In a space reminiscent of a cooking competition, the smell of chocolate filled the air as a team of students pulled a near-invisible strand of sugar 2, 4, 6 feet from a pan. This followed an attempt at making sugar glass and preceded baking fudge. This wasn’t a cooking class, though: It’s MATSCI 121: Edible Materials: The Science of Texture, a new materials science course at Stanford that introduces students to that field through kitchen-based experiments.

“We’re taking all of the fundamental material science topics – like elasticity, viscosity, surface energy, and phase diagrams – and mapping them onto food, in the context of how that changes the food texture,” said Haoxue Yan, the instructor and co-developer for the course and lecturer in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in the School of Engineering at Stanford. “We’re hoping that by making it a kitchen-focused class, more students can be exposed to STEM in a less scary way, and pick up laboratory and experimental skills in a more fun, applicable way.” 

During the course, students learned about diffusion – the movement of matter from an area of higher concentration to lower concentration – through cooking mushrooms and creating fruit caviar, and interpreting phase diagrams by tempering chocolate. All the sweet tasks on sugar-work day were in the pursuit of understanding the kinetics of nucleation, which is the first step in crystallization. Students applied their knowledge of the nucleation and growth process of crystals to make crunchy sugar glass, long continuous sugar fibers, and creamy fudge by controlling the sizes of sugar crystals. 

Although this is a materials science course, it’s a life skills course, too. The hands-on lab sessions for the course take place at the Residential & Dining Enterprises Teaching Kitchen @ Stanford, which provides cooking classes to students, staff, and faculty and is the culinary training facility for R&DE Stanford Dining. That space, its expert staff, and professional-grade equipment give the students a unique opportunity to grow and polish their cooking skills. The course was also co-developed by chef and Stanford graduate student Anna-Katharina Preidl, BS ’24, MS ’25. 

“The class had a wide variety of background skills in the kitchen,” said Yan, explaining that there were not only novice cooks but also a former line chef from a Michelin-starred restaurant taking the course. “So, in addition to learning about material science topics, I also wanted to help students gain kitchen skills through our labs. Even if they don’t pursue STEM careers, we hope these practical skills can still remain.”