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A mixture of fat(mostly butter) and flour use to make a basic sauce

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When a liquid reaches a certain temperature where it turns to vapor and bubbles

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To beat or stir with a light gentle movement

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cut food into small cubes

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a rich white sauce made of a white roux and milk

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thick liquid served with food, usually savory dishes, to add moistness and flavor.

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A substance that increases the viscosity of a liquid but does not change the other properties

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A substance that flows and adds flavor to many recipes

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The chemical breakdown of a substance by yeast, bacteria, etc. involving different effervescence  and the giving off of heat

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Not being baked all the through purposely

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to cook with a little fat over high heat(ie. onion/ garlic and oil

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To mix and work into a uniform mass, as by folding, pressing , and stretching with the hand.

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A method for making American biscuits and does not require all ingredients to be at room temperature.

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Updated with a new photograph, expanded information, recipe links and shopping options on November 16, 2015

The biscuit method is a method for making quick breads such as scones and, well, biscuits. That's American biscuits, not cookie-biscuits, if you're visiting from across the Big Blue Ocean.

The biscuit method is one of the only mixing methods that does not require you to have all of your ingredients at room temperature. Your fats and liquids should be cold for the biscuit method. The colder, the better. Why? Well, the whole point of the biscuit method is to keep discrete little pieces of fat dispersed throughout your dough. That way, when they melt in the oven, the steam the little pieces creates assists in with the rise. Also, you get all of these wee little buttery pockets. I love me some biscuits.

How to Perform The Biscuit Method

So, here's how it goes.

1. Mix all your dry ingredients together with a whisk: flour, baking powder and/or baking soda, salt, sugar, dry spices, etc.

2. Cut your very cold fat into about 1/2 inch chunks (if you're using shortening, or part shortening, put that stuff in the freezer. I vote all butter, personally, for flavor and for no trans fats, but do what you want).

3. Toss the butter/shortening with the dry ingredients.

4. Using your fingers, break up the butter/shortening, rubbing it into the flour. When you're done, the pieces should be anywhere from the size of grits to the size of peas. Nothing too much bigger than a pea. If your hands are warm, throw everybody into the fridge to firm up.

5. Pour in your liquid (milk/cream/half and half/buttermilk-whatever the recipe calls for). Toss together with the dry. Don't mix viciously.

6. Turn your dough out onto a lightly floured surface and pat into a square about 1/2″ thick.

7. Cut into squares (no waste) or circles. (You can re-roll the scraps, but those biscuits will be tougher. I vote squares).

8. Brush with cream/butter/egg wash. Bake at about 400 degrees, F, until risen and golden brown and lovely.

I will now take your questions. Yes? You in the back. "Why can't I mix viciously. I need to get out my aggression."

Me: If you need to take out your aggression on something, make some bread or take a kick boxing class. You want to handle your dough gently once the liquid is in there. Biscuits are supposed to be tender, and a bunch of mixing will just activate the gluten in the flour and you'll end up with chewy biscuits.

Yes, sir. You there, in the brown sweater. "Can I use my stand mixer or food processor?"

Me: I would stay away from the food processor because it can generate a bunch of heat, and you don't want your butter to melt. You can use a mixer as long as you use the paddle attachment and stop and check the consistency and the size of your butter pieces every 30 seconds or so. You don't want to end up with paste. Once you get the liquid in there, I would take the bowl off the mixer and fold the liquid in with a spatula. You don't want to develop that gluten."

That's enough for today. Thank you all for coming.

PS The Biscuit Method is also the method most often used for making pie crust. Any time you're cutting pieces of fat into smaller pieces of fat mixed into flour and adding a little bit of liquid, you can bet your biscuit you're using The Biscuit Method.

Biscuits and other Biscuit-like items on Ye Olde Blogge that Utilize The Biscuit Method for Mixing

Here are some biscuit and pie crust recipes you might want to try out. Take a look in the instruction section of all the recipes. I'm sure you'll be able to recognize the basic method.

