The Chemistry of Baking Cookies

Baking cookies seems simple, especially if you cook pre-made cookie dough, but its really a set of chemical reactions. If your cookies never turn out perfect, understanding their chemistry may help improve your technique. Follow this classic chocolate chip cookie recipe and learn about the ingredients and the reactions that occur throughout the mixing and baking process. Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe 3/4 cup granulated sugar (sucrose, C12H22O11)3/4 cup brown sugar (caramelized sucrose)1 cup unsalted butter (a fat)1 large egg (consists of water, protein, fat, emulsifier, and albumin)1 teaspoon vanilla extract (for flavor)2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour (contains gluten)1 teaspoon baking soda (sodium bicarbonate,  NaHCO3, which is a weak base)1/2 teaspoon salt (NaCl)2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips Youll get the best results if you use room temperature eggs and butter. This helps the ingredients mix into the recipe more evenly and means your cookie dough will be room temperature and not cool when you put the cookies in the oven. The fat in the recipe affects the texture of the cookies and browns them, which influences flavor as well as color. Substituting a different fat in place of butter affects the flavor of the cookies and also the texture since other fats (lard, vegetable oil, margarine, etc.) have a different melting point from butter. If you use salted butter, its usually best to reduce the amount of added salt.Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Its important to preheat the oven because if you put the cookies in the oven and the temperature is too low, the dough can spread rather than firm up. This affects the thickness of the cookie, its texture, and how evenly it browns.Mix together the sugar, brown sugar, butter, vanilla, and eggs. Mostly, this is to blend the in gredients so the composition of the cookies will be uniform. For the most part, no chemical reaction occurs at this point. Mixing the sugars with the eggs dissolves some of the sugar in the water from the eggs, so the crystals wont be as large in the cookies. Brown sugar adds caramelized sugar flavor to the cookies. While it doesnt matter what color of eggs you use (white or brown), the size matters, just like measuring all of the other ingredients! If you substitute an egg from a different bird than a chicken, the recipe will work, but the flavor will be different. You dont want to over-mix the ingredients because beating eggs for too long affects the protein molecules in the egg white. Real vanilla and imitation vanilla (vanillin) contain the same flavor molecule, but real vanilla extract has a more complex flavor because of other molecules from the plant.Mix in the flour (a little at a time), baking soda, and salt. You can sift the ingredients together to make sure they are evenl y distributed, but sprinkling the salt and baking soda onto the mixture works too. The flour contains gluten, the protein that holds the cookies together, makes them a bit chewy and gives them their substance. Cake flour, bread flour, and self-rising flour could be substituted for all-purpose flour in a pinch, but arent ideal. The cake flour might produce fragile cookies with a finer crumb; the bread flour contains more gluten and could make the cookies tough or too chewy, and the self-rising flour already contains leavening agents that would make the cookies rise.  The baking soda is the ingredient that makes cookies rise. The salt is a flavoring, but also controls the rising of the cookies.Stir in the chocolate chips. This last to ensure the other ingredients are properly mixed and to avoid smashing the chips. The chocolate chips are flavoring. Dont like semi-sweet? Switch it out!Drop rounded teaspoons of the dough about two inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. The size of the cookies matters! If you make the cookies too big or put them too close together, the interior of the cookie isnt dont by the time the bottom and edges brown. If the cookies are too small, they may not brown enough by the time the middle is done, giving you rock-hard cookies. Theres no need to grease the cookie sheet. While a light spritz of non-stick spray might not hurt, greasing the pan  adds fat to the cookies and affects how they brown and their texture.Bake the cookies 8 to 10 minutes or until they are light golden brown. Which rack you put the cookies on depends on your oven. Usually, the center rack is fine, but if your cookies tend to get too dark on the bottom, try moving them up one rack. The heating element in a conventional oven is on the bottom. The Baking Process If the ingredients are high quality, measured carefully, and mixed as they should be, chemical magic happens in the oven to make great cookies. Heating sodium bicarbonate causes it to decompose into water and carbon dioxide: 2NaHCO3 → Na2CO3 H2O CO2 Carbon dioxide gas and water vapor form the bubbles which make cookies rise. Rising doesnt just make cookies taller. It also opens up space to keep the cookie from becoming too dense. Salt slows down the decomposition of baking soda, so the bubbles dont get too big. This could lead to weak cookies or to cookies that fall flat when they come out of the oven. The heat works on the butter, egg yolk, and flour to change the shape of the molecules. The gluten in the flour forms a polymer mesh that works with the albumin protein from the egg white and the emulsifier lecithin from the egg yolk to form the dough and support the bubbles. Heat breaks the sucrose into the simple sugars glucose and fructose, giving each cookie a shiny, light brown crust. When you take the cookies out of the oven, the hot water gases in the cookie contract. The chemical changes that occurred during baking help the cookie keep its shape. This is why undercooked cookies (or other baked goods) fall in the center. After Baking If the cookies arent devoured immediately, the chemistry doesnt end with baking. The humidity of the surroundings affects cookies after they have cooled. If the air is very dry, moisture from the cookies escapes, making them hard. In a humid environment, cookies can absorb water vapor, making them soft. After cookies have completely cooled, they can be placed into a cookie jar or other container to keep them fresh and delicious.

