SP.287 homepage

Syllabus for SP.287

• Week 1
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7
• Week 8
• Week 9
• Week 10
• Week 11
• Week 12
• Week 13
• Week 14
• Week 15

SP.287 Kitchen Chemistry Seminar at MIT -Syllabus for Spring 2009

Tuesday, March 2nd- Scones and Coffee

Weekly assignment

• Take a look at the recipe
• In additional to making Scones, we are going to roast and brew several different types of coffee beans. Bring you taste buds!
• Reading assignment from the text (On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee, Hardback version (copywrite 2004), 549-50, 386-87,433-41
• Research Papers : looking at the flavor profile of coffee beans, two papers - one that looks at identifying over 65 volitile compounds, and another which developes model to test for the presence of these volitale compounds. The third paper looks at the idenification of the compound which causes coffee to become stale.

Additional reading

• What exactly is a scone suppose to be?
• Coffee
• learn all about the science of coffee (growing, harvesting, processing, etc) at the coffeeresearch.org site
• you should look at how to taste the coffee (called cupping)
• We bought our green coffee from Sweet Maria's
• The " primary objective is to bring balance to the coffee and health debate" Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee's
• Chemical reactions that happen durinng the roasting process.
• Leavening agents
• baking soda Vs. baking powder
• composition of baking powder
• Fun sites;
  • Look at the University of Guelph's Dairy Chemistry and Physic's site. Do you know the pH of milk?

Homework Questions

Scone Specific Questions:

1. How does vinegar curdle milk?
2. What is the chemical process that happens when vinegar is added to milk?
3. What happens to the sugar on top of the scone when you cook the scone?
4. Why don't you want to knead the scone dough for a long period of time?
5. Could you make this scone with baking powder instead of baking soda? If you wanted to use baking powder, what ingredient is not necessary?Why?

Coffee Specific questions

1. How and where was coffee discovered?
2. What are the two types of coffee that are extensively cultivated?
3. There are four main steps to coffee roasting, first roasting, first crack, pyrolysis, and then second crack. Please describe what is happening at each stage.
4. How much caffeine is in an average sized cup?
5. Caffeine has been described as the most widely used drug in the world. What is the main target of caffeine in the body? (think receptor/ligand interaction and identify the target receptor)
6. What happens when you stop drinking your daily coffee? why?
7. What are the three main ways that coffee can be decaffeinated?
8. What contributes chemically to the staling of coffee?

home | about | academics | community | alumni | contact

Copyright © Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Comments and questions to patti@mit.edu

Last updated: December 28, 2008