How Does Aspirin Find a Headache? (8 page)
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Authors: David Feldman
Tom Lehmann, bakery, assistance director at the American Institute of Baking, told
Imponderables
that while a cake is being baked, the batter rises to a point slight higher than its fully baked height. The baking powder in the batter produces gas that causes the leavening effect. “At a time when the batter is at its maximum height, but has not ‘set’ due to starch gelatinization and protein coagulation, the batter is very unstable.” The cake is at its most fragile and delicate because, according to bakery consultant Dr. Simon S. Jackel, “the air cells holding the entrapped gases are very thin and weak.”
Not all cakes will crash if confronted with a loud noise. But most will fall during this vulnerable time during the cooking process, and soufflés are always in danger. Joe Andrews, publicity coordinator for Pillsbury Brands, explains:
The basic structure of a soufflé is developed by egg proteins, which are whipped into a foam and then set by baking. When whipping of the egg whites occurs, large pockets of air are trapped by the albumen, and in the process, this protein is partially denatured. The denaturation (or setting) continues (along with the expansion of the air bubbles) when the proteins are heated in the oven. If the oven is opened while this expansion is taking place, the air pressure change and temperature change can cause the whole structure to collapse.
The most common bang, of course, is the opening and closing of the oven door. Anyone near a loudspeaker at a rock concert knows that sound vibrations can be felt; a soufflé or cake can be pummeled by a nearby noise. Although cakes are usually hardier than soufflés, Andrews indicates the same problems that afflict soufflés also make cakes fall,
especially if the primary source of leavening for the cake is beaten egg whites (e.g., angel food or chiffon cakes). Layer cakes contain more flour and the structure is formed as much by starch gelatinization as egg denaturation, so they would not be as susceptible to falling when the door is opened—unless the door is opened too early in the baking process (during the first twenty minutes) before the cake structure has set.
Only when the internal temperature of the cake reaches a range of 160 to 180 degrees Fahrenheit is the cake out of the woods, because, as Jackel puts it, “the liquid batter is now converted to solid cake structure.”
Submitted by Sherry Grenier of Amos, Quebec.
Why
Do Angel Food Cakes Have to Be Turned Upside-Down While Cooling?
As we just learned, angel food cakes are structurally delicate when baking, but once they’ve achieved a solid state, why in the heck do we have to turn them on their heads? We headed back to our trusty experts for their counsel. Tom Lehmann responded:
Angel food cakes are really nothing more than an expanded egg white foam with sugar added for sweetness, and flour added to stabilize the foam and prevent it from collapsing during baking and cooling. Due to their inherent weakness, angel food cakes would collapse during baking and cooling if it weren’t for two things. First, an angel food cake pan is never greased. This allows the batter to grip the pan sides for added support. The cakes are then stuck tightly enough to the pan after baking to allow them to be inverted without the cake falling out of the pan. By inverting the pan, we prevent the cake from further settling during cooling and obtain a light, tender finished cake.
Dr. Jackel notes that inverting the cake is absolutely essential for achieving an evenness of consistency:
Although the top of the angel food cake has lost moisture in the oven during baking, and formed a dry skin, the bottom of the cake has retained some of the moisture and is slightly soft and sticky, because the bottom of the pan is not designed to release moisture as the cake bakes. When the cake is cooled, it is turned over so that the sticky, moist bottom of the cake has a chance to lose the extra moisture to the atmosphere and form a skin. The top has already formed the skin the oven and therefore is already dry and firm.
Submitted by Gregg Hoover of Pueblo, Colorado.
We have fond memories of cross-country trips in which we were so bored during barren stretches that we would amuse ourselves by clicking the dimmer control on the floorboard, even though our lights weren’t on. This may not compete with square dancing or coin collecting as a pastime, but it was some solace as we fantasized about the next odometer check or Stuckey’s we might encounter.
Alas, our old diversion has now faded into nostalgia. In the 1970s, Detroit followed the lead of European and Japanese automakers and mounted brightness controls on a stalk of the steering column. At first we wondered whether this change was mandated by regulation, but we quickly learned there was no such requirement. An expert at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration who prefers to remain anonymous informed us that the Department of Transportation only cares that there be a control to turn the high beams on and off, and that a (blue) light alerts the driver that the brights are on. (Red lights are reserved for warning indicators, such as overheating, oil shortages, etc.)