Pie Crust Recipes on Ye Olde Blogge that Utilize The Biscuit Method for Mixing

Shop the Method

Like most of the basic mixing methods, you don't need a ton of fancy equipment to perform them properly, but here are a few of my recommendations for baking sheets, pie plates, biscuit cutters, etc, you might find useful. These are affiliate links. Thank you for helping me keep the lights on. I appreciate the support.

First up, a bench knife is a must-have. For me, I usually cut my biscuits in squares so I don't have any dough to re-roll. A bench knife does this beautifully. As well, you'll find tons of ways to use it in performing the biscuit method and beyond. Best less-than-six dollars you will ever spend.

If you do like round biscuits, I can recommend this set of graduated cutters. Choose your biscuit size from petite to mondo to any size in between. And of course you can use them to cut cookies and pie crust, as well. If you like fluted biscuits, this set of fluted cutters also gives you a choice of size.

I love a good aluminum pie pan. Light weight, conductive so you get great browning of the bottom crust, and inexpensive What's not to love? The standard size is 9″ or you can go crazy and get a 10″ pie pan.

Last up, it's absolutely necessary to have at least one heavy-duty half-sheet pan that will not warp in the oven. I like my Nordic Ware half-sheet pan. Give it a look.

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The Biscuit Method for Making Tender Biscuits and Flaky Pie Crust

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Updated with a new photograph, expanded information, recipe links and shopping options on November 16, 2015 The biscuit method is a method for making quick breads such as scones and, well, biscuits. That's American biscuits, not cookie-biscuits, if you're visiting from across the Big Blue Ocean.

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Coating a solid fat (typically butter) with dry ingredients and blending with a pastry blender until coarse crumbs form

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Explain the function of sour cream in a baked good

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Explain the function of sour cream in a baked good

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it is an acidic ingredient to activate the leavening ingredient

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a crumbly topping or filling made from fat, flour, sugar, and often cinnamon

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hand held tool that turns solid fat into flour and also combines it

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A Pastry Blender is a hand-held tool used both to cut solid fat into flour, and to blend it in thoroughly. The fat can be lard, butter, dripping, suet, shortening or margarine.

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spreads egg wash on top of bread or glaze on top
can be made of silicone

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Brushes in the kitchen serve a multitude of purposes: they can spread egg wash or glaze on a pastry before baking, coat a piece of bread with oil or melted butter for crostini-type items, or baste meat with pan sauces or marinade. You can use them to whisk crumbs from a cake before frosting or to spread pizza sauce over dough. Small brushes can also be used to apply water or egg wash as a seal to the edges of dough for ravioli, dumplings, and turnovers. You should have a couple of different brushes in your repertoire, keeping the ones used for sweet and savory applications separate... after all, you wouldn't want your sweet pastry to taste like the garlicky marinade you used for last night's chicken, would you?

Keep these tips in mind while selecting pastry and basting brushes for your kitchen:

Silicone-bristled brushes are easy to clean, but are best for thicker sauces, such as barbecue sauce.

Thin liquids like olive oil, vinegar-based marinades or butter will get a better application with a paintbrush-style brush that has finer bristles, such as natural boar bristles or the synthetic version.

Some brushes, such as those with silicone bristles, are dishwasher-safe.

Paintbrush-style brushes (i.e. natural boar bristles), particularly those with wooden handles, should be hand-washed; work liquid detergent and warm water into the bristles, rinse well, squeeze the excess water from the bristles, and air-dry, bristle side up, in a small glass. Keep in mind that natural bristles can shed, and need to be replaced eventually as the bristles get residue build-up.

Some brushes are self-basting, with a hollow handle that can be filled with your basting sauce. While these are convenient, they might be more difficult to clean and to control the amount of liquid used, than an ordinary brush.

Keep your brushes used for sweet and savory applications separate by labeling them with a permanent marker.

Take a look at the wide variety of culinary brushes available for every need.

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Brushes in the kitchen serve a multitude of purposes: they can spread egg wash or glaze on a pastry before baking, coat a piece of bread with oil or melted butter for crostini-type items, or baste meat with pan sauces or marinade.

