Dr. Oetker Spectacular Science Squashable Jelly Bubbles Cupcake Mix, 325 g

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Separate children into teams of 2 or 3. Distribute materials so that 2 teams are sharing a set of ingredients. Suggest to children that they first measure the dry ingredients into a bowl (including the butter, if using), and then add the wet ingredients. They will measure everything in spoonfuls, or with measuring spoons. Allow children to use whatever proportions of ingredients they think are appropriate, but show them a cupcake tin, and let them know that however much batter they make, they’ll only use ¼ cup of it to make their cupcakes with. While they are mixing their recipes, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Egg whites contain globular proteins tightly folded into an approximately spherical shape. ‘When you heat them up, they unravel and then start to hydrogen bond to, and form disulfide links with, one another,’ says Cumby. This process, called coagulation, results in a solid structure. ‘The little threads of egg protein [in the batter] begin to coagulate as the temperature goes up to form a very fine version of what we see when we fry or boil an egg,’ explains McGee. A classic of risen cakes is the English pound cake, on which the Victoria sponge is based. These cakes generally contain equal weights of the four major ingredients: structure-building flour and eggs; and structure-weakening fat and sugar. This recipe provides the perfect balance of these ingredients. With any more fat or sugar the delicate scaffold of egg and flour collapses, making a dense, heavy cake (like a fruit cake). Recipe

In factory cake-making, creating a fat that is plastic enough to spread over a large surface area of flour grains but soft enough to form globules requires the application of much science. Companies spend a lot of time mixing blends of various vegetable oils to get the perfect properties. At home, however, the third role of fat for me takes precedence: flavour. That's why I use butter. Although the fluidity isn't carefully controlled it always makes great cakes, and has done for hundreds of years. Take the sugar and fat and beat together until the mixture reaches a fluffy consistency similar to whipped cream. This can be done either by hand if you are feeling strong, otherwise use an electric whisk. Aimed at parents who want to introduce a fun learning experience when baking with their children, the Solar System mix comes with everything needed to bake 12 cupcakes and decorate them to look like the planets in our solar system. Today, however, most cake recipes opt for the convenience of an all-in-one chemical leavener: baking power. Birmingham-based pharmacist and Chemical Society fellow Alfred Bird (of instant custard fame) took the first stride towards one of these in 1843, replacing sour milk with a by-product from wine-making, cream of tartar (powdered potassium hydrogen tartrate). The acid and base were wrapped separately to prevent moisture triggering the carbon dioxide production before it was added to a recipe. Lightly blend in the vanilla. Now add the melted chocolate, its important that it’s not hot otherwise it will melt and begin to cook the butter and egg.

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First up was Periodic Table of the Elements Cup Cakes, which is a bit of a mouthful so I call them: Chemistry Cup Cakes In a traditionally-made Victoria sponge, the first step is to mix the fat and sugar. ‘When you beat butter with the sugar, you are mechanically adding air into your mixture from step one, which will lead to a lighter end product,’ says Janice Lawandi, a freelance food science consultant with a chemistry PhD who is based in Montreal, Canada, and blogs about baking science. Chemical leaveners: It doesn’t matter if you use an all-in-one baking powder or baking soda and sour milk (or butter milk, sour cream, crème fraiche etc) to chemically leaven the Victoria sponge cake. Now all the components of your Victoria sponge are ready, the undersides of the two cakes layers should be spread with jam, and if desired cream or buttercream, before being sandwiched together. All that’s left is to round up your friends – if current pandemic rules permit – and sit down to enjoy the queen of the cakes.

Baking can be broken into three stages: expansion, setting and browning. As the batter temperature rises, the gases in the air cells expand the stretchy gluten from the flour, then the chemical leavening agents release carbon dioxide. As the batter reaches 60C, water vapour begins to form and expand the air cells even further. Carbon dioxide and water vapour account for approximately 90% of the subsequent expansion of the batter, the remaining 10% being due to thermal expansion. Break the chocolate up into small pieces, place in a glass bowl and put over a small saucepan of boiling water. It’s important that you don’t get water in the chocolate so use a slightly larger glass bowl if you can.

