For my Science of Cooking project, I did an experiment with two ingredient Pretzel bites. They sounded very interesting, and I thought that if I wanted to witness drastic change in a food due to a single variation of an ingredient, this would be it.
The recipe called for self rising flour and low fat Greek Yogurt, but because my house had neither of these, we used whole wheat flour with added in baking soda and salt and whole milk Greek Yogurt instead, but these items were kept as constant throughout. The only thing that was consistently changed was the amount of baking soda in a baking soda and water mixture.
The recipe called for you to dip the little bits of dough into a mixture that was one cup water and one tablespoon baking soda. If you didn’t follow through with that, you would make bagel bites, or some other disgusting variation of it.
So, because I was curious about this, I decided to gradually drop the amount of
baking soda I put in the water each time to see what the outcome would be.
I hypothesized that the texture of the pretzel bites would gradually become denser over the three changed batches until the last batch, which was dipped in plain boiled water, would turn out to be some sort of bagel bite.
The materials I used are as follows:
1 cup whole wheat flour (in substitute for self-rising flour)
1 ½ teaspoon baking soda (added to the whole wheat flour as a substitute for self-rising flour)
¼ teaspoon salt (added to the whole wheat flour as a substitute for self-rising flour) 4 cups boiling water (1 cup would be used usually, but I needed one for each small
batch)
1 ¾ tablespoon baking soda (1 tbs for the control group, ½ for the first variation, ¼
for the second variation, and none for the third variation)
½ cup (or one stick) melted butter for topping 1 tablespoon kosher salt for topping
I made the recipe as normal, including all of the control variations I had to make in order to make the recipe. I combined all of the ingredients together, mixed and kneaded them, rolled the dough into four long ropes and then cut those ropes into about 12 pieces each.
I boiled my water and then added 1 tablespoon baking soda into it, before dipping twelve of my dough bites into the mixture, putting them on a parchment paper lined baking sheet, and baking them for seven minutes at 425℉.
While my control group was baking, I poured my original water out, washed the pot, then boiled more water, this time adding in ½ tablespoon baking soda, and then dipped my bites in and baked them.
While my first variation group was baking, I again poured the water I had used
before out, washed the pot, and boiled new water putting ¼ tablespoon baking soda in it before dipping the group in and baking.
Again, I washed my pot, boiled water, and then dipped my final group of bites into the water, before setting them on a baking sheet and baking them for seven minutes.
When all the bites were baked, I put melted butter and salt on top of them and let my family taste them.
The bites did have vastly different textures and densities across the board. Each batch going down from the control was denser and had a very different flavor, which I wasn’t expecting.
The control batch was dry, but still tasted like a pretzel. Overall, my family liked this one second best.
The first variation which had ½ tablespoon baking soda in the water mixture was by far the best and most liked. It didn’t really taste like a pretzel, but it was the right texture and tasted okay.
My family hated the second variation with ¼ tablespoon baking soda in the water mixture. It was extremely dense and tasted awful. My mom didn’t even finish hers and one of my brothers spit his out.
The third variation with no baking soda in the water mixture was okay. It wasn’t great but it wasn’t as terrible as the third variation. It was a little more dense than the third one and hard to chew, but it wasn’t terrible.
Independent Variable: the amount of baking soda that was used in the baking soda and water mixture the pretzel bites were dipped in.
Dependent Variables: The texture, taste, and density of the pretzel bites.
Control: The batch of 12 that was completely made according to the original recipe.
Constants: The ingredients and how the dough was prepared before being dipped into the different baking soda mixtures.
Top left: dough ropes… Top right: unbaked dough bites… Bottom left: dough bites halfway through baking… Bottom right: dough bites after baking and testing.
This graph shows the amount of baking soda in the water mixture compared to the average amount of points out of 35 it was given during judging. It proves my statement about the textures, taste, and densities being vastly affected by the amount of baking soda in the water mixture, because you see many different outcomes and number of average points between each batch of pretzel bites.
Click here to go to my YouTube Video
This video explains and shows everything I did while making the recipe and testing my hypothesis.
(Please note this video is unlisted for privacy purposes and can only be accessed
through the link)
My hypothesis was only partially correct. I knew for a fact that the amount of baking soda in the water mixture would affect the texture, but I didn’t realize exactly how much. I also didn’t think that the taste would change all that much from different batches, and I also didn’t realize that the moistness of the bites either. Therefore, I conclude that I was only partially correct in my original hypothesis.