The Cupcake Experiment

For Kayla's second birthday, we had an Eric Carle-themed party featuring, among other things, a Very Very Hungry Caterpillar cake constructed from upside-down cupcakes arranged in a line. The antenna were made of candles, representing my pixie's two glorious years on this earth.

The cupcakes were a big hit, and I decided to make them again a few weeks later. I didn't have time to frost them after baking, so I let them cool in the Teflon-coated baking pan and then just covered the whole thing with aluminum foil and put it in the refrigerator to deal with later.

The next morning I retrieved the cupcakes and uncovered them to frost them. I found tiny holes in the foil.

They were pin-sized and I never would have noticed them if it weren't for the fact that the morning sun happened to be shining right through the window behind the cake pan in a way that lit up the holes brightly enough to catch my eye.

Notice that the holes are only where the foil was touching the cupcakes.


Apparently something in the cupcakes reacted with and corroded the aluminum. But what?

I used a Betty Crocker cake mix. Following is the ingredients list from the box:

Sugar, Enriched Flour Bleached (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and/or Cottonseed Oil, Modified Corn Starch, Propylene Glycol Monoesters of Fatty Acids, Baking Soda, Salt, Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, Dextrose, Monocalcium Phosphate, Distilled Monoglycerides, Dicalcium Phosphate, Maltodextrin, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Datem, Monoglycerides, Xanthan Gum, Natural and Artificial Flavor, Aluminum Sulfate, Yellow 5&6, Nonfat Milk.

To that I added water and salted butter.

After doing some "research" (if one can call 10 minutes of Googling "holes in aluminum foil" doing research) it seems that salt is the most likely culprit.

I wondered if I could identify any other factors contributing to this phenomenon. The ones I figured I could most easily investigate were:

1. Temperature: Did refrigerating everything slow down or speed up the corrosion? Did it make a difference at all?
2. Foil side: Aluminum foil has a flat side and shiny side.* Any difference? (See footnote for more on flat vs. shiny aluminum foil.)
3. Cake side: The top of a cupcake is always kind of goopy. I believe this is due to butter & oils rising to the top of the mix during baking. The goopy part of a cupcake must have slightly different properties than the cakey parts. Did this contribute to my holey foil?

To test these three factors, I needed 8 different test subjects:

#	Temperature	Foil Side	Cake Side
1	Room	Shiny	Spongy
2	Cold	Shiny	Spongy
3	Room	Flat	Spongy
4	Cold	Flat	Spongy
5	Room	Shiny	Goopy
6	Cold	Shiny	Goopy
7	Room	Flat	Goopy
8	Cold	Flat	Goopy

To do this, I cut the top off of a cupcake and quartered it. Then I wrapped them each in carefully folded foil so that part of the foil would touch the goopy bit and part would touch the cakey bit.


Two went in the fridge...


...and two stayed at room temperature.

I observed them over the next two days & recorded the results.

Now, before I post the results, anyone care to form a hypothesis?


*FOOTNOTE: Until a few days ago I thought that there was a functional difference between the flat (or dull, or matte) side of a sheet of aluminum foil and the shiny (or glossy) side. Turns out, there isn't. According to ancient wisdom and Wikipedia, the reason one they look different is that during the manufacturing process, two sheets are run through rollers together to get them nice and thin. Mineral oil is used to lubricate the rollers, rendering the "outside" shiny. When the sheets are pulled apart, the inside is dull. Some believe that you should wrap hot food with the reflective side inward to retain heat better, and cold food with the reflective side outward to keep things colder, but for all practical purposes it really doesn't matter.

Ch-ch-ch-ch Changes

Looks like I haven't posted in over a year. Been a little busy...

We moved into our new house in Ossining, NY at the end of June 2009. We spent the better part that yeas moving, unpacking, fixing, painting, furnishing, mowing, raking, decorating, and cleaning. It's a ton of work, but totally worth it. We love the town, our neighbors, and pretty much everything about it here, including the house itself. We also have a lot more room, which is a good thing because we had our second daughter on 4/13/2010. Kayla was 21 months old when her baby sister Zoe was born. Zoe is a wonderful baby and everyone's doing well.

The move has done wonders for me & my outlook on life in general. The people I now interact with most of the day are more relaxed, less competitive, and more open to new ideas. They seem to make fewer assumptions. I feel like I'm talking to thoughtful people most of the time, instead of just struggling to be polite to people who are stupid or insensitive. Don't get me wrong, there were awesome people in my old neighborhood and there are a few obnoxious people here, but the ratio is completely reversed and it makes life a lot more pleasant. I'm much happier about what Kayla & Zoe will grow up considering "normal behavior" in an environment like this.

Brawl on MetroNorth

...or at least, the closest thing I've seen to one yet.