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Now that kids have baked their first cakes, over the next week or so you should try all of the other Cupcake Science activities, starting with Cupcake Science – The Fizz Factor. What’s this got to do with food? Everything, theming is all about attention to detail. Something I put into practice last weekend for Nina’s surprise birthday party, (she’s off to study forensics – clever lass). A science party with a CSI flavour was the obvious choice, which gave lots of scope. The theming works just as well for adults as kids. Here are 3 tasty science themed treats that would impress even Sir Isaac Newton (assuming he was still alive, knew you and came to your party). Jen Brown, Head of Marketing, Cake & Dessert at Dr. Oetker UK, said: “While space as a theme is part of most children’s curriculum at school, at home it’s a fantastic topic for activities, particularly when it comes to home baking. It’s fun and exciting for the kids, and it also means parents can add an educational element to after school activities, stimulating their imagination and encouraging creativity. There are few things better than sitting in a kitchen as it fills with the smell of baking. So make a cup of tea and relax for the next 30 minutes, letting the warm smells emanating from the oven envelope you. The smell of warm butter; the slightly sulphury smell of the eggs as they coagulate; the dark caramelising smell of the browning reactions (and, if you get distracted, the acrid smell of burning). Baking is a science as well as an art. Most of us have found out the hard way that you can’t just guess a cupcake recipe. From adding too much baking powder to over-mixing your batter, any slight alterations can make all the difference between a flawless cupcake and a totally botched bake. But have you ever wondered why those magic numbers in your recipe book work while our made up ones don’t?

These kits are perfect for any parents or carers looking to keep the kids (and themselves) entertained. Each baking kit provides the ingredients required alongside an exciting learning activity sheet to guide families through the journey and teach them the fun science behind it. The only extras required are margarine, milk, eggs and water.The cake should then be turned out and left upside down to cool to room temperature. ‘That helps to even the moisture distribution within the cake, because the water that’s within a cake is only able to escape out the top as it’s baking,’ Bouzari says. ‘Coming straight out of an oven, most cakes will be moister on the bottom than on the top, so by flipping the cake over as it cools, you’re allowing the underside of the cake to get some time to catch up and get rid of some excess steam.’ Make the fillings Much of the tender, melt-in-the-mouth texture of cake comes from gas bubbles, which subdivide the batter into fragile sheets. The majority of this air is added in this initial stage by vigorous mixing of the fat and sugar – a process called "creaming". Air is carried along on the rough surfaces of the sugar crystals. This is why we use caster sugar, as the smaller the crystals, the more air is incorporated. These bubbles of air are encased by a film of fat, creating a foam.

Most recipes advise mixing by hand at this stage, to avoid overbeating the flour and, therefore, forming too much gluten. Contrary to popular belief, gluten isn’t naturally present in wheat flour (and many other flours). But its precursor proteins – glutenin and gliadin – are instead. When the pair are hydrated and mechanically pushed together, they form hydrogen bonds between the amino acids of the proteins, explains chemist James Cumby, who teaches a chemistry of food class at the University of Edinburgh in the UK . The resulting gluten network ‘you can think of as being like a co-polymer’, he adds. Cooking activities, even simple ones like this, are filled with great learning opportunities. Along with measurement and math skills, kids can develop problem solving and literacy skills as well. By experimenting with the ways that certain ingredients act and react with each other, children will gain an understanding of basic cooking chemistry, and will even learn about design as they create and make changes to their cupcake “prototypes”. Preparation Towards the end of the baking process, two chemical cascades are triggered on the crust to create the delicious flavour molecules we associate with part of the cake. ‘They generate that wonderful, rich, caramelised, brown aroma,’ says McGee. As a child, the overriding characteristic of cakes was the sweetness of refined sugar. However, the role of sugar in cake is much more complex. Initially it carries air bubbles into the mixture. It has a tenderising effect, as it softens flour proteins. It also lowers the caramelisation point of the batter, allowing the cake crust to colour at a lower temperature. Finally, it helps to keep the cake moist and edible for several days after baking. I always use my little finger to scrape the excess mixture from the spoon into the tins. My mother used to say that the little finger is the cleanest. While I doubt this, the habit has been passed down to me through her genes. As I pour the mixture into the tins I love to watch its gloopy consistency, its slightly grainy texture and marvel at its rich yellow colour. The beautiful yellow comes from the eggs and from carotene in the butter, the same chemical that makes carrots orange. It originates in the grass on which the cows have grazed.The Dr. Oetker Spectacular Science! Mixes bring a whole load of fun and education to the kitchen as you can create your very own slime as part of the process, and then use it to decorate the cupcakes. The combination of baking and science creates an engaging family activity with some incredibly delicious results. The mixes tap into the wider trend for parents passing on key skills through affordable, easy-to-undertake family activities. By bringing the fun of interactive science reactions to baking, the kids will enjoy learning something new! Friends were invited to join her in enjoying a selection of finger sandwiches, scones, pastries and fancy cakes at around 4pm. Amongst the delicacies on offer were ‘new’ light and fluffy cakes, only possible thanks to the then-novel chemical leavening agents. At around 80C, the risen batter adopts its permanent shape as the egg proteins coagulate, the starch granules absorb water, swell and form a gel, and the gluten loses its elasticity. The texture produced at this point is then held until the cake is set by the coagulation of the egg and flour proteins, producing the familiar porous structure of the cake crumb.