The Science of Baking

Something I love about baking is that it's like a science experiment. Your goal is to make the best pie crust, for example, so you try a recipe. And then you adjust and adjust and adjust as necessary until you do, in fact, make the best pie crust. You can make it flakier or denser or flavored or plain—all by adjusting one or two things.

Something else I love about baking is that it's also like being a detective. If a recipe comes out of the oven all wrong, you can do a little sleuthing to figure out what happened—and again, adjust as necessary. So if your pie crust isn't as flaky as you want it, you can try a couple of things: 1) chill the fat a bit more, or 2) cut the fat into smaller pieces.

See?  Science.  Detective work. I love it.

And that's why I loved this when I saw it on Facebook: The Ultimate Guide to Chocolate Chip Cookies. The author gives us a visual of what chocolate chip cookies look like when you add more flour, use only white sugar, or completely melt the butter.

Pretty cool, no?

So get out there and start experimenting with your baking!  It's fun!


P.S. I personally think that chilling cookie dough for a least a few hours will lead to the best cookie results. I rarely ever use cookie dough at room temperature anymore.