On the B train from Brooklyn to Manhattan, if someone were talking loudly on their cell phone for a while, and half the conversation consisted of her saying, "I've got such a bad signal right now! What did you say?!" She would have been given dirty looks by everyone around her, and likely more than one person would tell her to "shut the fuck up" in various colorful ways. And, she would likely switch back and forth between continuing her phone conversation and telling the other passengers to mind their own fucking business. And I'd probably just continue reading my book & chuckle to myself while making sure I was standing in a position clear of any shoving, spitting, or other physical unpleasantries that may be exchanged.

The setup on MetroNorth this morning was the same. I was sitting next to a woman who was being extremely loud on her cell phone. She didn't notice the eyerolling of the other passengers and hung up after about 15 minutes. But then a few minutes later, she broke the pleasant silence of the ride with a sudden, "HI! IT'S KELLY! YEAH I'M ON THE TRAIN!..." causing a few people to jump, startled. While others murmured about how rude she is, up stands one well-dressed grey-haired man who leans over in her direction and says, "Excuse me, Kelly. KELLY. (She turns toward him) It is is very inappropriate for you to talk on your phone the entire ride. It's upsetting everyone. Now shut up."

Aside from the "shut up" part, he was downright polite. She ended her call and announced to everyone that she was sorry. Then, while hiding her face behind her long hair, she started quietly crying to herself. She was sniffling and wiping tears from her eyes. I considered offering a tissue but we were just about to arrive at Grand Central anyway and I figured it would only draw more attention to her, which was apparently the last thing she wanted.

The way the whole thing unfolded seemed to be much more civil in some ways than how it would typically go down on the NYC subway. Somehow, though, it made me very uncomfortable. Seeing the obnoxious person reduced to tears because of a mild scolding from one stranger was much more upsetting to me than seeing aggressive people yell at each other and tell each other to go fuck themselves. I'm sure there's a lesson for me in here somewhere but I haven't figured out what it is yet.

Hugs, No Hugs

Kayla made up a game that we call Hugs, No Hugs. I thought I would record the rules here for posterity.

Rules of Play

1. Kayla will open her arms and ask, "Hugs?"
2. That is your cue to open your arms and ask back, "Hugs?"
3. She will answer, "No." and put her arms down. If she says no, you must put your arms down and say, "Aww." Repeat steps 1 - 3. Each iteration is a round.
4. After 3 or 4 rounds, when you ask for hugs, she will answer, "GEEE!" and run to you and give you a great big hug.

Game over. Everyone wins.

Tips

1. Kayla prefers to initiate the game. If you initiate, she will punish you by putting you through 8 or more rounds of No Hugs. 
2. Hugs/No Hugs is a contact sport. While there is no officially sanctioned protective gear, it is recommended that you brace for impact when hugs are forthcoming. Hugs always follow the warning call of "GEEE!" 
3. (and this is my favorite part) The game ALWAYS ends with hugs.

Math Before English

Kayla is 14 months old and learning how to count. She can't talk yet, mind you. She'll point to things one at a time and say, "Oooone, Toooo, Theeeee, Fooooo, Fiiiieeee, Siiiiii, Eeeeev, EIGHT!, Niiiiiie...." (She really likes the number eight and says it very clearly for some reason.) She can get up to 13 so far and has done some rudimentary arithmetic. She. Is. AWESOME.

Just Plain Fun

While enjoying a bowl of Edy's Girl Scouts Thin Mint ice cream, I recalled an email from a staff member at a Girl Scouts who objected to the effort spent merchandising such products. She asked, "How does Girl Scouts branded ice cream support our goal of re-branding ourselves as more than just cookies & camping?"

There's a big push at my company to get the word out that Scouting is about more than just the outdoors. We have programs ranging from robotics to financial literacy to environmentalism to you name it. The re-branding effort centers around getting people to think "leadership organization for girls" before they think "Mmmm, Thin Mints."

Upon hearing all of this, my grandmother, a former Girl Scout, long-time troop leader & volunteer, said, "When I was doing it, we had more *fun* with the girls."

That statement, combined with a poorly timed episode of Boston Legal where a mother sues her daughter's school for overworking her children to the point where they fall asleep at the wheel & die, put kind of a damper on my enthusiasm for the re-branding effort.

And I got to thinking, why is it that Girl Scouts needs to change that image? What's wrong with being all about camping and cookies and field trips? Why not be satisfied with the organization's value in helping girls learn about their environment and spend time outdoors?

The unfortunate answer to this question and so many others: Money.

It costs $12 to be a Girl Scout (plus other small but assorted fees depending on how you participate), but for every girl, a council typically invests over $200 toward the volunteer training, program development and facilities that go into her having that experience. The money comes mainly from two places: cookie sales, and donations made by members/alumni, local businesses, and perhaps most importantly, organizations like United Way.

United Way and other large contributors prefer not to fund programs that result in nothing more than fun, memories, and friendships. They would rather see outcomes that clearly show some level of academic accomplishment, skill improvement, or tangible contribution to the community. It's certainly a noble cause, but it's a shame that the direction of the organization is effectively dictated not by its history or its obvious strengths, but by the need to acquire more funding from other organizations with different agendas.

But anyway. This is some damn good ice cream.