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How Many Ppm In A Piece Of Cake?

kellynolan82

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kellynolan82 Explorer
kellynolan82
Posted

I've always been somewhat keen on the science behind gluten and wondered how much gluten (in terms of parts per million) would be present in a piece of cake (sample recipe below, where flour occupies under half of the cake ingredients):

Ingredients (serves 12)

200g good-quality dark chocolate, chopped

200g butter, softened

1 cup dark brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 eggs, at room temperature

1 1/2 cups self-raising flour

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

1/2 cup milk

chocolate curls or shavings (optional), to serve (see note)

I'm thinking there'd probably be somewhere between 10Kppm and 40Kppm gluten in this. What would you have to say? I'd just be interested. :unsure:

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T.H. Community Regular
T.H.
Posted

Okay...quick math done late at night, so I'm probably going to screw this up, but I'll try it anyway. :-)

Just looking at the flour, and taking some info. from the web here....

1 1/2 cups of self-rising flour weighs about 0.19 kg.

Flour is not solid gluten, and the percentage can range from around 7.5%-14% of the flour being actual gluten, depending on the type (like cake flour, whole wheat, etc...). I'm gonna pick 12% - average for regular flour - although I know it'll be a little high because some of the flour is actually baking powder. So, already inaccuracies are creeping in, LOL.

So for 1 1/2 cups of flour, that's about 22800 mg in those .19 kg. Which means it'd be about 119,928 mg/kg, or 119,928 ppm.

So, a little less than this because of the baking powder. And then add a tiny bit for whatever gluten cc might exist in the sugar, cocoa powder and chocolate, and I figure it's about even. Ignoring, of course, the high probability that I cannot do math to save my life at this state of sleepiness. :lol:

Skylark Collaborator
Skylark
Posted

Wikipedia has wheat flour at around 80K ppm gluten. That makes sense becasue wheat flour is 10-12% protein and about 3/4 of the protein is gluten.

I'd guess that cake is about 1/4 flour by weight if not less. The 1.5 c of flour is about 185g, there's 400g of chocolate and butter plus the sugar, eggs, and milk that weigh another couple hundred grams. Some of the liquid will bake off but there's easily 600g of "stuff" along with the flour.

I say 20K ppm in the finished cake. Ugh.

eatmeat4good Enthusiast
eatmeat4good
Posted

Where is Peter...he loves stuff like this... :unsure:

kellynolan82 Explorer
kellynolan82
Posted
  • Author

I say 20K ppm in the finished cake. Ugh.

So many parts per million! Gee, no wonder this epidemic of celiac disease is rising :rolleyes:

T.H. Community Regular
T.H.
Posted

Ha, knew I was going to screw it up, LOL. ppm of wheat flour vs., oh, I don't know...the actual cake that was asked about? :lol:

kareng Grand Master
kareng
Posted

Can't really wrap my brain around ppm.

1 1/2 cups of flour = 24 tablespoons.

12 servings per cake - 2 tablespoons of flour per slice.

Sounds like enough to make me sick! Feeling a bit gassy just thinking about it! :huh:

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psawyer Proficient
psawyer
Posted

Where is Peter...he loves stuff like this... :unsure:

He's been in a series of business meetings since noon yesterday and isn't done yet. One more in the morning. Brain is too tired to do mathematics just now.

dilettantesteph Collaborator
dilettantesteph
Posted

Peter will tell you this when he comes back. Ppm is a concentration. There can't be ppm's in a piece of cake. It's like a percent, a ratio, a certain amount in a certain amount.

Takala Enthusiast
Takala
Posted

Don't eat the cake. It is about 5% gluten.

kellynolan82 Explorer
kellynolan82
Posted
  • Author

Don't eat the cake. It is about 5% gluten.

Naw... :o

Usually less than that (probably 2-3% to be approximate). ;)

kellynolan82 Explorer
kellynolan82
Posted
  • Author

Can't really wrap my brain around ppm.

1 1/2 cups of flour = 24 tablespoons.

12 servings per cake - 2 tablespoons of flour per slice.

Sounds like enough to make me sick! Feeling a bit gassy just thinking about it! :huh:

How many grams is 2 tablespoons of wheat flour then? I would work it out myself except I'm a little far from the supermarket at the moment... :o

Skylark Collaborator
Skylark
Posted

Let's see. I found 1.5 cups of flour was 185g. 185/24 = 7.7g so you get 15.4g of flour per slice. If the flour is 8% gluten, you get 1.23g of gluten.

If Guandalini from chicago is right that a celiac can tolerate 10 mg of gluten, you could eat 1/120 of the slice safely. I can visualize 1/8 of a slice - it would be a pretty thin sliver of cake. If you divided that into 16 pieces you'd end up with 1/128th of a slice. I think it might be something about the size and thickness of a dime?