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The muffin method is a basic combing technique.

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No it's not some odd, pastry-based form of birth control. It's one of the simpler of the Big Five mixing methods, something every baker should know. Simply put, the Muffin Method is a technique whereby two mixes are created: a mix of wet ingredients (eggs, soft or liquid fat, milk and sugar) and a mix of dry ingredients (flour, leavening and flavorings like cocoa powder). Once they are prepared - and the oven is preheated - the two are combined and stirred together very briefly before the finished batter is panned and baked.

So what are the advantages of the Muffin Method for making things like muffins? Chiefly tenderness, since so little blending leads very little activated gluten, as well as larger pockets of fat which tend to make a crumb, well...crumble.

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No it's not some odd, pastry-based form of birth control. It's one of the simpler of the Big Five mixing methods, something every baker should know. Simply put, the Muffin Method is a technique whereby two mixes are created: a mix of wet ingredients (eggs, soft or liquid fat, milk and sugar) and a mix of dry ingredients (flour, leavening and flavorings like cocoa powder).

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Scoops batter and other items to make each one even in size so bake in eve

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Make Cooking Easier with Dishers and Scoops, Essential Tools in Every Kitchen

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Dishers are used for scooping ice cream, cookie dough, portioning muffin batter and serving.

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Cookies dropped on a pan with a spoon with the basic ingredients to make a regular batter. Normally soft but strong enough to hold a shape

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Cookies that are made by dropping a spoonful of batter onto a baking pan are called drop cookies. The batter for these types of cookies is usually soft, but stiff enough to hold their shape when dropped onto the pan. While cooking, the batter will spread out and flatten to form the popular circle cookie shape. The word cookie is commonly used in the United States and Canada, but these sweet treats are often referred to as biscuits in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries.

The batter is basically the same for all drop cookies, and consists of flour, sugar, eggs, and oil or butter. The baker can add additional ingredients to the batter to create one of the many varieties of drop cookies, such as chocolate chip, oatmeal, and rock cakes. The most famous drop cookie is probably the Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie, which was invented in Whitman, Massachusetts, in the 1930s. Ruth Wakefield, owner of the Toll House Inn, ran out of baking chocolate for her chocolate dough drop cookies and used chopped up chocolate bars instead.

No bake cookies, which usually require refrigeration instead of baking, are another variation of the classic drop cookie. The name indicates that no baking is required, but some recipes may instruct the baker to heat up or melt some of the ingredients in a pan during the preparation and batter mixing process. Peanut butter cookies are a popular example of a no bake cookie. Most peanut butter drop cookie recipes call for the baker to heat up all the ingredients in a pan on top of the stove prior to adding the peanut butter. After the peanut butter is mixed in, the dough is dropped onto a pan or plate and placed into the refrigerator for a few hours or overnight.

The origin of the cookie is steeped in history. Biscuits were part of ancient Roman army rations because they were portable, durable, and did not spoil quickly. This dense bread-like food gradually evolved into small cakes and wafers. Today, most English speaking countries still use the traditional word biscuit to define these small desserts. In the 1600s, America was introduced to cookies by early English and Dutch immigrants. The Dutch term for cookie is koekjes, which means "little cake," and became the word "cookie" in the United States.

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Cookies that are made by dropping a spoonful of batter onto a baking pan are called drop cookies. The batter for these types of cookies is usually soft, but stiff enough to hold their shape when dropped onto the pan. While cooking, the batter will spread out and flatten to form the popular circle cookie shape.

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Cookies that have been molded into shapes interesting shapes when in dough form

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Definition of molded cookie - Food Dictionary - Cooking For Engineers

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Have an analytical mind? Like to cook? This is the site to read!

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Cookies that are cut into bars that may have multiple layers

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Baking 101 - Bar Cookies | QuakerOats.com

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A potluck staple, bar cookies (or bars) are made from a batter or stiff dough that is poured or pressed into a baking pan or baking dish, then baked, cooled and cut into bars, squares or diamonds. Bars can be single-layered (like brownies) or multi-layered - with cake-like or chewy textures.

