How to Make the Best Cookie Essays

How to Make the Best Cookie Essays How to Make the Best Cookie Essay How to Make the Best Cookie Essay How Do You Make the Best Cookie? Who doesn’t love a good cookie? The quest for that melt-in-your-mouth, gooey, and blissful tasting cookie is a never-ending battle. My science experiment will answer the age-old question: Is it possible to make the perfect cookie? My science experiment is identifying the best method for making the most delicious cookie. If I vary the amount of time I refrigerate the cookie dough, then the batch that was freshly baked will be moister and ultimately taste better because the wet ingredients will not have been absorbed yet. To perform this experiment I will need to use three medium sized mixing bowls, an electric mixer, measuring spoons and measuring cups to correspond to the recipe, plastic wrap to cover the refrigerated cookie dough, a refrigerator, a standard sized cookie sheet, an oven, two wire cooling racks, four large Glad brand tupperware, ten taste testers, ten questionnaires and pens, graph paper for recording the data. This experiment will require me to bake four different batches of cookies: two batches of chocolate chip cookies, and two batches of sugar cookies. I will not vary the ingredients of the batches, however I will vary the procedure in which I make the dough. For the sugar cookies, I will make one batch of dough (Sugar A) and refrigerate it for 48 hours. I will also make one batch of dough for the chocolate chip cookies (Chocolate A) and refrigerate it for 48 hours. After the 48-hour period is over, I will the make the remaining two batches (Sugar B and Chocolate B) and immediately bake them. After those two batches are finished I will bake batches Sugar A and Chocolate A. I will then store them in separate, labeled containers and conduct a blind taste test with ten people. I will have my subjects taste Sugar A and Sugar B first and have them record which cookie they prefer and why, then I will have them taste Chocolate A and Chocolate B and have them record which the prefer and why. Then, I will ask them which cookie was best overall. Next I will ask them if the difference in the chocolate chip cookies was more or less pronounced than the difference in the sugar cookies. I will then display the data in charts and graphs. Two things make this experiment possible. Wet and dry ingredients. Wet ingredients are the ingredients that are moist or contain water. For example, in a chocolate chip cookie recipe the wet ingredients would be things such a milk, eggs, or butter. But if a cookie recipe consisted of only wet ingredients, the dough would be soupy and no good for baking. This is where dry ingredients come in. Dry ingredients are the ingredients that contain hardly any water, if any. Examples of these ingredients would be flour, baking soda, and salt. Dry ingredients act as sponges absorbing the right amount of the wet ingredients to create a mixture that’s not too wet and not too dry. By refrigerating one batch of each flavor for 48 hours, it allows the dry ingredients to fully absorb the wet ingredients. The question is, does this enhance the flavor of the cookie? To find out, it is imperative to conduct a blind taste test. The blind taste test is very important because if the subjects consuming the cookies are aware of the difference between the cookies then their data will be biased against one cookie. Food safety is imperative in this experiment. The dough must remain at or below 4. 4Â °C (40Â °F) to keep from spoiling. If the dough were to be exposed to temperatures above 4. 4C for more than two hours it would be considered spoiled and unsafe to eat. Constantly keeping the dough at a safe temperature throughout the entire 48-hour period is necessary in ensuring that all of the subjects participating in the experiment are safe while consuming the cookies. If these safety measures were not to be taken, then the subjects would be at risk to foodborne illness. Foodborne illnesses are commonly caused by pathogens such as bacteria, parasites, and viruses. Foodborne illnesses can cause mild to severe sickness. It may take as much as a few days for the person infected to start feeling symptoms. This delay is called the incubation period. Most organisms take up temporary residencies in the intestines, while others produce toxins that can get into the blood stream; these are the most severe cases of foodborne illness. This is why food safety is imperative to this experiment. Everything must be at the proper temperature to be consumed. If it is not, then the outcome will not be good. I will take every measure possible to make sure that everything is correct. So why would these foods spoil if they weren’t refrigerated? Pathogenic bacteria grows rapidly in temperatures above 4. 