The topic of my STEM fair project is cookie taste and appearance. ” How does cream butter, melted butter, margarine, and shortening affect the taste and appearance of chocolate chip cookies”. The purpose of this experiment is to see which type of butter substance is best for bakers to use to make the best chocolate chip cookie. The information from this project will help people who love to bake, to find the best way to make cookies that their eaters will enjoy the most. All bakers around the world bake cookies differently. Some use more flour than others, some don’t use eggs, and some make them gluten free.
But they all have a unique way of baking the best cookies for themselves. They all have an opinion on which way of butter they use. But others who are newer to the world of baking, are open to trying different ways and want to know which way has the best results for appearance and taste. This project and research is important for all bakers to read and consider when choosing the best way to bake their cookies. No substance can ever compare to butter. Butter has a certain taste and flavor the adds to the cookies that no other substance can add.
Butter is more water down compared to margarine and shortening. While baking, it tends to spread out more and the cookies end up more thin and wide, compared to cookies made with margarine or shortening. “COOKIE FACT #3: MELTED BUTTER = DENSER COOKIES, CREAMED BUTTER = CAKIER COOKIES” Said J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, “the Managing Culinary Director of Serious Eats, and author of the James Beard Awardnominated column The Food Lab” His study showed that when he used cream butter, the cookies came out more cake like compared to melted butter, which came out more denser.
The COOKIE FACT #5: CREAMED BUTTER = LIGHTER AND FIRMER, MELTED BUTTER = DENSER AND CHEWIER” Also in his st confirmed that melted butter cookies were more dense and chewy, compared to creamed butter cookies, which were more light and firm. He concluded that melted butter and cream butter have different effects and outcomes from each other, and he concluded that neither of them are better than the other, but it’s simply a personal opinion. Shortening is a thicker substance that many people use to replace butter. Shortening has zero taste, and has a higher melting temperature compared to butter and margarine.
Because shortening has a higher melting temperature, when the cookies are baking, it doesn’t melt, which gives the eggs and flour more time to set in place. And as a result, the cookies come out lighter and higher. Whereas butter has a lower melting point, which caused the cookies to come out flatter and crispier. Many people prefer to use shortening in their bake goods rather than butter or margarine. Margarine is yet another substance many people use to substitute butter while baking. Unlike shortening, margarines melting temperature is very similar to butter, and therefore the cookies come out very similar.
Margarine is very similar to butter in nutritional value. They both have very close calorie count and trans fat. Although margarine is very similar to butter, the cookies cookies made with margarine taste different from cookies made with butter. Just like shortening, margarine adds zero flavor to any baked good it is used in, and as a result the cookies made with margarine don’t have as much flavor as cookies made with butter.
Jens daughter, a student, did a very simular science fair project to the one i’m doing. Jen is a professional baker and has her own blog, so her daughter decided to research how butter and hortening affect how the cookies look and feel. She baked two batches of cookies, one with butter and the other with shortening. She then surveyed many people to see which one they liked better. “She asked several people to taste test the cookies. She gave them one cookie from each batch, and they had to comment on the taste and the texture of each cookie. Most people liked the butter flavor better, but the texture of the shortening cookie better. As expected. ” Her results show that the people liked the taste of the butter cookies more than the shortening.
However, they liked the texture better on the cookies with shortening. An inconsistency that this project had was that she did not use the exact same recipe in both batches of cookies. “She then made a batch of cookies, substituting butter for the shortening. The first thing we realized is that the dough is much softer, and required more flour. We added about 1/2 cup extra flour. I could maybe have used even a little more. his is because butter naturally has more water in it than shortening, and hence more moisture in the dough. Because she did not use the same recipe, there was more than one variable, which could have affected the results.
In conclusion, the purpose of my project is to find out with substance do people like the look and taste of the best. My project is important because bakers all over can know which substance people like better, and which one they should use. I found out that margarine and shortening are very similar substances through flavor wise, and that margarine and butter are similar in nutritional value and appearance. Shortening is very different from butter, because it has a different taste and appearance.