Feb. 3, 2009 - Science in the Kitchen
We had some science in the kitchen yesterday. I found a cool website that had some experiments that I wanted to do with the kids. The first one we did was called 'Great Balls of Gluten.' We experimented with different kinds of flour to determine which kinds contained more gluten. We learned that gluten is like a balloon that holds the gases in the bread as it rises. Different types of flours contain different amounts of gluten. Flours used for pastries have very little gluten. Whole wheat flour contains much more. We only had two types of flour on hand so we experimented with whole wheat flour (freshly milled) and white flour. We put 1 c of each flour in a separate bowl. We then added 3/4 c water and kneaded to make a soft, rubbery ball. We let the dough rest for 10 min. and then held the ball of dough under cold tap water. The starch in the dough began to wash away and we were left with a dough that was stringy and web-like. This was the gluten. The kids all hypothesized that the whole wheat dough would have more gluten than the white flour and their experiments supported their hypotheses. We baked the balls of gluten at 450 degrees for 10 min. The balls hardened and expanded slightly. This is exactly what the gluten does in bread.
They had fun getting their hands messy!