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Dry, powdery, acidic powder that is used to speed up the creation of foam and stabilizes the minuscule air bubbles in a structured

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Cream of tartar is one of those mystery ingredients you might have seen in your grandma's pantry without knowing what it's used for. After all, its name doesn't give you a clue-not like baking powder or baking soda. Yet just a touch of it makes a big difference in your baking and cooking. Here's what it is and how to use it in recipes, and even around the house. #multitasker

What is cream of tartar?

First of all, it's not creamy. It's a dry, powdery, acidic byproduct of fermenting grapes into wine. Its sciency name is potassium bitartrate, aka potassium hydrogen tartrate or tartaric acid (hence the name). But you can find it in the spice aisle labeled as plain ol' cream of tartar.

What is cream of tartar for?

Adding a small amount of cream of tartar when you're beating egg whites-usually 1/8 teaspoon per egg white-speeds up the creation of foam and helps stabilize the structure of those miniscule air bubbles you're whipping up. In baking, this means mile-high meringue pies, melt-in-your-mouth meringue cookies, and angel food cakes that practically float off the plate.

Why is cream of tartar in snickerdoodle cookies?

It's what separates a tangy, chewy snickerdoodle from an ordinary cinnamon-coated sugar cookie. The acid in cream of tartar gives snickerdoodles their distinctive tangy flavor, and the chew happens because cream of tartar prevents sugar in the cookie dough from crystalizing into crunchiness. Science!

How else is cream of tartar used in recipes?

When combined with baking soda, it becomes a leavening agent (the stuff that makes baked goods puff up in the oven) by producing carbon dioxide gas. If you ever run out of baking powder, you can substitute 1/4 teaspoon baking soda plus 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar for 1 teaspoon baking powder.

Add a pinch of cream of tartar to boiling vegetables to help them retain their bright, fresh color.

A pinch of cream of tartar also helps stabilize whipped cream to prevent it from deflating.

Make colorful, edible play dough!

What can I substitute for cream of tartar?

Use 2 teaspoons lemon juice or vinegar to create the acidic effect of 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar in a recipe.

What is cream of tartar's shelf-life?

Cream of tartar keeps its freshness indefinitely, as long as you store it in a cool, dry spot. When in doubt, you can test it by looking at it and smelling it. It should look white and powdery, and it should smell mildly acidic.

How else is it used around the house?

Cream of tartar makes an effective non-toxic household cleaner all by itself or combined with other earth-friendly kitchen ingredients such as lemon juice or vinegar. Try these ideas:

Metal polish: Add water to make a paste to polish stainless steel and aluminum. This also removes scratches on white bowls and plates caused by knives and forks.

Copper polish: Add lemon juice in a 1:1 mixture. Rub on, rinse off.

Poreclain sink, tub, toilet scrub: Add distilled white vinegar in a 1:1 solution.

All-purpose scrub: Add distilled white vinegar in a 4:1 solution (i.e., 1 cup vinegar to 1/4 cup cream of tartar). This also cleans stainless steel sinks like nobody's business.

Related

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Cream of Tartar: What It Is and How to Use It - Allrecipes Dish

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Cream of tartar is one of those mystery ingredients you might have seen in your grandma's pantry without knowing what it's used for. After all, its name doesn't give you a clue-not like baking powder or baking soda. Yet just a touch of it makes a big difference in your baking and cooking.

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" "Folding" is a more gentle mixing technique than "stirring" and "mixing". Stirring and mixing both denote a more vigorous action.Folding is usually used for items where something has previously been whipped (such as egg whites or cream) or where tenderness is desired and thus less mixing is advisable (muffins & biscuits).Folding is usually done with a rubber spatula (for liquid & dry ingredients) or with a wire whisk (often beneficial for whipped cream and egg whites so that the mixture gently incorporates as it falls through the wires)."
!!!THIS QUOTE WAS TAKEN FROM THE SITE BELOW!!!

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Thanks for contributing an answer to Seasoned Advice!

Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!

Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.

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To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.

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What does it mean to "fold in" an ingredient into a mix?

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Thanks for contributing an answer to Seasoned Advice! Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research! Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers. Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience. To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.

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Softens fat by sugar particles cutting through the butter creating little air holes in the mixture

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Creaming method- BakeInfo (Baking Industry Research Trust)

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Also known as the 'sugar-shortening' method, the sugar and shortening fat are blended together first and then creamed by added mixing. During creaming, small air cells are formed and then

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Sugar turning brown  through heat
Also changes flavor of sugar

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Caramelization (strictly speaking) is the process of sugar turning brown through heat being applied. Water may or may not be added.

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small simultaneous chemical reaction to the proteins and sugar with your meal are transformed in aroma, flavor and color

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If you're a regular reader of Serious Eats, you've definitely seen us refer to the Maillard reaction time and again. That's because the Maillard reaction is responsible for the browned, complex flavors that make bread taste toasty and malty, burgers taste charred, and coffee taste dark and robust. If you plan on cooking tonight, chances are you'll be using the Maillard reaction to transform your raw ingredients into a better sensory experience.

But the Maillard reaction doesn't just make food taste delicious. Understanding the reaction, even on a surface level (that's a Maillard pun, and you'll totally get it soon), is a gateway to understanding the chemical and physical processes of cooking. Grasping the variables involved and learning how to manipulate them is one of the best ways to become a more confident cook-it's the difference between being a slave to a recipe and being free to make a recipe work for you.

The good news is that the Maillard reaction is everywhere, which means plenty of chances to practice and learn. We use it so often that it's easy to forget it's there, but when it's missing, you'll certainly notice. Imagine a steak that tastes boiled instead of roasted, or a stir-fry that tastes more like a stir-steam. Each one represents a missed opportunity to exploit the Maillard reaction's potential.

So, What Is the Maillard Reaction?

The Maillard reaction is complex. So complex, in fact, that it's only in the last few years that scientists have begun to figure out what it actually is. While they still don't entirely understand it, they do know the basics: The Maillard reaction is many small, simultaneous chemical reactions that occur when proteins and sugars in and on your food are transformed by heat, producing new flavors, aromas, and colors.

Practically speaking, the Maillard reaction makes food more enticing to us humans, encouraging us to dig into a steak, drink a coffee, or chug a beer.* Unlike all the other omnivores prowling this earth, we no longer tend to find a hunk of raw cow shoulder particularly appetizing. But if that same muscle is ground up, formed into patties, and seared on a flattop, we'll eagerly line up around the block. In large part, that's because we have evolved to respond to two important signals when encountering food. The first is a "nutrition" signal that tells us the food will deliver a hefty dose of easily digestible calories, vitamins, and minerals. The second is a "general harmlessness" signal that tells us the food won't kill us. The Maillard reaction is evolution's way of combining these two signals into one super-signal, specific to the roasty or browned flavors of cooked food.
* Yes, even beer undergoes the Maillard reaction-when the grains are roasted prior to brewing.
All that cooking we've come to seek out is, at its heart, the process of applying heat to food over a period of time. If all goes well, it also makes you hungry. A burger, to extend our example, is composed of a basic set of building blocks: proteins, sugars, and water. The Maillard reaction is what can happen to those proteins and sugars when heat and time are added to the equation.

Long story short: With the right amount of heat, moisture, and time, those specific sugars and proteins will act like a couple of lust-drunk lovers making out in the back of a Chevy, rapidly becoming a tangled, hot mess, until, nine months later, a whole new creation emerges. Except that with the proteins and sugars, it takes minutes, not months, and instead of a child, the result is an increasingly complex array of flavor and aroma molecules, along with a darker color courtesy of newly formed edible pigment molecules called melanoidins.

Heat, Moisture, and Time

The first thing you need for the Maillard reaction to take place is heat. A steak left to sit on the counter for a week at room temperature will certainly undergo some chemical changes, but the Maillard won't be one of them.

