Science of Brownies
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SCIENCE CONCEPT
Baking is one of my many activities that I like to do. I also enjoy baking with friends and family members. Me and my friend Kenzie for instance will make fudge together. It was a big trial and error, but we had a lot of fun making it. More people need to understand what baking is though.
Baking is preparing food, specifically made with a flour base, and baking it in an oven. The most common baked item is actually bread. There are many things you can bake. Some include cookies, pie, cake, rolls, etc. The real definition of baking is, “process of cooking by dry heat, especially in some kind of oven.” Also, baking is the oldest cooking method. It’s really interesting to see what people have created through baking over the many years. |
APPLICATION
Many people bake. It's a very common hobby. I know people who apply baking in their everyday lives. Like my Bonus Mom for example. Her name is Kayla, and she bakes a lot of bread. She will bake the bread over the span of a couple days and sell it. She also makes pretty good money off of her mini business that she has started.
Everybody is capable of baking. Nowadays, even kids can bake with an easy-bake oven. Baking can also be applied in school with a home-ec class. Or maybe baking cookies for a school fundraiser. But sometimes, baking doesn’t always go right. Many things can go wrong, or something may not rise right. But it’s good to learn from the failure and keep going. Then eventually, you will get the recipe right and you can move on. |
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CAREER
Being a baker is in very high demand. If you are baking, you also get a lot of time on your feet. And if you are baking constantly, it can be over 12 hours on your feet. The average annual salary for a baker is about $30,993. But depending on what you do, your pay can be different every time. There are a lot of perks to baking though. Your schedule can be very flexible. You get to show off your creativity being a baker, you can enjoy mobility, and you can get free desserts for yourself. You can also gain popularity baking and make people happy with your treats. Making people happy is what makes it all worthwhile.
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SCIENTIST
There are so many people who bake and have their own baking shows. One of the bakers I find really interesting is Jacques Torres. Torres is a French pastry chef who masters in baking and in making gourmet chocolate. He is 64 years old, has a bakery in New York, and also is on the show “Nailed It” as one of the judges. He has a wife and 2 children. Torres’s wife also used to own her own chocolate business in Beverly Hills, CA. But just by making chocolate and desserts, they have been able to support and make a really good life for themselves.
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ESSAY
Science of Brownies
Many people don’t realize this, but baking is science. There are very many people who would agree with me on this statement. At our church, there is a lady named April Kidd. She is a laboratory scientist. She does stuff with blood work and also figures out how and why someone died. But besides being a scientist, she has a really good baking business on the side. She makes these very impressive cakes and baked goods, and gets paid pretty well for them.
Whenever April makes these cakes though, she is very thorough and precise on her measurements. She always makes sure that everything is at the measurement line that it's supposed to be at. If you don’t then it is really easy to mess things up. Say you have too much flour going over the line. Then your cake will end up dry, crumbly, and heavy. The same goes for if you have too little flour. If you have too little flour, then your cake will end up with the texture being too heavy and gummy. Basically, baking is an art that can be very delicate and it needs to be taken seriously.
Cakes are very common for people to make, but brownies are also very popular. Brownies are actually what I am making for my project. But in my project, I have changed some of the ingredients to the brownies I made. Usually, the ingredients in a brownie are eggs, cocoa powder, vegetable oil, salt, baking powder, sugar, and vanilla extract. But in each of my batches I changed the oil I used. I have 3 different batches. In batch A, I used vegetable oil. In batch B, I used olive oil. Then in batch C, I used coconut oil.
The first thing I did with my brownies was set out the measurements. For all of my measurements I set out 2 eggs, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, ⅓ cup of unsweetened cocoa powder, ½ cup of oil, 1 cup of white sugar, ¼ teaspoon of baking powder, and ¼ teaspoon of salt. Then, I mixed all of the dry ingredients together separate from the wet ingredients. Then I mixed the wet ingredients together. After that, I added the dry and wet ingredients together.
After mixing all the ingredients together, I started to preheat the oven. I set the oven at 350 degrees fahrenheit. While the oven preheated, I put the brownie batter into tin pans. Then after the oven had preheated, I baked each of the brownies one batch at a time. First I baked the ones with vegetable oil, then the ones with coconut oil, and lastly the ones with olive oil.
The brownies turned out……..interesting. I learned that I don’t really know how to make brownies and that the recipe I used was a bad one. But that’s ok. The first batch of brownies with the vegetable oil turned out not great. They rose flat and were kind of sponge-like. They turned out more like a sheet cake. I had my sister try them and she didn’t like them very much.
The second batch of brownies was a little better than the first. These brownies have coconut oil in them. They had a better overall texture and flavor. These brownies also didn't have the sheet cake feeling to them. The coconut oil brownies did have a darker color to them though. Bethany did like these brownies much more than the first ones. Bethany is also my guinea pig with this experiment. But lucky enough, she doesn’t seem to mind.
Now, we have the olive oil brownies. These brownies turned out the worst in my opinion. But Bethany says that they still are better than the first batch. At least with the first batch I could get them out of the pan. I couldn’t do that with this batch! The olive oil brownies were also way more bitter and the texture was awful! It was way too spongy for me. And they also turned out the darkest in color. The brownies turned out so bad that I won’t even be able to sell them on wednesday! The brownies are definitely going to get wasted.
