Not all potatoes are created equal

Potatoes are one of my favorite foods. They have so many possibilities, so many ways to create with them and eat them and they are all delicious. Today I tested whether or not there are specific types of potatoes that should be used for specific types of cooking by looking at their starch qualities.

There are over 200 different types of potatoes in the world but all of them contain mainly 2 things: starch and moisture. That being said the amount of water a potato can absorb is directly related to the amount of starch it contains (The Science of Good Cooking). For this reason I am testing two types of potato to see if one absorbs more water than the other.

Picture 1 - From left to right red bliss, russet, and sweet potatoes. I didn't collect any data on the sweet potatoes because the red dye was too hard to see in the orange color. 

I did this by boiling 1/2 inch pieces of different types of potatoes in boiling water dyed red.

Picture 2 - pieces of potato after they had been boiled in the red water 

My hypothesis for this experiment was: If a potato has a lot of starch they will absorb more water than if the potato does not contain a lot of starch. The null hypothesis for this experiment was that the amount of starch in the potato would not affect the amount of water absorbed by the potato. The standardized variables for this experiment was the same pot and amount of water and amount of dye in the water.

For this experiment I needed:
- potato (russet and red bliss)
- pot
- food coloring (preferably blue but I only had red)
- ruler

I cut up multiple half inch sections of each type of potato (red bliss and russet). I added water to a pot (enough to cover the potatoes) and added the red food coloring until it was a dark red color. Once the water came to a boil I placed my potato pieces into the water and boiled them until they were cooked through.  

After the potatoes had cooked I took them out of the water and measured the amount that the red dye had soaked into the potato in millimeters.

Picture 4 - This graph shows the average absorption of the dyed water by the potato. Clearly the Russet Potato absorbed way more water than the Red Bliss Potato. 

As shown above in the graph you can clearly see that the russet potatoes absorbed more water than the red bliss potatoes. This is directly due to the amount of starch in russet potatoes. Because of this I can accept my hypothesis and say the amount of starch does have an effect on the amount of water absorbed. According to The Science of Good Cooking russet potatoes have a higher starch content than red bliss potatoes they absorbed more water and turned red all the way through versus the red bliss potato that only turned red on the outside but none soaked in. 

Until next time. 

Soft as Egg Shells

Who doesn't love eggs? You can do so much with them. Today I set out to make the perfect fluffy omelet. According to my book for class an omelet cooked in butter will be fluffier than an omelet cooked without butter. You can test this by setting a weight on it. According to the book an omelet cooked with butter will be squished by a 2 pound weight because the extra fat in the butter coats the proteins in the egg keeping them tender. Ideally, you would use frozen butter because it melts slower and will disperse evenly throughout the egg (The Science of Good Cooking).



My hypothesis for this experiment is that if an omelet is cooked without butter it will not be able to be squished when a two pound weight is set on top of it. The null hypothesis for this experiment is that the butter would not have any effect on the omelet and thus it will be squished by the weight regardless. My independent variable was the butter and my dependent variable was whether the omelet got squished by the weight.



In order to preform this experiment you will need:
- three eggs (two whole, one yolk)
- half a tablespoon of frozen cubed butter
- 8 inch pan
- stove top
- bowl
- something that weighs 2 pounds



First you heat the pan on low for 10 minutes. While the pan is heating you need to mix your two whole eggs and one egg yolk together in a separate bowl. After the 10 minutes you pour the eggs into your pan and bring the heat up to medium and let the omelet cook. You then repeat the process with the same egg mixture only this time adding the frozen butter.

Picture 1 - both of my completed omelets. The omelet on the left was cooked with butter while the one on the right was not. Which one looks fluffier than the other? 

Picture 2 - omelet without butter being squished by two pounds of juice.

Picture 3 - omelet made with butter being squished by 2 pounds of juice. 

 Picture 4 - omelet cooked without butter, not squished by the juice. 

Picture 5 - omelet cooked with butter, squished by the juice. 

The results support my hypothesis that cooking an omelet with butter increases their fluffiness thus allowing it to be squished when weight is applied. In recreating this experiment I would definitely have an actual 2 pound weight instead of a jug of juice that weight nearly 2 pounds. I would also make more than one of each type of omelet (the one cooked with butter both smelled and looked delicious).

Until next time :) 

Thats how the Cookie Crumbles

Last week a couple girls from my class did experiments about eggs in baking which got my to thinking: Which part of the egg makes the best cookies? The whole egg? The yolk? Or the egg whites? Does it even matter? For this weeks experiment I hypothesized that the egg yolks would create more cookies overall as well as bigger cookies than egg whites would. The null hypothesis for this experiment was that the part of the egg I used would not effect the amount or the width of the cookies.

I followed the recipe on the back of the Ghirardelli milk chocolate chocolate chips bag. The original recipe called for eggs, flour, sugar, brown sugar, vanilla extract, butter, baking soda, and chocolate chips.