What do you all think 1/120th of a slice of cake would look like? I'm really curious now.

kellynolan82 Explorer
kellynolan82
Posted
  • Author

Let's see. I found 1.5 cups of flour was 185g. 185/24 = 7.7g so you get 15.4g of flour per slice. If the flour is 8% gluten, you get 1.23g of gluten.

If Guandalini from chicago is right that a celiac can tolerate 10 mg of gluten, you could eat 1/120 of the slice safely. I can visualize 1/8 of a slice - it would be a pretty thin sliver of cake. If you divided that into 16 pieces you'd end up with 1/128th of a slice. I think it might be something about the size and thickness of a dime?

What do you all think 1/120th of a slice of cake would look like? I'm really curious now.

So am I! :blink:

However, I'm guessing that means the rest of your day is completely gluten free. I wonder why the used the /day measure. I came across some documentation that recently showed that (over a few weeks on a daily basis) 1% of celiacs reacted to the 10 mg of gluten / day mentioned whereas about 20% of celiacs reacted to 50 mg of gluten / day. Basically it sounds as though (as long as it is not frequented) 50mg should be safe for most. 10 mg should be safe even if frequented.

I might just give them the benefit of the doubt for this topic and take it from 50 mg (any help with being able to visualise this by figures is most welcomed at this stage ;) ).

Based on the above this means that for the 50mg/day approach about 1/(128/5) ≈ 1/25.5th

≈ 4% of an individual slice MAXIMUM

or...

Based on the above this means that for the 10mg/day approach about 1/(128/5) = 1/128.8th

≈ 0.8% of an individual slice MAXIMUM

This is, assuming that all else eaten during the day contains ZERO gluten :rolleyes:

kellynolan82 Explorer
kellynolan82
Posted
  • Author

Maybe if one were to chew (not swallow), it'd maybe be okay based on the mg/day amount... :unsure:

GFinDC Veteran
GFinDC
Posted

What you do is take your cake and measure how many grams it is. Then you wash the cake in cold water until nothing is left but a glob of gluten. Then you can weigh the gluten glob and do some kind of math thing with a calculator or find one of those friends with a math head who can tell you some numbers about it. This video should get you started on the washing...

And this one tells how to make gluten free noodles at the end. Yummy! Well, non-glutinous noodles anyway.

kellynolan82 Explorer
kellynolan82
Posted
  • Author

What you do is take your cake and measure how many grams it is. Then you wash the cake in cold water until nothing is left but a glob of gluten. Then you can weigh the gluten glob and do some kind of math thing with a calculator or find one of those friends with a math head who can tell you some numbers about it. This video should get you started on the washing...

And this one tells how to make gluten free noodles t the end. Yummy! Well, non-glutinous noodles anyway.

:lol: the problem here is that the cake isn't just simply a wheat dough ball though. There are milk, egg and other proteins present in the final product. Gluten really is tough though, especially in comparison to eggs and milk. No wonder so many of our bodies don't like it. :o

GFinDC Veteran
GFinDC
Posted

:lol: the problem here is that the cake isn't just simply a wheat dough ball though. There are milk, egg and other proteins present in the final product. Gluten really is tough though, especially in comparison to eggs and milk. No wonder so many of our bodies don't like it. :o

Quite true, and sounds lovely doesn't it? Cake, mostly flour (yucky gluten), butter or lard or other fat, sugar, eggs (not bad), milk and some kind of flavoring. flour, sugar and fat yum yum!

Actually i don't know if the gluten wash would work after the cake is baked. That might lock the starch and gluten up somehow. Not sure on that one.

kellynolan82 Explorer
kellynolan82
Posted
  • Author

Quite true, and sounds lovely doesn't it? Cake, mostly flour (yucky gluten), butter or lard or other fat, sugar, eggs (not bad), milk and some kind of flavoring. flour, sugar and fat yum yum!

Actually i don't know if the gluten wash would work after the cake is baked. That might lock the starch and gluten up somehow. Not sure on that one.

On the other hand...

I'd say if you were one of the VERY few celiacs who can tolerate up to 150mg of gluten a day, seeing as though you would need to eat 7500 grams of a food containing 20 ppm gluten, you could (technically) take about ~ 7 grams from that cake and (perhaps) be able to safely enjoy that small bit of it :wacko:

Wacko! I think that's going to extremes (at least for me anyway) ;)

I'll stick to my strict gluten free guns and stay at the level of ZERO gluten for now. It's probably easier in the long run and of course then I can sleep in peace. -_-

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