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What kind of a person would make her kids turn their Christmas Cookies into a science experiment? (Do you have to ask?)
In O’Reilly Media’s new book Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food, author Jeff Potter describes a demonstration you can do with cookies to see how temperature affects the chemical reactions that produce browning. We did an even more extreme version, putting our cookies in to bake at 250 to simulate the conditions in a typical homemade solar oven. The result? Crispy but pale cookies after 30 minutes; toasty brown cookies after an hour.
Calibrating the oven with sugar, an experiment from Cooking for Geeks. Image: Kathy Ceceri
We also tried following directions forcalibrating our oven thermostat using sugar, and found — as I suspected — that it runs pretty hot.
Want to share some kitchen science with your kids? Enter to win one of five copies of Cooking for Geeks, autographed by author Jeff Potter. Just fill out the form below by the deadline of 11:59 pm Thursday, December 30, 2010. Winners will be chosen at random.
Cooking for Geeks by Jeff Potter includes food science experiments you can try with your kids.
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