Fun_People Archive
21 Jan
Why Chemists Don't Write Recipe Books

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 97 13:24:56 -0800
To: Fun_People
Subject: Why Chemists Don't Write Recipe Books

[This one has been around for a while, and the title is pretty silly since
Chemists practically invented the recipe, but I particularly like the idea
of annotating it, so here's my version of the annotated version of...  -psl]

	Why Chemists Don't Write Recipe Books
	=====================================

Chocolate Chip Cookie Synthesis

  Ingredients:

1)   532.35 cm3 gluten
	== 2 1/4 cups flour
2)   4.9 cm3 NaHCO3
	== 1 teaspoon baking soda ... the chemical is sodium bicarbonate.
	== It's used all the time in the lab as a base.  Be careful with
	== these hazardous alkaline chemicals!
3)   4.9 cm3 refined halite
	== 1 teaspoon salt.  This really should be NaCl, of course.
4)   236.6 cm3 partially hydrogenated tallow triglyceride w/o butyric acid
	== 1 cup fresh butter or margarine... (butyric acid is what
	== makes rancid butter smell)
5)   177.45 cm3 crystalline C12H22O11
	== 3/4 cups sugar
6)   177.45 cm3 unrefined C12H22O11, compressed to exclude air
	== 3/4 cups brown sugar (probably rock hard)
7)   4.9 cm3 methyl ether of protocatechuic aldehyde
	== 1 teaspoon vanilla
8)   2 calcium carbonate-encapsulated avian albumen-coated protein spheroids
	== Two eggs
9)   473.2 cm3 small conical thiobroma cacao shards
	== 2 cups chocolate chips.
10)  236.6 cm3 de-encapsulated legume meats (sieve size #10)
	== 1 cup small nut pieces...probably optional.  Walnuts or
	== pecans?  Or macadamia...mmm.  Although, they're loaded with
	== high density lipoproteins.

  Procedure:

To a 2-L jacketed round reactor vessel (reactor #1) with an overall heat
transfer coefficient of about 100 BTU/F-ft2-hr, add ingredients one, two
and three with constant agitation.
	== Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl.

In a second 2-L reactor vessel with a radial flow impeller operating at 100
rpm, add ingredients four, five, six, and seven until the mixture is
homogenous.
	== Cream the butter with the sugar in a separate bowl.

To reactor #2, add ingredient eight (excluding the calcium carbonate),
followed by three equal volumes of the homogenous mixture in reactor #1.
	== Add the eggs to the butter and sugar.  Pick out the bits of
	== shell.  Slowly add the dry mixture to the wet.

Additionally, add ingredients nine and ten slowly, with constant agitation.
Care must be taken at this point in the reaction to control any temperature
rise that may be the result of an exothermic reaction.
	== Slowly add the chocolate and nuts while stirring.  Beware of
	== heat generated by the mixture [Ha!  Not likely...have you ever
	== had your dough start cooking itself when you added the chips?]

Using a screw extruder attached to a #4 nodulizer, place the mixture
piece-meal on a 316SS sheet (300 x 600 mm).
	== Make spoon-size lumps on a 12" x 24" cookie sheet.

Heat in a 460K oven for a period of time that is in agreement with Frank &
Johnston's first order rate expression (see JACOS, 21, 55), or until golden
brown.  Once the reaction is complete, place the sheet on a 25C
heat-transfer table, allowing the product to come to equilibrium.
	== Cook them in a 368 degree oven until golden brown and let them
	== cool at room temperature.

Eat.
	== Eat.

© 1997 Peter Langston