That steak doesn't just need heat, though-it needs a relatively high level of it if you want surface browning to kick in. Boiling water, which tops out at 212°F (100°C) at sea level, isn't hot enough. That's why a boiled steak turns gray instead of dark brown, exciting the palate of exactly no one.

The Maillard can work at lower temperatures, and with a lot more water. If you cook a chicken or beef or vegetable stock at a bare simmer for eight or 12 hours, the result is still a brown, fragrant liquid-a dead giveaway that the Maillard has occurred.

But most of us aren't cooking stocks for that many hours, and none of us are boiling a steak for anywhere close to that period of time. Instead, we're roasting, frying, and grilling. These cooking processes happen relatively fast, in minutes rather than hours, and for the Maillard to happen quickly, we need to drive off enough moisture to break free of that 212° cap.

By cooking a steak in a ripping-hot skillet, you can dehydrate its surface thoroughly enough that the temperatures on that surface will begin to climb, to upwards of 300°F (149°C). At that point, the Maillard reaction will kick into full gear, creating new flavors, aromas, and the characteristic brown colors that give the reaction its more commonplace name, the "browning reaction."

This is why it can be a smart move to pat your meat dry with towels or let it dry in the fridge for several hours before you cook it. It's also why you should salt your meat either more than 45 minutes in advance of cooking (allowing enough time for the salt to draw out moisture through osmosis from the meat, which then reabsorbs that salty brine, turning the meat more tender and moist) or immediately before (allowing you to avoid significant moisture loss through osmosis altogether). Ideally, you'll have enough time to combine the two using a technique called dry-brining: salting the meat generously, then letting it air-dry in the fridge at least overnight and up to a few days before cooking. You'll end up with meat that's deeply seasoned while also sporting a nicely dried surface, perfectly primed for maximum Maillard once roasted or seared.

Proteins and Sugars

Heat, moisture, and time may be key to getting the Maillard reaction going, but without proteins and sugars to work with, it simply won't happen. Proteins are long chains of amino acids, crumpled up like wads of paper. Some of them are Maillard-susceptible, meaning they really love to bond with sugars. But not just any sugar will do. Molecules of complex sugars, like starches or table sugars, are too big to react with Maillard proteins. Instead, these proteins require "reducing sugars," which are essentially simple sugars that attract amino acids at certain moisture and temperature levels.

That's a critical point: The Maillard reaction starts with a somewhat limited set of proteins and sugar molecules, and, as these bond and mix over time, more and more new molecules are added to the equation. It's kind of an incestuous molecular orgy, when you stop to think about it. (Gross! And also...yum!) These promiscuous molecules mix and match over and over, billions and trillions of times per second, on the surface of a food, forming a growing, recursive, recombinatory aroma and flavor engine.

This engine is influenced by temperature, time, and pH-all things that home cooks can control. If you want to make lots of flavor and aroma compounds, just raise the pH a little with baking soda (as Kenji does to make quick-caramelized onions for his Pressure Cooker French Onion Soup). Looking for a crisp, browned crust? Just lower the pH with a little acid, or increase the temperature. Want a little of both? Frying in fats gives you the best of both worlds.

But...Why Do We Like It?

Let's think about the humble potato for a moment. A raw potato, most of us would agree, is pretty unappealing. Sure, you can eat a raw potato, and it won't hurt you-after all, it's just a large lump of concentrated starch, and starch is energy that's essential to our survival. But, thanks to the twists and turns of our evolution, we humans can no longer efficiently digest that raw spud. Our digestive system would struggle to break down a potato's complex starches into simpler ones, and it would fail to extract many of the nutrients hidden inside. Cooking breaks down the starches and unlocks those nutrients, improving their ability to be absorbed into our bodies.

When we cut up a potato and then roast it, a sequence of events takes place. First, the water on the exposed surfaces mostly boils off, bursting the starches open into a fluffy mass and breaking them down into simpler sugars. As the heat on those surfaces increases due to the loss of water, the proteins and broken-down sugars begin to break down even more, then recombine. A familiar faint-brown color emerges on the surface of each potato chunk. Some of the various protein-sugar molecules created on the surface of the now-cooked potato will lift off into the hot air above the pan, wafting toward your nose. That smell of roasted potatoes tells your body that it's in the presence of a food that can provide it with nutrients it not only needs but can readily use. Take a bite, and your mouth confirms-it's delicious.

