Idealogian

Dunkin' Donuts

A co-worker brought in some Entenmann's donuts (the "Ultimate Chocolate Lovers" collection), consumed, of course, with the requisite cup of cold milk. Nothing extraordinary, but I now know how to do it right:

Len Fisher used an old equation from 1921 to predict how long it would take for the liquid to rise in your favourite biscuit.

But he did more than just scribble equations - he did experiments, involving gold, a belt-sander, a microscope, an X-ray machine, and sensitive weighing scales. He found that the best dunking time for a gingernut biscuit was 3 seconds, but 8 seconds for a digestive biscuit.

Overall, his personal recommendation was to use a wide-brimmed cup filled almost to the top, to do horizontal dunking (so that only the bottom side got wet), and then to quickly turn your dunked biscuit upside down so the stronger dry side gives structural integrity to the wet side.

. . .

And sure enough, dunking your biscuit into a milky drink gives you up to 11 times more flavour release than from eating the dry biscuit alone.

Why? Well, the answer lies in the fat in milk. Milk is basically little tiny droplets of fat which are suspended in water. These droplets of fat do two things. First, they absorb the flavour molecules really well. Second, these little fat droplets also hang around in your mouth, so that the flavour and aroma chemicals can sit on your tongue AND be released up to your nose.

Which means that I didn't get it quite right. I was using skim milk - no "little tiny droplets of fat" suspended in my water (though there were probably more than enough in the donut itself).