“In today’s episodes, our contestants will compete in their baking abilities!” Long Suah announced.

The camera panned over to the contestants’ reactions. The reaction was a mixture of horrified grasps and gleeful fist pumps. Some people categorized baking under the umbrella of cooking while others put it in a separate category. Culinary chefs had no specific specialties like general surgeons, but pastry chefs were specialists like cardiothoracic surgeons.

“This isn’t going to be a regular baking competition,” Long Suah spoke. “Our contestants will be given handicaps. Each contestant will pick from a card to see what essential ingredients they are not allowed to use in their baking. To create various pastries, the essentials are eggs, butter, sugar, and flour. Without these basic ingredients, creating any type of pastries will be difficult.”

The contestants each took turns to draw a card. Mingya was the first to reveal her card, the eggs. The selection restricted her from using any type of egg product, whether they were boxed egg whites or duck eggs. Mingya’s face dropped into mortification, all the pastry recipes she had prepared ahead of the competition had eggs in them. Finding a suitable substitute would be difficult.

White eggs were used as a leavening agent to give support to the pastry. If she couldn’t use eggs, she could use baking powder as the leavening agent. Before the use of eggs, yeast was used as the leavening agent that ate the carbohydrate in the flour and agitated the mixture to blend in the air. Mingya was more concerned about missing the egg yolks. The yolk acted as a thickener and flavoring agent. Without an egg, bakers often used yogurt, applesauce, and banana. However, the flavor of the egg was extremely difficult to imitate.

After Mingya, Anthonio drew the card from the deck. His challenge was no dairy. If Mingya was crippling, having no dairy left no room for recovery. Xinda chose a card that restricted her from using refined sweeteners like caster sugar and powdered sugar.

Cakes without sugar were lifeless. It was extremely difficult to bake a cake without sugar. Sugar acted not only as a sweetening agent but as an agent that allowed the development of carbon dioxide and air into the mixture. The rough surfaces of the sugar allowed the development of carbon dioxide during the mixing process.

Ang chose the card that restricted any sort of grass-based flour. The protein in the flour determined the overall consistency of the cake. Cake flour, made of 7% protein, mixed into water creates a delicate dough mixture without much structure. After baking, it produced a fluffy, soft, and crumbly cake. All-purpose flour with 10% protein creates a stronger base. High protein content creates a high elasticity of the dough when mixed with water. Rye protein could also bind together a mixture but without elasticity.

The last contestant was restricted from using butter. Butter acted mainly as an emulsion. As it melted, the butter released the trapped water and caused the batter or dough to expand. Although the contestant could use an emulsifier, the flavor that was unique to butter was lost.

On the other side, Anthonio was creating an angel cake using the egg-foaming method. By beating the egg whites, he created thick white foam that could replace the fat and leavening agent.

The flourless chocolate cake without the flour tended to crack during the baking process. To prevent it from happening, a pan of water was placed inside the oven. Not only did the method prevent cracking, but it also distributed the heat evenly throughout the oven.

The different proteins of the flour created the consistency of the dough, whether it became stretchy or binding depending on the flour used. Wheat contained the protein gliadin, whose structure was important for binding together gluten and the overall structure of different cakes and bread. The other protein in wheat was glutenin which was important for creating elasticity in dough, especially important in pizza dough. As many people developed gluten sensitivity, many chefs looked for alternative flour to bake. Many scientists were developing compounds that could bind the ingredients together like gluten.

Li Yun knew more about the nutritional data of food than most textbooks. Food contained various combinations of carbohydrates, fat, protein, vitamins, minerals, and water. Duck eggs had a higher vitamin B12. The higher vitamin content could be seen in the coloring of the yolk. It was not recognizable when used in baking, but Li Yun could identify the contents.

An egg yolk contained several types of unsaturated and saturated fatty acids. They also contained protein strands that unwind and lock themselves together. Between 140c to 165c degrees, through a process called maillard reactions, the proteins and sugar interacted to pentagon-shaped structures that changed the way the light reflected from the surface, creating a golden brown hue. More importantly, the variation in temperature, food, and cooking time could create different types of flavor profiles. Although Li Yun did not care about the flavor profiles, it was important to document the different compounds produced by such a simple method.

At 170c, caramelization occurred in sugar, specifically sucrose, breaking down to form difructose anhydrides (DFAs), a compound that gives food the distinct caramel flavor. Different types of sugar have different caramelization temperatures. If the time or temperature was off, the temperature would break down the compounds into acrylamide, a possible carcinogen.

During the baking competition, Li Yun explored the chemistry of a cake by watching the other contestants. He learned about the creaming process of mixing together the eggs, butter, and sugar, carbon dioxide developed to form the air pockets of the cake. The creaming method was used mainly to create pound and layered cakes. Unfortunately, Li Yun couldn’t see the process happening with Qivi as the batter baked in the open. However, he knew from his extensive research that a chemical reaction was occurring inside. 

****

Casual diners sat down and watched the show. The chef was a huge fan of the show and regularly broadcasted the reruns during dinner hours. The four amateur chefs in the final were Mingya, Anthonio, Xinda, and Ang. Halfway through the series, everyone knew the frontrunners and clear favorites.

However, more people were focused on Li Yun’s opinions. It wasn’t because he was harsh like Nicolas, but he didn’t seem to enjoy food as much as the others. There were few dishes that genuinely made him excited. He simply tasted the dish and graded on the nutritional levels of the food.

“I thought the food was supposed to taste good but Dr. Li’s discernment seems to be based on whether they are healthy or not,” a man said chewing down his porkchop after a rerun was shown on the screen.

“What did you expect?” Said another diner. “He comes from a TCM background, so of course the health benefits would be more important to him. This is quite an interesting take on food.”

“What do you mean by TCM? He’s clearly a Western doctor. Just because he can perform a few acupunctures and has a clinic, doesn’t make him a TCM doctor. He’s a legitimate surgeon in the hospital.”

At the front of the diner, a skinny young man in a dark hoodie overheard the conversation between them. He didn’t care about cooking shows, but he had heard the name Li Yun before.

“Sir, here’s your food to go,” said the waitress at the counter.

The skinny man paid for the food and grabbed the plastic bag. However, instead of leaving or moving his head up, he asked the waitress a question, “Where is he from?”

“Dr. Li from that TV show?” the waitress asked. “I heard he has a clinic in Yide City. It’s pretty far from here.”

The skinny man walked away after he got the information. The waitress thought the skinny guy was odd and rude, he didn’t even thank her.