Thank you all so much for your project suggestions!
She almost decided to do her project on which cleans better, regular store bought cleaners, or home made "green" cleaners. (suggested by Jo)
However, Tiburon suggested that she do a project where she makes several batches of cookies and leaves on ingredient out of each batch to see what would happen.
Hmmmmmmm. Let's decide................
Cookies or cleaning.
Cleaning or cookies.
Cookies or cleaning..............
She decided on the cookies! (with no influence from me, I promise;0)
One evening, she made a batch of regular cookies, to use as an example of a perfect cookie.
The next afternoon, I heard my hand mixer being used, which was strange, because I have a perfectly good Kitchen aid which is great for making cookies.
When I went into the kitchen to see why she was using the hand mixer, I discovered that the bowl and beaters to the Kitchen Aid hadn't been washed, so she was forced to use the hand mixer, because there wasn't enough time to run the dirty bowl through the dishwasher.
???????
Brielle had a quick lesson on how to hand wash a bowl (and no, this was not the first time that she has been taught this skill) and we continued with the making of the cookies.
We made 1/4 batches of cookies and we worked out a system where I would mix the ingredients for the cookies, and Brielle would put them on the pan and in the oven and out of the oven and onto the cooling rack then onto the plate to be photographed.
This way, I was the keeper of the dough.
I love cookie dough.
I have to admit that I actually learned a few things with this project. I really thought that by leaving the butter out of the cookies that they would stick to the pan when they baked. Instead, they were just really gross.
Seriously, if you're going to leave something out of a batch of cookies, DO NOT LEAVE OUT THE BUTTER!!!
The butterless cookies looked awful, almost like they were growing hair on them or something, and they tasted terrible! The dough even tasted bad.
I thought that by leaving out the baking soda that the cookies would be flat, but strangely enough, they turned out to be one of the less bad batches of cookies.
Oh, and did you ever wonder what would happen if you leave the flour out of cookies?
The kids said it looked kind of like fruit leather with chocolate chips. Strangely enough, this was one of the better tasting batches. We referred to it as "cookie leather."
The overall winner for tasting the best were the cookies made with Splenda. Max wouldn't even try any of the others.
I can truly say that when this was over, I was SICK of cookies!
And I never thought I would say that. Ever.
Brielle made a big poster with photos of each plate of cookies along with her prediction of what would happen if a particular ingredient was left out, what actually happened, and then she taped a sandwich bag with the actual cookie in it next to the photo.
The morning of the science fair, when Brielle picked up her poster to take it to school, most of the photos fell off.
YIKES!
The double sided tape she was using was actually removable double sided tape.
We scrambled to find some real tape, and she taped everything back on, and we managed to get her to school only moderately late.
The teacher was very impressed with "The great cookie experiment" as she chose to call it.
For three days, we had plates of leftover cookies sitting in our kitchen. They sat there and nobody ate them.
NOBODY!
And we have three boys living in our house, one of them being a teenager who is chronically hungry.
So, I threw the cookies away.
Did you hear that?
I THREW AWAY COOKIES!!
But they weren't fit for human consumption. And I'm pretty sure that if we had a dog, it wouldn't have eaten them either.
The conclusion to this experiment?
Don't leave anything out of your cookies, or you'll be sorry.
or
Be sure to do a two part experiment. What happens when you leave ingredients out of cookies AND What kind of cleaning products work the best to clean up cookie dough which has been ground into the grout between the tiles on your kitchen floor.
19 comments:
Mmmmmmm. Cookies!
Great way to make science fun. And delicious.
geez....your kids must be picky. My kids would have scoffed those up no matter what I left out!
what a sweet science project! I am curious about the cleaners-maybe you could get her to do another project. We, all your blogging fanz would be the judges. We could judge on how well she listens to her mom, the technique, etc...All in the name of science-of course!
I am having a giveaway. Come and stop by! have a great day-with all the children home!
This is my favorite science project EVER!!!!!
Yay for Brielle! What a great experiment.
I need a closer-up picture of the one with no butter!
What a fantastic science project! Who knew?
Woo hoo!!! So awesome she used my idea!
If you had called - I would have come and eaten them.
Just.saying.
I am going to go out on a limb here and say, you did not throw away cookies. If they could/would not be eaten by children, they were faker cookies, who needed to be trashed. Thanks for the pics and the shoutout!
We have a family recipe for oatmeal cookies which uses almost no flour. They do stay in a round, but they look a lot like the flourless chocolate chips. The neat thing is that they are chewy in the center and very crispy at the edges...yum.
That was a great experiment!
AWESOME! I actually wrote a post today and it sorta kinda has a science twist to it...
I love the cookie experiment.. the rest of us just found out the hard way what cookies are like when you forget the salt or baking soda or whatever!!
Hey our SLC meet up is almost for sure set in stone (I think!) for a luncheon March 12th, a thursday! YOU ARE COMING yes?
I love this idea! I still can't believe that you got sick of cookie. You wuss.
My 4th grade science experiment had something to do with mice and rats. I should have done a cookie experiment.
Since we don't eat sugar anymore, if I do make cookies or a cake, we use Splenda. Its good to know that they would be Max-approved.
Great project!!! You did a lot to help her. I bet she gets a good grade!
I would not try to forget an ingredient, though it sometimes happens. I take out all the ingredients then put them away as I measure to make sure I don't forget anything. :) That an cooking when the kids are asleep seem to be the best choices. Two year olds who like to help can make the biggest messes. He just started the microwave on fire last week trying to cook something. My 4 yr old walked up to hubby and said "Dad, the microwave has a fire in it." He said it took him a second to decide to check the microwave. Sure enough there were flames in it which grew when he opened the door. Good thing we had baking soda easily available, as the fire extinguisher would have made a really big mess. Once the fire was out, the microwave would no longer turn on. I don't think Costco's guarantee would have covered this one, so I just bought a new cheap one. No need to buy a larger, more expensive one. It will probably die within a few years.
Eek! The batch made without flour look pretty bad.....
Nummy cookie leather! I have never thought of that!! Could be a good thing I'm thinking.
That is a really cool science project and I'll try to remember it in 5 years when my next one has to do it....or Alzheimers will prevent that. One of the two will happen!
I love cookies! That's a great idea for a science project. My sister is a food science major. She did somethign similar with jello. To see what happened when you altered the amount of water added.
I am quite tempted to make a batch of chocolate chip leather for myself....mmm..mmm..good.
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