Puffed Pasta and Crackers

While frying and baking fragments of my pasta, I noticed the designs revealing themselves in unexpected ways. Heat changed the texture, but the structure of the pattern stayed intact. What looked like a simple test slowly became a deeper investigation.

Controlling thickness, moisture, and temperature became the real work, and that work eventually led to something new, the puffed pasta. Under certain conditions, the dough expands in hot oil like a balloon, keeping the pattern on its surface while gaining volume and lightness. A flat sheet suddenly turns airy and dimensional.

This gallery brings crackers and puffed pasta together because they come from the same search, heat, air, and structure transforming a flat surface into volume. The dough stops being just a surface and begins to move closer to sculpture.