Funny Cakes Results

The funny cakes my mother bakes have two parts: a cocoa power based bottom, and a batter based top.  Naturally, the recipe is well protected, so it cannot be published. 

Experiment I - Bottom Temperature
Experiment I investigated whether the temperature of the bottom had an effect on boiling over, also investigating if putting the batter in the pie plate first or the bottom mixture in first had any effect on boiling over.

The results of Experiment I indicated that colder bottom temperatures had a higher tendency to spill over, while pouring the batter of bottom mixture in first had no effect.

On the left is an example of what I mean by boiling over - it is evident that the chocolate bottom boils over the top creating an unsightly mess.  This is also an example of putting the batter in first and then pouring in the chocolate bottom; because of the chocolate residue on the top it was decided that adding the chocolate bottom before the top batter would be the best way.

Improvements on Experiment I would be to standardize the amount of batter and bottom in each pie, standardize the baking time, and standardize the finished temperature measurement (My mother is not a very good scientist).

Experiment II - Batter Leavening
In Experiment II the amount of batter and bottom poured into each pie was standardized (1.07 lbs per pie of batter, 1.4 cups of bottom), along with the baking time.  The focus of this experiment was to determine if how long the batter sat before being used had any effect on the boiling over, since as the batter sits it loses some of it's leavening.  The batter was made all at once, and Trials 7-8 were baked.  17 minutes later, trial 9-10 were put in the oven, followed by Trials 11-12 30 minutes after Trials 7-8 were placed in the oven.

Due to the chief experimenter being sent on a wild goose chase for steel siding mid experiment, there are no images of the results.  However, it was found that after the batter sat for a time greater than 17 minutes, the top of the cake collapsed in after it was removed from the oven.  This suggest that the data from Trials 1-6 is still valid, because the batter sat for approximately 10 minutes, and collapsing was not observed.

Experiment III - Natural vs. Dutch Cocoa
As the ingredients of the funny cake recipe were being researched, it was found that there are two types of cocoa, Natural and Dutch.  Experiment III then focused on if the type of cocoa effected the pies boiling over.  It was hypothesized that the the dutched cocoa (pH 6.9) will lacking the leavening of natural cocoa (pH 5.6) due to dutched cocoa's higher pH), which would cause less spill over.

83% of the dutched cocoa boiled over, while none of trials made with natural cocoa boiled over (picture on the left). This experiment was successfully repeated with similar results, concluding that an inadvertent switch of cocoa types was the behind the funny cakes boiling over.

UT - First Impressions

Out of 27,107 undergrads and 6,101 grad students, I am the only one at UT with the last name of Urffer.  Learned that at the card office today, and I thought, "Damn, I am one of a kind!"  The more I think about it the less significant it seems - after all, there are no Kummers, Kanters or Tarbets.  There are 27 Flynns though, and 40 Wards. 

On first impressions UT looks like the ugliest university campus I have been on.  I think relating it to Penn State is a good analogy.  Knoxville is like State College, but a little bit bigger and with a downtown consisting of a couple of business.  UT is spread out like University Park, and has the brick building look - though I think University Park building exteriors are a little better maintained.  The inside of UT's buildings are nice, so I think in all there is nothing to complain about.

Another striking thought I had while walking around was the lack of Asians.

At UT I will be characterizing scintillating materials for neutron detectors, with applications in nuclear security, along with some modeling of these detectors.  A lot of measurements. 

There was a lot of information presented to me - I need time to sift through it all before I can make more sense of the project.

June 28th, 2010

Visited UT today and met with my new adviser, Dr. Miller.  Seems that I will be characterizing the response of scintillator materials.  At the moment the project doesn't make much sense, but it was a lot of information in one day.  I have always hated that feeling when you start a job and you are presented with more information that you can processes.  Tomorrow I get to do some science, take some measurements!

In driving through the Shenandoah Valley, I realized how pretty it is.  I think that I will take Skyline Drive home for a little bit rather than 81 N.  If I take Skyline though, I can't visit the birthplace of Cyrus McCormick, or make Esther jealous by seeing Eastern Mennonite University before she does.  (Esther is a crazy kid sometimes).

I also hate nice hotels; they don't provide you with a free continental breakfast, and the 'High Speed Internet' is always slower than home.  Probably because they the internet goes through a proxy.  I wonder what information the proxy collected . . .

Merging Tracific

Driving down to UT made me rethink the question of what is the optimal way to merge traffic.   Is it best to use all the lanes until the merge point, or do what most people do and merge early?

I asked this question of CoFo once when we were driving back from the Water front.  He said that in the traffic situation he would think of the physical world - fluid flow.   Based on that, CoFo and I agreeded that it is best to merge a close to the merge point as possible.