Benjamin Franklin´s Involvement in the English Empire Essay

With Benjamin Franklin’s ambition to see one day the glorious English Empire shifted to North America, specifically in Pennsylvania and to get rid of the proprietors, he envisages a single community that will embody Englishmen only. For that reason, Franklin is against massive immigration of Germans and the presence of African slaves which will fade the identity of a perfect English Empire. He becomes more optimistic of his vision when the Crown appoints him in 1753 as a postmaster at Williamsburg. Despite all the failures that he encounters from not passing solutions such as colonial union and the Albany Plan, Franklin still maintains his degree of confidence and loyalty to the mother country. Closer to his dream, he has been selected in†¦show more content†¦On the other hand, the Stamp Act has a different and a direct effect on the colonies. The objective of the act is to tax legal documents, almanacs, newspapers, playing cards, and nearly every form of paper used i n the colonies. This seems to be a threat to the American constitutional rights. Therefore, colonial agents in London and lieutenants Governor oppose to the Stamp Act, including Franklin saying that â€Å"It will affect the printers more that anybody†. Franklin, despite his British’s loyalties and love, comes up with an alternative plan for raising revenue instead of taxing legal paper. He proposes a plan that parliament authorize the issuing of paper currency at interest. Franklin knows exactly how his proposed plan will work and assures his fellows by saying that â€Å"it would not be an unpleasing one†. This action taken by Franklin to find another option to raise money demonstrates how he has his country of birth’s interest at heart. Unfortunately, his proposal is rejected by Greenville, a chief minister under who’s the Stamp act is planned. But that does not stop him from appealing the plan. However, many colonies such as Pennsylvanian blame Franklin for creating the Stamp Act. 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Psychology †Reflection on Self Free Essays