I never realized how strange it would be for me to make brownies. I thought it would be easy, but it wasn’t. I had to end up putting water and sugar in them whenever the recipe didn’t even call for them. But if I hadn’t put the extra ingredients in there, the brownies would’ve been very bitter. They probably wouldn’t have risen very well either.
This project was a great learning experience for me. There were three very important things that I learned. The first being to always put sugar in brownies! If you don’t, then they turn out very very bitter. Cocoa powder doesn’t taste well by itself. The next thing I learned is that coconut oil is the best oil to use to make brownies! They were definitely the best tasting brownies out of the three batches that I made.
Lastly, I learned to choose a better recipe. The right recipe is key and I definitely chose a bad one. I should’ve known this recipe was bad when it didn’t call for sugar. But this just shows that baking doesn’t always turn out the way you will think it will. Baking is an art and you need to know what you are doing. Because if you don’t, then it can go horribly wrong. It’s always a trial and error that many people spend time perfecting. But I just think this also shows us that baking is not my strong suit, and I am ok with that.
Many people don’t realize this, but baking is science. There are very many people who would agree with me on this statement. At our church, there is a lady named April Kidd. She is a laboratory scientist. She does stuff with blood work and also figures out how and why someone died. But besides being a scientist, she has a really good baking business on the side. She makes these very impressive cakes and baked goods, and gets paid pretty well for them.
Whenever April makes these cakes though, she is very thorough and precise on her measurements. She always makes sure that everything is at the measurement line that it's supposed to be at. If you don’t then it is really easy to mess things up. Say you have too much flour going over the line. Then your cake will end up dry, crumbly, and heavy. The same goes for if you have too little flour. If you have too little flour, then your cake will end up with the texture being too heavy and gummy. Basically, baking is an art that can be very delicate and it needs to be taken seriously.
Cakes are very common for people to make, but brownies are also very popular. Brownies are actually what I am making for my project. But in my project, I have changed some of the ingredients to the brownies I made. Usually, the ingredients in a brownie are eggs, cocoa powder, vegetable oil, salt, baking powder, sugar, and vanilla extract. But in each of my batches I changed the oil I used. I have 3 different batches. In batch A, I used vegetable oil. In batch B, I used olive oil. Then in batch C, I used coconut oil.
The first thing I did with my brownies was set out the measurements. For all of my measurements I set out 2 eggs, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, ⅓ cup of unsweetened cocoa powder, ½ cup of oil, 1 cup of white sugar, ¼ teaspoon of baking powder, and ¼ teaspoon of salt. Then, I mixed all of the dry ingredients together separate from the wet ingredients. Then I mixed the wet ingredients together. After that, I added the dry and wet ingredients together.
After mixing all the ingredients together, I started to preheat the oven. I set the oven at 350 degrees fahrenheit. While the oven preheated, I put the brownie batter into tin pans. Then after the oven had preheated, I baked each of the brownies one batch at a time. First I baked the ones with vegetable oil, then the ones with coconut oil, and lastly the ones with olive oil.
The brownies turned out……..interesting. I learned that I don’t really know how to make brownies and that the recipe I used was a bad one. But that’s ok. The first batch of brownies with the vegetable oil turned out not great. They rose flat and were kind of sponge-like. They turned out more like a sheet cake. I had my sister try them and she didn’t like them very much.
The second batch of brownies was a little better than the first. These brownies have coconut oil in them. They had a better overall texture and flavor. These brownies also didn't have the sheet cake feeling to them. The coconut oil brownies did have a darker color to them though. Bethany did like these brownies much more than the first ones. Bethany is also my guinea pig with this experiment. But lucky enough, she doesn’t seem to mind.
Now, we have the olive oil brownies. These brownies turned out the worst in my opinion. But Bethany says that they still are better than the first batch. At least with the first batch I could get them out of the pan. I couldn’t do that with this batch! The olive oil brownies were also way more bitter and the texture was awful! It was way too spongy for me. And they also turned out the darkest in color. The brownies turned out so bad that I won’t even be able to sell them on wednesday! The brownies are definitely going to get wasted.
I never realized how strange it would be for me to make brownies. I thought it would be easy, but it wasn’t. I had to end up putting water and sugar in them whenever the recipe didn’t even call for them. But if I hadn’t put the extra ingredients in there, the brownies would’ve been very bitter. They probably wouldn’t have risen very well either.
This project was a great learning experience for me. There were three very important things that I learned. The first being to always put sugar in brownies! If you don’t, then they turn out very very bitter. Cocoa powder doesn’t taste well by itself. The next thing I learned is that coconut oil is the best oil to use to make brownies! They were definitely the best tasting brownies out of the three batches that I made.
Lastly, I learned to choose a better recipe. The right recipe is key and I definitely chose a bad one. I should’ve known this recipe was bad when it didn’t call for sugar. But this just shows that baking doesn’t always turn out the way you will think it will. Baking is an art and you need to know what you are doing. Because if you don’t, then it can go horribly wrong. It’s always a trial and error that many people spend time perfecting. But I just think this also shows us that baking is not my strong suit, and I am ok with that.
