At UCLA, students learn the science of apple pie

Teaching assistant Andy Trang provides measurements and weights to help students in the UCLA Science & Food class formulate pies for a “scientific bake-off.”   (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

A student consults a recipe for her apple pie.

Steven Hilz mixes some sticky dough for his team’s pie.   (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Ying Lu Peng makes pie dough in a food processor. Her team tested how adding different amounts of rum to pie crust affected its flakiness.  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Ying Lu Peng, left, and Carmen Peng check the pH level of rum in their pie crust.   (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Science & Food class students work on their pies for the bake-off competition.   (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

One challenge Amy Rowat’s students faced: shortages of baking tins and appliances. In the foreground, one baker crafts a pan out of aluminum foil.  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Carter Varnum retrieves his mother’s apple pie recipe from his email.

Peanut butter mousse was a key ingredient in the winning pie in the “scientific bake-off.”   (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Caleb Turner looks at the bubbles in peanut butter mousse through a microscope.  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

An image of egg white bubbles in peanut butter mousse as they appeared through a microscope is captured on a student’s iPhone.   (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

A student prepares her pie in UCLA’s Hedrick Hall dining services kitchen for the bake-off competition.  (Eryn Brown / Los Angeles Times)

UCLA student Stephen Phan, left, helps prepare his team’s apple pie for the competition.   (Eryn Brown / Los Angeles Times)

A finished apple sphere, an experiment in diffusion and gelation, awaits tasting.  (Eryn Brown / Los Angeles Times)

As the pie-tasting event begins, the students’ scientific efforts are displayed on posters near their pies.  (Christina House / For The Times)

This student poster, displayed at UCLA, shows how a pie’s shape might affect browning.  (Eryn Brown / Los Angeles Times)

Individual pie portions await tasting.   (Christina House / For The Times)

UCLA teaching assistant Andy Trang tastes a student’s entry in the pie competition.   (Christina House / For The Times)

Restaurateurs Christina Tosi of Momofuku Milk Bar, left, and Zoe Nathan of Huckleberry judge students’ pies in the bake-off.   (Christina House / For The Times)

Huckleberry’s Zoe Nathan, left, and Momofuku Milk Bar’s Christina Tosi compare notes on student pies.   (Christina House / For The Times)

By the end of the event, four student teams emerged victorious.  (Christina House / For The Times)