10H14O2)
    • citric acid (C6H8O7)
• List all of the components of your ... (everything it is made of [ex. sucrose, lactose, polyvinyl-chloride, etc])
  • salt
  • eggs
  • baking soda
  • vanilla
  • sugar(sucrose)
  • flour
  • crisco

Resources

-http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/12/03/248347009/cookie-baking-chemistry-how-to-engineer-your-perfect-sweet-treat

-the real chem behind Chocolate chip cookies

-http://inventors.about.com/od/wstartinventors/a/Chocolate_Chip.htm

-who invented chocolate chip cookies and how

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate_chip_cookie

-where the cookies were invented and who and how

-http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/571880/sugar

what is sugar

-http://www.chemicalformula.org/baking-soda

chemical formula for baking soda

-http://www.ask.com/question/what-is-the-chemical-compound-of-flour

chemical formula for flour

-http://www.ask.com/question/what-is-the-chemical-formula-for-vanilla

chemical formula for vanilla

-http://www.ask.com/question/chemical-formula-for-eggs

chemical formula for eggs

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