Heavy cream doesn’t melt when heated, it actually thickens. But if you turn heavy cream into butter, the whey separates from it and you’re left with a solid that’s mostly fat, but then if you heat that solid, it turns into a liquid that is THINNER than heavy cream.
I don’t understand how that’s possible.
In: Chemistry
In some ways, it depends on what you mean by “on a molecular level”.
Do the ways the molecules interact with each other change? Yes, the whey no longer being a part of the fat will cause the butter to act more like a fat and less like a liquid.
Do the molecules drastically change form? Not really. It’s still fat molecules and whey molecules, they just aren’t as mixed together anymore.
You can think of it as something similar to two people standing in a room. When they are both in the room, they can talk to each other or do whatever 2 people can do. But if they are put in different rooms, those interactions are no longer available, they are no longer a group. The people are still the same, but the environment has changed.
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