• Question: What is the science of toast?

    Asked by katie29 to Cathal, Daphne, Darren, Jon, Katherine on 13 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Jon Benton

      Jon Benton answered on 11 Mar 2012:

      Well if you want to know why bread becomes toast it is a process known as the Maillard reaction.

      A sugar in the bread reacts with an amino acid under the heat from the toaster or grill and forms an irreversible reaction or caramelises the bread to give it that toasted colour and flavour. Each different type of food will break down into many different compounds under heat which creates the different colours and flavours of a variety of different products.

      This is why breads, cakes and doughnuts are all brown but taste completely different!

    • Photo: Darren Logan

      Darren Logan answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      A couple of years ago some scientists tried to come up with a mathamatical formula for the best toast.

      Its quite complicated, but the summary was that the bread needed to be heated to at least 120°C. The butter should be cold, used straight from the fridge. It should also be applied unevenly within 2 minutes of the bread coming out of the toaster. Most importantly, the amount of butter used should be about one-seventeenth of the thickness of the bread.

Comments