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Thursday, February 26, 2009

A little science project

I often underestimate how much science and chemistry are involved in baking and cooking. I can mostly attribute that to the fact that I know little about what is actually happening in my kitchen in terms of science. I have learned a few things over the years though, one of those being that it is beneficial to run more than one trial. And run more than one trial is just what I did tonight while making crusts for the two lemon tarts I will be making tomorrow manana.

I followed the same recipe for each crust but my method of getting the crust in the tart pan was different. My first trial consisted of following the recipe; I rolled the crust out and then placed it in the pan, folding over the edges and so on and so forth. I was unable to see the purpose in the whole rolling out thing so I decided to take control in trial two. I just plopped that perfectly mooshy ball into my second tart pan and set to work mooshing and gooshing it around until I had it in every nook and cranny. It took me all of five second in trial two to understand that the rolling pin would have made whole venture in trial two much more enjoyable. And it would have definitely made for a more uniform crust. Let's be honest, crust number one is going to be smooth and uniform and beautiful. After all the elbow grease that I threw into crust number two there is no guarantee for beauty, only love in that one.

Lesson learned. Follow the recipe from trusted sources. They usually know what they're talking about. I should quit trying to fool myself; science or not, I'm still an amateur.

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