August 3, 2017, by jicke

Scientific proof that dunking a biscuit improves flavour

BBC Inside The Factory recently visited the Food Sciences Flavour Laboratory on a quest to find out whether science held the answer to whether biscuits taste better when dunked in tea!

Dr Ian Fisk and his special MS-Nose mass spectrometer held the answer, which was aired on the biscuit special of the show earlier this week.

Presenter Cherry Healey nicknamed the equipment the ‘robot nose’ and took part in the experiment where she breathed into the machine through her nose whilst eating an un-dunked and dunked biscuit. The machine analysed the aroma compounds released into the mouth whilst eating.

Cherry immediately thought the dunked biscuit tasted better saying: “I can taste the nuttiness and sweetness better.”

The results backed up her tastebuds as they showed that twice as much aroma was released from the dunked biscuit making them taste better. Ian explained that this is because: “Aroma compounds diffuse out of the biscuit  more efficiently when dunked. ”

“Science has spoken, dunkers are the winners!” proclaimed Cherry.

The BBC team then took Ian onto the streets of Nottingham to see which liquid people preferred to dunk their biscuits in, comparing coffee, tea and hot milk in blind taste tests. There was one clear favourite (that was also backed up by scientific tests) – tea of course!

The biscuit episode can be viewed in iPlayer here

 

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