What makes a tasty cake?

What makes a tasty cake?

Isopentenal, furfural, methyl pyrazine, furan methanol and acetyl furan. Sound yummy? They should. Colleen Whorton, a doctoral candidate at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul, identified these flavorants as among the chemicals responsible for making a conventionally baked white cake so much better tasting than one baked in a microwave. In fact, the flavor profile of her microwaved cake more closely resembled that of batter than that of a "baked" cake.

Baked goods develop complex flavor compounds through chemical changes that reflect both banking time and temperature. The same changes that make a cake crust brown and crisp tend to introduce a characteristic baked, buttery and somewhat caramelly taste. Not surprisingly, Whorton says, the reduced time and temperature of microwave baking -- and its lack of browning -- result in a distinctly different flavor profile, one that is "typically judged inferior by consumers." She expects studies like hers will eventually be used to identify chemical additives that can be used to synthesize a natural baked flavor in microwave-baked foods.