Now, I can see some of you in the back saying, "Wait a minute-mashed potatoes are my fave, and they aren't Maillard-ed at all!" You make an important point: Boiled and steamed potatoes, because of the high volume of water present during those relatively short cooking processes, do not undergo the Maillard reaction, yet can still produce delicious results. I'd argue, though, that these potatoes only really become delicious once they're mixed with some other source of flavor and aroma, like butter. Butter's main flavor molecule is called butyric acid, and butyrates, it just so happens, are also the primary aroma molecules produced by the Maillard reaction when meats are roasted. Almost always, the path leads back to the Maillard reaction.

There's More to Maillard Than Just Maillard

Here's the next thing you need to know: The Maillard reaction isn't the only reaction that can happen to those building blocks of protein, sugar, and water-and, depending on the ratios of those building blocks, you can get different effects out of the Maillard reaction itself.

Cookie dough, for example, is made up of the same building blocks as a steak. What differentiates the two is the proportions: A steak is obviously much higher in protein, while cookies have a lot more sugar. This has a profound effect not only on the way in which the Maillard reaction occurs, but also on the degree to which these foods experience other, related reactions, like caramelization.

Caramelization is what occurs when sugars are heated and begin to react with water in a process known as hydrolysis, breaking down and reforming into a complex, sweet, nutty, and slightly bitter substance known as... caramel. I like to think of caramelization as a first cousin to the Maillard reaction. When protein levels are low, sugar levels are high, and the temperature is north of 350°F (177°C)-such as in a batch of cookies baking in the oven-caramelization becomes a much more prominent factor. Like the Maillard reaction, caramelization also produces a darker color and more complex flavor, which is one of the reasons the two are often mistaken for each other.

Keep in mind that, though different, these reactions are not mutually exclusive. Both the Maillard reaction and caramelization can and do take place in both a steak and a cookie, but they produce markedly different, often complementary, flavors and aromas in each.

A steak is made of muscle, which is mostly protein and water and comparatively little sugar; the high concentration of protein leads to a Maillard reaction that yields more flavor molecules and fewer aromatic ones. Cookies, on the other hand, are the opposite: With a high volume of sugar and relatively little protein, the Maillard reaction produces more aromatic compounds and fewer flavor molecules.

On the other hand, because cookies have more sugar, they also undergo more robust caramelization, which contributes flavors that the Maillard reaction didn't. The steak, meanwhile, is short on Maillard-produced aromas, but thankfully, the scent of its lightly singed fat does the trick, contributing the aroma it might otherwise have lacked. The ability to leverage both of these processes can help us create more delicious food.

My grandfather used to say that cooking by recipes alone would have never given us the magic that is chicken and waffles. Sure, a recipe can show you how to make each one separately, but it's experimentation that taught us that putting both together tastes better. Knowledge of the Maillard reaction reveals my grandfather was even more right than he knew. Chicken and waffles go so well together because they are the perfect combination of different kinds of Maillard reactions. In the waffles, it's a sugar-heavy Maillard that's high on aroma and low on flavor; in the protein-heavy chicken, it's the opposite. Together, slathered in maple syrup (hello, caramelization!), you have an ideal science-driven meal just begging to be consumed.

It's another reminder that cooking is just edible science-the Maillard reaction is our geeky foundation, recipes our experiments, and you, our scientist, whose sustenance, satisfaction, and, ultimately, survival depend on the results.

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An Introduction to the Maillard Reaction: The Science of Browning, Aroma, and Flavor

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If you're a regular reader of Serious Eats, you've definitely seen us refer to the Maillard reaction time and again. That's because the Maillard reaction is responsible for the browned, complex flavors that make bread taste toasty and malty, burgers taste charred, and coffee taste dark and robust.