Driving down to UT, however, I realized that the previous conclusion could be incorrect because of the discrete size of vehicles.  It might be better to model the cars as part of the velocity profile (streamline).  The streamline would then start to merge before the merge point. 

June 25th, 2010

Today was another one of those days where you feel like you don't accomplish anything. 

We finished up thinning rows 1-11 yesterday, and only have a row to finish of the big trees and the small trees at Pappy's before Howard's Orchard.  Hopefully we will be finished thinning by the Fourth of July, though I will be at UT next week so they will be missing there best thinner.  (It's true - I am very good with my snips.  I cut Esther's finger yesterday.)


We are extending the macadam at Pappy's to the barn, and had to move the wood pile.  As the picture on the left shows, the mice ate the bark off of a lot of the smaller apple wood pieces.  It was amazing; I didn't know bark had that much nutrients in it.  I knew you could make teas from it (the best tea I ever had was birch tea from bark while camping), but the mice were not making tea.

I was listening to Southren Cross (CSN) today, and it got stuck in my head.  I used to spend a lot of time gazing at the stars, I need to get back to that.  I also realized today how much Pittsburgh sucks because it didn't have fireflies and fields.  Perhaps I am not a sophisticated urbanite.

Models

We are putting a new (bought used) cooler in at Pappy's, and the door opens into the cooler, wasting space.  We wanted to see if there was a way to rearrange the cooler so that the door would open outwards.  The cooler panels interlock with a male and female end. 

My dad was sitting there moving the panels around (getting nowhere) when I thought of my physics training and decided to make a model of it.   I then took my model and flipped the pieces around until I found a solution where the door opened outwards, and with the minimal amount of reorder the panels.  I thought this was a really clever solution.  Turns out that the way the panels are joined makes this solution impossible, and the door was left facing inwards.  (Yes, I made my model out of a Foster's box.)

Tuesday, June 22, 2010 (I Accuried a Tail)

School is out for the brats, and I have found a tail. An 11 year old human insists of following me about, 'helping' me with my work. I guess I will get some good bonding time in with Eli, but I wish he wouldn't volunteer us for jobs.

Today I fixed the Barn 5's feed bin, fixed the classroom's doors, measured the bakery for new tin, patched rat holes in Barn 4, and thinned twice. The worst job was fixing Barn 5's feed bin. Had to first climb to the top, throw a rope down, and then shimmy down the rope. Being atop the bin trying to safety get in the hole reminded me of how much I hate heights, and the scar I have on my head from falling off a bin before. The inside of the bin was an inferno causing me to start to sweat immediately, and feed dust just stuck to me then. I then had to wait in body filler fumes as my 'helper' went to get me a pie plate to mix up the body filler because he forget it. Quick patch, and then done.

Animals

Today I found this snapping turtle near the chestnut tree. Little guy was only about two inches long. He was really cute with his head poking out looking around, but I couldn't get a picture of that.

One think that I really like living on a farm is that I get to see animals like this all the time. Especially while running. So many times that I have scared an animal off the road and into the bushes. It is also great to hear the birds sing all day without the noise of streets. It is nice being that connected to the earth.

Sunday, June 20th, 2010

Sunday market days are always the worst. I hate being in the bakery while being asked to do odd and end chores - I hate doing odd and end chores any time.

We poured the pads for the compressors for the barn coolers. I think that we finally figured out how to pour a corner correctly; put a thin piece of wood about a foot from the back so you have something to screen on, later going pack and filling in the small hole. I have gotten much better at making consistent batches of concrete. Today I made a "Matthew Urffer all purpose super strong bonding mixture" by throwing in lime (to make it sticky), white portland cement, type one cement, sand, stones (clean and dirty) and a little bit of dried grass (for fiber!). It was great stuff.

Then we planted garden for a short while.

Went to the Geissinger reunion, where not much happened. I saw a lot of old people I didn't know (Issac Geissinger had 14 kids) who knew me as "Lisa's kid". The best part of it was that Dan Shantz bought cherries, and that it was held at the church grove. I got to play on a slide, swing, and see-saw. The slide was sticky, so it was best if you went down either on your stomach (layout at the end), or on your butt with your feet up. David and I also balanced the see-saw between us, and later we both fell off (he really crushed me) when we did doubles - Issac and Eli on one side with David and I on the other.

For the evening I went running, saw that Ryan was baling along the dirt road, and offered to unload the wagon. So I ended the evening unloading the wagon of hay with the family. I love unloading hay. The results are very tangible.

Counting Candies

The Geissinger reunion always has a counting game. Candies are put in a jar, and people are invited to guess how many pieces of candy are in the jar, with the closest person getting the jar. I was curious if the results would follow counting statistics.


