The Science of Making Bread

Short Wave

NPR

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4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 14 April 2020

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

Social distancing has some of us taking up bread baking for the first time, including host Maddie Sofia. Chemist and baker Patricia Christie explains the science of making bread, including a few tips for when things go wrong with your bread dough. And she offers some advice for first-time bakers everywhere.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:06.0	Maddie's sify here.
0:07.0	I don't know about you, but these days I've been working hard to keep myself both occupied
0:13.5	and distracted at home.
0:15.8	Which means, yeah, I have jumped on the bread baking bandwagon.
0:20.4	I could have gone better.
0:21.4	I could have gone about 100,000 percent.
0:24.0	My first attempt at sourdough bread.
0:26.8	Okay, so you're not supposed to let it sit on here too long.
0:30.0	I gotta say, maybe it's just me.
0:32.3	But my new hobby is not easy.
0:34.9	Wow, it's amazing how it was in a nice little little.
0:38.1	Honestly, it's slowly making me question my value as a human being.
0:42.5	It's not, it's not cute.
0:44.8	We're just gonna cook that for 20 minutes and see if it looks like bread.
0:51.2	So I've called in some special reinforcement.
0:54.9	Are you ready to talk some food and some science, my two favorite things?
0:58.6	Of course.
0:59.6	Oh yes.
1:00.6	I know I am friend enemies with my treadmill now so that I can continue to eat since I am
1:06.8	not moving around as much as I used to.
1:09.4	That's Patricia Christie, a lecturer at MIT, where she teaches a course called Kitchen Chemistry.
	...

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