Baking cookies is almost magical. You put little balls of wet, white dough into the oven and out pop brown, crispy, tasty biscuits.

"In a time-lapse video, it looks like a monster coming alive," says the team from in a new animation that — just in time for the holidays — explains the science behind great cookie baking. "For a moment, it [the raw dough] sits there innocuous ... then it bulges outward ... it triples in volume. Its color darkens ominously. And its surface hardens into an alien topography of peaks and craters. ... The kitchen timer dings: Your cookies are ready."