Picture 1 - All three completed batches of cookies. Which one looks the best? 

In this experiment I had three groups the whole egg group, the egg white group, and the egg yolk group. For each group I followed the experiment exactly as it called for until it came to the egg.

Group 1 - whole egg group
The batch of cookies from the whole egg group yielded 16 cookies in total and took 10 minutes to cook. The cookies had an average diameter of 2.67 inches.

Group 2 - egg yolk group
The batch of cookies from the egg yolk group only yielded 12 cookies. The batter for these cookies was crumblier and drier than the original control batch with the whole egg. This is probably because the egg white holds the majority of the water content for the egg which I had removed from this batch. These cookies took 15 minutes to cook. The cookies had an average diameter of 2.73 inches.

Group 3 - egg white group
The batch of cookies from the egg white group yielded 17 cookies, only one more than the control group and five more than the egg yolk group. The batter was much runnier than expected and took 20 minutes to cook. The cookies had an average diameter of 2.65 inches.

Figure 1 - This graph shows the average diameter in inches for each group of cookies 

Overall the egg yolk batch yielded the widest cookies. This surprised me because since the egg yolk holds a majority of the water content I was sure that the egg yolk cookies would not spread out as much as the egg white cookies. Instead the egg white cookies had the smallest diameter. 

The group of cookies that yielded the largest batch was the egg whites group which did not surprise me, again due to the water content making the batch runnier. 

I do not believe I can accept either my hypothesis or my null hypothesis. While I obviously tasted all three batches (and they were all pretty good) I think it depends on what you want in a cookie. If you enjoy a drier cookie good for dipping in milk then I would use only egg yolks in your batter. If you prefer a slightly larger and moister cookie than I would  go with the egg  yolks. 

Picture 2 - whole egg batch 

Picture 3 - egg yolk batch 

picture 4 - egg white batch 

Good Luck with your cooking adventures. Until next time :)

Yummy Yummy Cupcake

As you all know I am taking a class called the Science of food and cooking. In this class I have a final project that will revolve around leavening agents in cupcakes. Before our group can begin the final project we first must pick a standard recipe to use. For this weeks blog each one of my group members (myself included) picked a different recipe to test out and rate based on number of ingredients, readability, and how easily the steps are completed.

The cupcake recipe I used I got from recipes.com (http://www.recipe.com/vanila-cupcakes/).

This recipe had 10 ingredients in total which were: butter, 1 whole egg, egg yolks, vanilla extract, baking powder, all purpose flour, salt, sugar, and whipping cream. I had almost all of the ingredients in my apartment except the whipping cream.

Overall the recipe was pretty simple to complete but at times you were working out of more than one bowl which at times I thought was difficult. On a scale of 5 I would give this recipe a 3 for difficulty. My cupcakes rose nicely and were between 4 to 5 cm's each. Overall, I would prefer a recipe that had less ingredients to use for our project.

Picture 1: my beautiful cupcakes fresh out of the oven

Picture 2: how I measured my cupcakes height 

Got Milk?

The question of whether or not it should be legal to sell raw milk is a complicated one. Milk is a product that is consumed by hundreds of men, women, and children every day. Raw milk itself can potentially contain hundreds of harmful microorganisms that can put a person’s health at risk. But who hold them blame for consuming such products? Is it on the fault of the dairy for not properly testing their milk before sending it out to distributers? Is it on the fault of the grocery stores for knowingly putting raw milk on their shelves? Or is it at the fault of the individual or parent who, potentially knowing the risks chooses to drink the milk or give it to their children.

The people working at the dairy are responsible for milking the cows in the first place. It is them who come into first contact with the milk. According to the PMO (Pasteurized Milk Ordinance) there is no law against the sale of raw milk, however, some individual states law are different from that of the overall law. For example, Alabama does not permit the sale of raw milk while Arizona does permit the sale of raw milk and raw milk products as long as they carry the required warning labels. That being said, in states that permit the sale of raw milk ethically I would fall to the responsibility of those working at the dairy to test their milk and milk products as they are the first line of defense. But what constitutes enough testing? In a perfect world the dairy would test every bit of milk that comes out of their cows and has the potential to be sold to humans. While this would be perfect it requires a lot of man power and money to test every drop of milk. On the flipside, dairies run the risk of too little testing a state at which milk and milk products are being tested so sparingly for microorganisms that a majority of their products go to sale even when they are contaminated. It is a fine to walk for dairy farmers but they are the first line of defense.

After the dairy the next top on its way to the consumers is to markets and grocery stores. It is the choice of the management of the stores whether or not to sell raw milk. At this point ethically, they are assuming responsibility for the products on their shelves and should be able to vouch for their safety. By resuming responsibility for raw products it is up to the store to make sure that the products on their shelves are safe for consumer use by following various protocols such as: keeping up to date products on their shelves and not expired ones, making sure that all appropriate labels are clearly visible and understandable by their consumers, and making themselves both knowledgeable and available to answer questions about said products.