4Â °C (40Â °F). This type of bacteria does not affect the smell, taste, or appearance of the food, making it difficult to determine whether or not the pathogens are present. By refrigerating foods at the correct temperature, you are eliminating the chances of these harmful pathogens growing in your food and contaminating them. For example, if you accidentally left a jug of milk on the counter overnight it would become warm and develop a rancid odor. If you were to drink it, the chances of you getting a foodborne illness would be high considering that the harmful pathogens had time to grow. Spoilage bacteria can also grow at low temperatures, however they cause foods to develop disgusting odors and appearances. Most people would not choose to eat these foods, but if they did they would most likely not become ill. If I were to leave the cookie dough sitting on the counter for 48 hours instead of refrigerating it, the harmful pathogens would grow and cause the dough to be very unsafe to eat or bake. This is why refrigeration is necessary to make sure that the dough is good to eat. To make sure that this experiment is accurate, many precautions must be taken to ensure that the dough comes out the same as the batch before it. All ingredients must be the same brand, and they must be measured accurately. Also, time is a very important component to this experiment. I will take extra care in making sure that the times are measured accurately, I will make sure that the dough is refrigerated for exactly 48 hours, I will making sure that one batch of cookies is not burnt, and that the cooling time remains constant throughout the different batches. The success of this project is based on how the dough changes after being refrigerated for 48 hours. If the dough being refrigerated is even the slightest bit different from the dough being freshly made, my results could be incorrect. While doing research I found out that when you initially mix cookie dough, the particles of the wet and dry ingredients sit side by side. By letting the dough sit in the refrigerator for 48 hours, the dry ingredients absorb the wet ingredients and then become one, instead of sitting side by side. This goes back to the essential question: Does this affect the flavor of the cookie? How about the texture? When water and any other wet ingredient is mixed with flour, it bonds together to make the cookies rise. If the flour and other wet ingredients are left to bond for 48 hours longer than they normally would, would the cookies be lighter or gooier? These are all questions that can be answered by my experiment. Using a microscope, I would be able to see the difference in the two doughs. Another question yet to be answered is whether or not there’s a difference between the sugar cookie dough and the chocolate chip dough. Could the fact that one of the doughs has chocolate chips in it affect how the wet and dry ingredients combine? How about the amount of sugar? Could that also change the flavor and or texture? This experiment begins with many unanswered questions, but will be finished with many answered ones. Many people would not think of baking as a science, when in reality, that’s exactly what it is. Baking requires precise measurements of time and quantity, it requires the ability to read and follow directions, and it has variables, controls, and dependent variables. In my experiment I can use the science of baking to determine whether or not refrigerating a batch of cookie dough for 48 hours affects the taste and or texture of the cookie. By conducting a blind taste test with ten participants I can make sure that I collect accurate, unbiased data. I will be able to answer many questions about how variations in dough and temperature affect the cookie. I will also be able to practice good food safety habits by making sure that everything remains at a healthy temperature. So is it possible to make the perfect, melt-in-your-mouth, gooey, blissful tasting cookie? I believe that it is well within our reach. Food Studies: The Science of Cookie Texture. Grist. N. p. , n. d. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. lt;http://grist. org/food/2011-10-06-food-studies-the-science-of-cookie-texture/gt;. How Do You Make the Best Cookie? How Do You Make the Best Cookie? N. p. , n. d. Web. 23 Sept. 012. lt; sciencebuddies. org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/FoodSci_p014. shtmlgt;. Refrigeration and Food Safety. Http://www. fsis. usda. gov. N. p. , n. d. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. lt; fsis. usda. gov/FACTSheets/Refrigeration_gt;. Safe Food Handling Fact Sheets. Safe Food Handling Fact Sheets. N. p. , n. d. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. lt; fsis. usda. gov/fact_sheets/Safe_Food_Handling_Fact_Sheets/index. aspgt;. Smith, Terry L. Nutrition and Food Safety. New York: Chelsea House, 2011. Print.