Mmmmm..... Food.....

It's been a fun week of light-hearted general awesomeness, but unfortunately no time for videos.  Instead, we have lots of awesome FOOOOOD!!!!  Yuuuummmm!!!

We decided last Thursday (4/11) that pizza would be fun, namely scratch-made pizza.  Because AWESOME!!!  That's why.  Anyway, the great thing about pizza is that there is a fair amount of our wondrous SCIENCE!!!, as well.

Yeast is frequently used in baking to make doughs (any bread-like dough, including pizza) RISE.  Not zombie style, but literal growth.  The yeast used generates alcohol and carbon dioxide (see below) during anaerobic respiration or CO2 and water during (normal) aerobic respiration.  Any alcohol gets burned off during cooking while the carbon dioxide remains and forms bubbles in the crust.  Hence why breads and pizzas tend to be light and appear to have holes when the crust is cut.  Cakes and most other desserts remain comparatively dense, as yeast is not used and, thus, no CO2 is formed.  Some desserts, such as soufflés  do increase in size, but that's due to heat, not so much air within the product.

Example of aerobic respiration used by yeast and (when oxygen is not available), us.  Though we make lactic acid, not ethanol, as a byproduct.

As a final SCIENCE!!!! note, the same yeast is often used in beer production.  The difference?  Respiration: during dough making, the yeast gets oxygen, so it makes CO2 and water, like us.  Even if oxygen is depleted, any ethanol generated is burned off and the yeast all die during cooking at 425 degrees.  For beer (or any other yeast using alcohol) they are purposely deprived of oxygen, forcing generation of ethanol, and the temperature does not get hot enough to burn off the ethanol or kill the yeast.

Mmmmm.... beer...... Bubbles generated during brewing are from released CO2 from the yeast  S. cerevisiae, aka Brewer's Yeast.  Also used in dough making.  The released CO2 also generates the carbonation for the beer.

So, moving on to the awesomeness.

Mmm... dough ball.  Easy peasy.  Flour, yeast, salt, water, and sugar (for the yeast to NOMS).  Why on parchment paper?  I cooked it on a pizza stone and it would get stuck otherwise.

Flattened out.  Poke holes so the whole thing doesn't become a giant balloon while cooking.

Mmmmm... golden brown.

SAAAAAUUUUUUCE!!!!

Pepperoni and black olives.  Because it is the best topping combination EVER!  Also acts as a lab shout out.  Also have several different cheeses.  Can't beat the little bite of parmesan.

Coming out the oven of awesome!!

Mmmmm looks delicious.

Technically my first attempt.  I like to think of it as the "F you society!!!  We don't need round Pizza!!!!  Also, I can't seem to make a round pizza."

It's the fiancee's approval face!!!

 In other food news, we went to the Poteet Strawberry festival this past Saturday (4/13) with a friend of ours.  I didn't care for the rides, music, or vendors, but the FOOOD.  Oh, the food.

Hanging with the giant strawberry of.... ummm.... strawberry-ness?

Gigantic mother effing turkey leg.  Like OMG.  To be fair, cost $12.  Aka most of the budget.

Why have a fiancee?  To put giant turkey leg to scale, of course!!!!!

The one thing she wanted, strawberry shortcake.  noms.  She look so happy.

So that's it for now, hope that you all enjoyed and that you learned some dough SCIENCE!!!!.  Until next time, later!