                Lastly, it is the decision of the consumer themselves to buy the raw milk and consume it. Because the product is available to them does not mean that it is ethical for them to be drinking or providing said milk and milk products to their friends and other family members. Those buying raw milk need to be aware of the risks they are taking by purchasing and consuming this product. Unfortunately, there is no way to screen those purchasing raw milk and milk products to make sure that they are informed of the risk they are ensuing by purchasing and consuming such products. Hopefully, those consuming raw milk are aware of the potential microorganisms they can be exposing themselves to by drinking raw milk. As stated by Cookson Beecher in an article about an E. Coli outbreak in raw milk in Tennessee “Milk from the healthiest-appearing cows in the cleanest dairy operations can still contain deadly microorganisms.” That being said buying raw milk from the cleanest grocery store does not ensure that it is safe to drink.

                In the same article Beecher described some of the health risks associated with drinking raw milk which included consumption of the following harmful and potentially deadly microorganisms such as: E. Coli, Listeria, Salmonella and Campylobacteria. Given the serious risks behind drinking or consuming raw milk and milk products there are also benefits that some would consider worth the risk. Some of the benefits as described by the Campaign for Raw Milk include: preventing pathogen absorption across the intestinal wall and strengthening the immune system. According to this organization based on data from the 2003 USDA/FDA report, “compared to raw milk there are 515 times more illnesses from bacteria in deli meats and 29 more times illnesses from bacteria due to pasteurized milk.” According to Beecher, some advocates of drinking raw milk believe it helps cure ailments such as asthma and various allergies.

Sources:

http://www.realmilk.com/safety/fresh-unprocessed-raw-whole-milk/

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2013/11/raw-milk-dairy-linked-to-e-coli-outbreak-through-tests/#.Us9tBE2A3IV

http://www.realmilk.com/safety/fresh-unprocessed-raw-whole-milk/

Experiment 1 - What boils faster?

It's a daily reminder from my mom: don't forget to salt your water when you're making pasta, something I usually forget. For this reason I always put the salt into the water right away but my mother always insists that it be added after the water is already boiling. Does it really make a difference? Today I will be testing the hypothesis that salted water boils faster than unsalted water. In this experiment the independent variable was whether or not the water contained salt and the dependent variable was the amount of time it took the water to boil.

To do this I used:
-  4 burner stove top
- two pots (preferably the same size)
- measuring cup
- measuring spoon

- salt

- water

- stop watch

First I took both of my pots and filled each of them with four cups of water using my measuring cup. Next I measured one tablespoon of salt with a measuring spoon and put it into one of the pots. Next I placed both pots on their own burner. I turned both the burners to high and started the stop watch. I timed the two pots until they came to a rolling boil. After both pots came to a rolling boil I took the pots of the heat, let them cool for 5 hours and redid the process switching which pot had salt and which pot did not have salt. I also switched which pot was on which burner.

Picture 1: set up including two pots on burners 

Picture 2: pot 1 with salt 

Picture 3: pot 2 with no salt 

Picture 4: measuring cup and measuring spoon 

Picture 5: pot two at a rolling boil 

Picture 6: pot 2 with salt at a rolling boil

Results:
round 1
- pot 1 with salt took 6 minutes and 30 seconds to come to a rolling boil
- pot 2 with no salt took 4 minutes and 45 seconds to come to a rolling boil
round 2
- pot 1 with no salt took 6 minutes and 20 seconds to come to a rolling boil
- pot 2 with salt took 7 minutes and 7 seconds to come to a rolling boil

Average time to boil with salt was 6 minutes and 48 seconds to come to a rolling boil
Average time to boil with no salt was 5 minutes and 32 seconds to come to a rolling boil

Because of these results I can reject the null hypothesis which was the salt in the water would have no effect on the amount of time it takes for the water boil. In a perfect world, I would have had the exact same pot used for both treatments however I used to two pots that were of similar size. To account for this I did both treatments in both pots and took an average of the two. 

My first time here:

Hello everyone! Welcome to my first blog ever. This blog was created for the Science of Food and Cooking, a class offered at Loras College. During my time with you I will be hopefully successfully creating delicious and delectable dishes which will give me an A in my class. Unfortunately at the prime age of 22, I have little cooking experience. In fact, I only recently attempted to learn how to cook starting a year ago when I was about to embark on a semester long trip to Ireland during which time I would have to fend for myself. What I do know I have learned from my mom who is the best cook on Earth. My mom has been cooking for a long time and was taught by my grandma. Hopefully, the things I learn from this class and post on this blog will help me continue on the tradition of great cooking in my household.