PING: June Oshiro, Mark Thorson, Rich Tester

Melba's Jammin'

Um... nothing?

You knew I'd come back and lurk briefly on RFC, didn't you? And here you go, pulling me out of my cave...

Look here:

Specifically, check out the second equation. NaHCO3(s) is sodium bicarbonate (aka baking soda), the temp of the candy syrup is sufficient to break it down (you wouldn't need 300 C temps in the kitchen!), and you produce Na2CO3(s) + CO2(g) + H2O(g) - that is to say, sodium carbonate, carbon dioxide gas, and water vapor (the s and g in parens are solid, gas). Carbon dioxide is being released, and you have the foam trapped in the sugar syrup to make the brittle.

Btw - Matt's not going to see any of your cashew brittle unless I'm uncharacteristically generous. And I had jam-slathered bread for breakfast this morning. I'm in heaven!

I wonder also if the tossing in of a fine particulate that doesn't dissolve would act as nucleation points for boiling (as we discussed last night with the superheated water!) and would also cause a minor amount of foam. Wanna make some brittle with talc powder instead of soda and test out my theory? :D

You're absolutely right about the tomato-acid thing, though. It's still carbon dioxide being produced but through a different chemical reaction.

And just for the record, I had to look up the decomposition products of baking soda. I don't have that kind of stuff memorized.

-j.