The results do not fit counting statistics, which at first was quite surprising. Once thinking about it, however, I realized that people where probably influenced by the guesses above them. As the chart shows, there is definitely a trend in the guesses, people voted according to the what others had above them. Perhaps for the Urffer reunion we should do the same thing, but have people put their votes in a ballot box.

Fireflies

Today while running on a trail through the church woods I saw a few fireflies. It was so pretty and peaceful - seconds latter the church bells chimed out the hour.

This reminded me of driving home buying my car, knowing I had to return Tassie's call. I could see the fireflies shot up across the windshield. They were pretty for a blink of the eye, but then probably died from sliding up the windshield.

June 19th, 2010

The last few days have not been my day. On Thursday I woke up early to help mother in the bakery. David came down later to get breakfest, and in true David fashion started being annoying - I was rolling out bear claw dough, and he would put holes in it and mess it up. So I took the flour scope and flicked flour at him, but he dodged it and I ended up getting it all over the refigrator and my mother. She was not happy. Later that day I bashed my nose (still have the scape), had the piece of metal I was drilling swing around and hit my thumb, and managed to mess up an order.

Friday was a similar mess with me falling off my ladder thinning (resulting in a large scrape on my chest), messing up some cakes in the bakery, and other calamities. I did, however, make dinner on time at 5 p.m. (served beets, potatoes, salad, and sausage) and drove David, Issac, and Esther to Issac's graduation. David and I did our best to embarrass Issac and Esther by having dance parties in the car to other peoples jams and waving to everyone we saw. Also, my car smells bad.

Today I thinned twice, getting two of the big rows down (9 more to go, plus the big trees, plus Howard's, plus the new trees). We worked in the cooler, trying to figure out the lights. I also helped Gehman unload half a load of hay. I like to unload hay or straw, plus the conversation was good. We talked about the price of milk, the size of bales and how balers work, and why the hell I got a physics degree.

Funny Cakes

The proprietor of Lisa's Kitchen (my mother) asked me to find out why her funny cakes where boiling over (the chocolate bottom flows out from over the top of the pie, making an ugly mess). Since she has not changed the recipe, she thought that perhaps the way she was making them causes this, focusing in on the at what temperature the bottom chocolate mixture was added.

As a scientist, I plan to investigate this problem in such a way that Dr. Garoff would be proud.

June 16th, 2010

Today I went and got lots of plastic jugs for the bakery for apple cider in the fall. The place was Keystone Container in Reading, and the factory was interesting to see - I got a thing for factories though. I took the box truck, creating one hell of a drive. At 60 mph the truck makes so much noise you feel that every joint is falling apart, and you feel all the bumps in the road. There was construction on Route 222, with a cattle chute. I think that was the scariest experience I had driving, barreling that truck through the narrow chute. The side door was open (no air conditioning) and I felt that I could stick out my foot and run it along the barrier.

I also bought a car today, a 2002 Nissan Altima. Seems to be a very nice car, and was reasonably priced. It kinda looks like an old persons car, but I think that the color is dark enough that I can get away without being a grandma. I wanted something that was a little more fuel conscious, but it was very hard to find a small car that was within my price range. Prehaps in 5 years there will be a lot of small used cars out there - I just don't think that they were popular 5 years ago.

Gahh, I thought that getting things done would distract my mind, but it is not getting the job done. I have always heard the saying "Idle hands make the devil's work", but I think that it should be "Idle minds make the devil's work". Or overactive minds. "Overactive minds make the devil's work" just doesn't have the same ring to it though.

Sinking Feeling In One's Stomach

Today I got that sinking feeling in ones stomach when I thought that I was going to hear some bad news (intuition was correct - latter on I did) and I wondered what causes this feeling and why we get it. Looking it up, I found that this feeling was caused by strong emotions: anxiety, nevousness, fear. (Fear was an interesting one, it probably explains why you get a similar feeling just as you start to descend a roller coaster hill, or are in free fall) Anyway, I failed to find out what bodily response is the cause, but I hypothesize that it must do with the flight of fight response, and our bodies shutting our stomach down.

Toad and Katie Shafer's Wedding

This weekend I traveled up to Boston for David Todd and Katie Shafer's wedding. This was the first wedding I went to as an adult, and it was interesting. The ceremony itself was nice, Toad looked so very happy. At the reception I was surprised by how many toast including phrases about how hard marriage is and the struggles of a relationship - I thought that those comments where a bit of a downer.

I really enjoyed seeing the other guest though. I haven't seen Cereal in such a long time; it was nice to eat dinner with him. Just being around him, actually. He is so cheerful and fun. I think that all he wants to do is have a good time, and he usually does not harm other people in the processes.

Later that night we went to Boston bars, I had my first bar white russian. I also bought one for Brandon (graduation drink).