As a History Graduate I am fascinated by the history of ingredients in common use today. The internet is an amazing resource for finding information. I have just found this paper which covers the chemistry behind baking ingredients. I give the link to this document here and hope you will find it as interesting too.
Source: 3dman_eu
If you understand how an ingredient works within baking it is much easier to put things right when they go wrong. That is why this document is so useful to amateur and professional bakers alike.
Really interesting! They do say baking is a science...