this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2024
1277 points (98.0% liked)

Microblog Memes

5778 readers
1878 users here now

A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.

Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.

Rules:

  1. Please put at least one word relevant to the post in the post title.
  2. Be nice.
  3. No advertising, brand promotion or guerilla marketing.
  4. Posters are encouraged to link to the toot or tweet etc in the description of posts.

Related communities:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Huh, I guess I'd never really looked into the chemistry behind the distinction (which is strange because i am a chemist that loves food), but Maillard reactions involve the proteins, while caramelization involves the sugars. Though both are examples of nonenzymatic browning.

The good news is that the wiki page for caramelization says that either acidic or basic conditions speed up the caramelization processes, so i think we're good to go in either front!

[โ€“] Dabundis 1 points 3 weeks ago

On that note, try adding a little splash of balsamic vinegar to caramelized onions ๐Ÿ‘Œ๐Ÿ‘Œ

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Yeah, that's interesting. It's right in the name, too. You are caramelizing the sugars, not the proteins.

So the baking soda does speed up what little maillard is going on, so it browns faster, but it doesn't caramelize faster.

TIL!

I usually do overnight large batch caramelizing so it hasn't mattered. Big bag of onion cubes in the freezer so I never do it in a pan.