About the Class

Do you know the difference between baking soda and baking powder and the impact they have on a recipe?  Do you understand the structural differences between saturated, unsaturated, polyunsaturated, and trans fats?  And that we really should be calling them fats composed of saturated/unsaturated/polyunsaturated/trans fatty acids.  Can you explain how a pressure cooker operates or why you need to make adjustments for cooking at higher altitudes?  Well the students in Chem 111 Chemistry in the Kitchen at Dickinson College are able to do this and much more.  My goal was to create a class that would benefit the students outside of the classroom and fulfill the lab science requirement.  The students perform experiments in the traditional science lab to learn the techniques used in chemistry and in a kitchen to apply the scientific principles they have learned.  This website is their semester project where they choose a recipe and explain the scientific principles within.  Then they are to adjust the recipe and predict/explain the changes on the final product.  I hope you enjoy learning the science while exploring some wonderful recipes.