The Specifics … (for the electron-pushing crowd) The set of reactions that take place under the general description of the Maillard reaction can be generalized as follows. (Please refer to the figure for more detail.) A sugar (1) combines with an amine (in this case, NHn-AminoAcid) to form 2. 2 rearranges into a glycosylamine (3), which is unstable in these conditions. The glycosylamine rearranges into an aminoketose (5) through an aminoenol (4) intermediate. The aminoketose is one of the main products of the Maillard reaction. It is called the Amadori component because, well, Amadori isolated these compounds from Maillard reaction products in the 1930s. And, while this is a primary component, it really isn’t very interesting. The tasty parts of the Maillard reaction come about when 4 is converted into a deoxy-hexosulose (7) or the Amadori product rearranges into an enediol (6), which is further converted into a deoxy-hexodiulose (8). 7 and 8 are the intermediates that ultimately lead to the small-molecule aroma, flavor, and color compounds that our senses recognize as the products of the Maillard reaction. The exact mechanism by which 7 and 8 are converted into these small molecules is still not fully understood. I imagine that ANY number of reasonable or creative electron pushing descriptions have been used. (If you are interested in more of the detail about what we know of these types of reactions, please see the references at the end of the post.)