Definition of "gelation" [ge•la•tion]

• Solidification by cooling or freezing. (noun)
• The process of forming a gel. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "This temperature is called the gelation range, because the granules become individual gels, or water-containing meshworks of long molecules."
• "When a starchy cereal is cooked, water penetrates the granule and separates the chains from each other, thus swelling and softening the granule in the process called gelation center."
• "They've also shown that their cooking, in Adria's case often labeled "molecular gastronomy," can illustrate scientific feats such as spherification, gelation and oxidation."