From the government’s standpoint, the location of the control is not a safety issue, so the dimmer switch could be mounted on the ceiling and require a head butt to engage. So why did the automakers bother changing? We received five different explanations:
1. The move allowed auto manufacturers to put all the electrical features in the steering column instead of isolating one electrical element far away on the floor. This is why light, windshield wiper, and cruise controls have joined the horn and directional signals on the steering columns of most cars. Furthermore, as pointed out by Vann Wilber, director of safety and international technical affairs for the American Automobile Manufacturers Association, the floors of cars tend to get wet in the winter, and the water can seep into the electrical system, a potential safety hazard.
2. Consumers seem to prefer it. Wilber told
Imponderables
that the Big Three American automakers conducted human factors research indicating that drivers can identify hand-operated controls more quickly and easily than floor-mounted counterparts. Obviously, if the controls are adjacent to the steering wheel, the driver’s hands are close to the beam control. Now that automobiles are often laden with as many gewgaws as jet instrument panels, the visibility of controls has become increasingly important. According to a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers’ Lighting Committee, well-labeled stalk controls forestall drivers from looking around the dashboard, feeling around with their feet, or even worse, looking on the ground for the right pedal to depress, when they should be looking at the road.
Notwithstanding this reasoning, we must argue that markings on the stalk are of little use if the interior of the car is dark. Although one eventually becomes accustomed to the location of controls on one’s own cars, it is disconcerting to rent an automobile and find oneself turning on the windshield wipers when one meant to cut off the high beams. Locating the old controls at worst required a one-time foot grope—knowing that there were no other controls on the floor made us less queasy about searching for it.
3. For people driving with standard transmissions, who must constantly use the left foot for the clutch, floor-mounted controls were often a nuisance and potentially even a safety hazard.
4. Mounting the brightness control on the steering stalk has enabled manufacturers to allow drivers to put on the high beams even when their lights were not previously on. This feature makes it possible for drivers to alert the car in front of them to move over so that they can pass.
5. Because of the increase in international travel and alliances between American and foreign automakers, it makes sense to standardize as many features of automobiles as possible, particularly safety features.
We can’t stop progress, we guess. But we’re not happy about this particular change. If you are depressed about your car’s barren floorboards, you may perk up a little when you find out that the issue of dimmer controls has inspired a joke among folks in the auto industry:
General Motors is circulating a new service bulletin regarding car with high beams on the stalk.
G.M
. is going back to the floor-mounted switch because too many____(fill in favorite oppressed group) were getting their feet tangled in the steering wheel when they tried to turn on their brights.
And then again, maybe you won’t perk up after hearing the joke.
Submitted by David Letterman, somewhere in Connecticut
.
Why
Is an Ineligible College Athlete Called a “Redshirt”? And Why Do Colleges Redshirt Players?
We were surprised at how difficult it was to obtain hard information about the history of redshirting. But every football source we contacted told us to contact Pat Harmon, legendary Cincinnati sportswriter and currently historian of the College Football of Fame. Harmon was king enough to write us about the origins of this colorful term:
At the University of Alabama many years ago, the coaching staff had recruited a large number of new students who were football players. Some of them were mature enough to work in the regular format—four years of college, four years of football.
But if the coaches had an overabundance of player-candidates at one position—say tackle or end—they would decide to hold some of the newcomers back a year.
These students would go to class for five years.
They would practice football for five years but play only four
.
For that first year, when they practiced every day but were not used in games, they needed an identification so the coaches could spot them quickly. They were given red shirts [to separate them from the varsity playing squad].
The practice of developing five-year players spread to other schools, and so did the use of red shifts. Thus a player who was held out for a year was called a redshirt.
The redshirted player lives in a twilight zone best described by writer Douglas Looney in a 1982
Sports Illustrated
article:
The redshirt gets to practice like the other players gets chewed out like the other players, goes to sleep in meetings like the other players, and takes his lumps like the other players, except he doesn’t get to play in games. Which is to say, he gets everything football has to offer but the fun.
College football researcher Ray Schmidt told
Imponderables
that in practice, many coaches and other players actually
do
take it a little easier on redshirted freshmen. After all, why should coaches “waste” their time trying to perfect a play with athletes who will never implement it?
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (
NCAA
)has had a long love-hate relationship with redshirting. The
NCAA
first legally adopted the practice in 1961 on behalf of a DePaul basketball player who did not play his freshman year. Because of technical regulations then in place, the player was free to play during the college season but ineligible during postseason competition.
Unfortunately, the redshirt rule was abused. Although technically legal, murmurs of discontent among coaches was heard when the head football coach of the University of Washington, Ray James, who had a particularly talented group of upperclassmen, redshirted twenty-one of his twenty-three freshmen in 1978. As Bob Carroll of the Pro Football Researchers Association told
Imponderables
, eventually “coaches started stashing players away simply to preserve their eligibility.”