How boffins cooked up the perfect bacon sandwich

Scientists have created a mathematical formula of how to make the perfect bacon butty.

Experts at Leeds University discovered the secret to the ideal sandwich lay in how crispy and crunchy rashers were.

They found that two or three back bacon rashers should be cooked under a preheated oven grill for seven minutes at about 240C (475F).



The bacon should then be placed between two slices of farmhouse bread, 1cm to 2cm thick.

Four researchers at the Department of Food Science spent more than 1,000 hours testing 700 variations on the traditional bacon sandwich.

The formula is: N = C + {fb (cm) . fb (tc)} + fb (Ts) + fc . ta, where N=force in Newtons required to break the cooked bacon, fb=function of the bacon type, fc=function of the condiment/filling effect, Ts=serving temperature, tc=cooking time, ta=time or duration of application of condiment/filling, cm=cooking method, C=Newtons required to break uncooked bacon.