Our universe has the general tendency to move from order to disorder. And yet look at how complex we are. The puzzle becomes: How does our universe creates complexity? David Christian said, â€Å"The universe can create complexity but with great difficulty. We will write a custom essay sample on Psychology – Reflection on Self or any similar topic only for you Order Now † According to him, we live in the â€Å"goldilocks region† of our universe – not too hot, not too cold, but just right for the creation of complexity. Then, things slightly more complex started to appear stage by stage. Each stage is magical because it creates something utterly new appearing almost out of nowhere. We have known that DNA accumulates information through random errors some of which just happened to work. But DNA actually generated a faster way of accumulation information. It produced organisms with brain. And those organisms can learn and accumulate information first-hand. The sad thing about it is when the organism dies; the information dies with them. We, humans, appeared about 200 thousand years ago. What makes humans different is our way of communication, the human language. A system of communication so powerful and precise that we can share our knowledge and form a collective memory that accumulates from generation to generation. The main reason why as a species humans are so creative and intelligence. But then things started to get more complex, emotions, intuition and consciousness started to materialize. We became much more sensitive and perceptive to our environment. We began to reflect upon our different behaviours. That is when â€Å"the self† emerges out of the mere reflection upon our behaviour and social interaction. Our self-concept determines our level of performance in our everyday lives. All the changes we act on the outside begin in the inside of our self-concept. The way we think, act, interact and everything that happens in our life is the manifestations of our self-concept and the way we understand it. Our outer life is always a reflection of our inner life. It is extremely important to know ourselves in order to be very clear of our values, principles, beliefs and ideals. These elements contribute as a whole on how we behave and interact with other people. Our self-concept influences our emotions, behaviour and even the way other people respond and interact with us. The problem with that though is when we think about ourselves negatively. Everything starts to be affected from just the way we think about ourselves. We start to become helpless and depressed. â€Å"We are born with pain. We are born through difficulties,† Nik Vujicic once said. Nik Vujicic was born without limbs. He tried to drown himself when he was 10 years old because he felt like he was hopeless and abandoned. He felt like it was only him against the world. But the one thought that saved him was what will his family feel and suffer when he would kill himself saying, â€Å"You know what’s worse about being born without limbs? It’s being born without limbs who gives up on living.† Personally, I don’t know why we are born this way. But we have a choice, either be angry for what we don’t have or be thankful for what we have. If Nik Vujicic, limbless but can still smile despite difficulties and trials, then so can we. When we feel like we don’t have love and hope, we start to become helpless and lose the strength to love. We start to doubt and question our very own existence when we lose those qualities. We all have those people who are going to bring us down no matter how good our day is, or bring us even lower when we are having a bad day. But when we think and accuse those people as the greatest discouragement of our lives, we’re wrong because they’re not- we are. We have a choice to give up on living or get up. Those things are like the wounds or scars in a tree bark. Judging from how a tree grows, it will never go away. But we can grow as much as we want and let those kinds of things be a small part of our lives, or we succumb to it and die. We need to remind ourselves that we are important and special, and our values are not determined by our social status, background and the way we look. During fifth grade, I was oppressed by many people even my own teacher because I was a bad kid. There was one time I was accused of doing something and I tried to defend myself saying that what happened was an accident, but it was futile. I could only do so much. People were already saying that I was the â€Å"black sheep† of my family and that I was very different from my other siblings. What happened will forever be a scar in my memory but I have to grow. I have to stand up for myself and continue on living. Everyday we make choices, and most often the simple choices are the ones that can have the huge effect for the rest of our lives. The world needs love and hope. Let us start our day by giving just that. We are here for a reason. William Barkley said, â€Å"The greatest two days in anyone’s life is the day you were born and the day you know why. † We may not be able to get a miracle but we can be a miracle for others. We need to remind other people that they are important. In order to help ourselves, we first need to become selfless, not egocentric but sociocentric. Just like one famous song would state, â€Å"Love is something if you give it away. It will come right back to you. † When I was a kid even until now, I was always inquisitive and curious. I was really thinking if an optimistic belief in ourselves and self-confidence would really make a difference. I wanted to find out how do you really become successful. Eduardo Briceno asked, â€Å"What do you think is the the key to achieving goals and success? † Most people believed that it’s hard work, persistence and focus but Briceno showed that these are all products of something more potent that anyone could develop. Josh Waitzkin, a chess international master and the subject for the movie â€Å"The Search for the Next Bobby Fisher,† is an example of a person who achieved great success. No one won more international competitions than him. But even more impressive, Waitzkin took on the challenge of mastering a complete new field, martial arts. It was very different from chess. After intense devotion, hard work and some broken joints, he became a great martial artist having won two international competitions. Believe it or not, Waitzkin said that the greatest thing that ever happened to him was losing his first international chess championship. He avoided the greatest psychological trap. The key trap Waitzkin avoided was believing that he was smarter than other people and that he didn’t have to work hard. He could’ve thought of himself as a protà ©gà © but he didn’t. He said, â€Å"The moment we believe that success is determined by an ingrained level of ability, we will brittle in the face of adversity. † Stanford University Professor Carol Dweck discovered that some people think that intelligence is fixed while other people see intelligence as Waitzkin does as something that we can develop and grow. In a study she did, several hundred seventh graders were surveyed for which kind of mindset they had and were tracked for two years. Result showed that students with growth mindset increased their performance over time. The only difference between the two groups was a different perspective of what intelligence is. â€Å"The key to success is not only effort, focus and persistent but it is the belief that we can develop ourselves and the growth mindset that creates them. † If we are to fulfill our potentials, we have to start thinking differently. Our thoughts influence our actions because if we don’t believe it then no one else will. We have to realize that we are not constant and locked to our contemporary abilities. We can change our ability to think and perform. Because when we lose sight in the belief that we can do something, we are done. In fact, most of the greatest thinkers of our era were once thought of as having no potential and future. Einstein once thought of committing suicide regretting why was he even born. But along with him and other great achievers from Mozart to Robert Boyle built their intelligence and abilities. â€Å"We are what we repeatedly do,† Aristotle famously proclaimed. â€Å"Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. † Once we start to believe in ourselves, that’s when confidence and excellence comes in. Excellence is not something we are born with. We have to work our way to it. We have to make it a habit. William James once said, â€Å"Any sequence of mental action which has been frequently repeated tends to perpetuate itself; so that we find ourselves automatically prompted to think, feel, or do what we have been before accustomed to think, feel, or do.† But before excellence and success, we have to believe in ourselves. The real way of achieving self-esteem and self-confidence is not by being born with it but by working and being certain of it. The key insight of the context is the belief that we can somehow do it, being confident about it and that we have to work hard at something in order to attain it. We must be confident about what we do because we’ve done it a million times. By that, we bring our game to a whole new level. Einstein worked for 10 years in completing his equations for the General Theory of Relativity. Behind it is the understanding that setbacks and failures are part of growth. Every time we became discouraged at something we are doing at, we start to tell ourselves that, â€Å"I can’t do it. † When we hear that, let us talkback with affirmation, â€Å"I can’t do it but not yet. † Just a little faith in ourselves can create great leaps. Having an optimistic belief in ourselves does create competence and effectiveness on what we do. As I would paraphrase a key text in the Bible, â€Å"Faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains. † How to cite Psychology – Reflection on Self, Papers

Could Webvan.com Have Been Saved free essay sample

This paper analyzes the reasons why Webvan.com failed. This paper analyzes in detail the demise of the dotcom business, Webvan. The author states that Webvan ignored the most important lesson that good business is still based on basic rules of supply and demand, customer service, employee relations, and prudent expansion. It reached too far and too fast. In the boom days of the dotcoms, even with such ambitious scope, Webvan had no trouble raising capital; at its inception, investment analysts gave it the nod with assessments that ranged from attractive to strong buy But no sooner did the company go public in November of 1999 and raised $375 million, but the bottom dropped out, and it showed losses of $144.6 million in its first year of existence. At that point, from a market perspective, most of us would do what the analysts did urge holds and caution to give the brand-new baby business time to find its feet. We will write a custom essay sample on Could Webvan.com Have Been Saved? or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page