Francesca’s Al Forno – CLOSED

Time to Read
2 minutes

Rating as a...
Restaurant - 63%
Study Venue - 17%

Science Tidbit
Where sound can travel

Augie’s Front Burner

Time to Read
3 minutes

Rating as a...
Restaurant - 47%
Study Venue - 7%

Science Tidbit
Carbon Dating

Better Graham Cracker Crust

Graham cracker crusts are easy to use, sweet, and fun to prepare.  This is my preferred graham cracker crust recipe because the dough is more manageable than this Graham Cracker Crust recipe.  You actually make the graham crackers in dough form! Refrigeration is an important, but not completely necessary, step for this recipe.  Chilling the dough allows it to be more manageable when forming it in the pie pan.  However,[...]

Graham Cracker Crust

Crusts based on crumbled graham crackers or cookies are fantastic and simple. However, they can be a pain to work with. The following recipe makes a fairly standard graham cracker crust, but like most of them the end result is not very sturdy. The flavor is great, the structure is… eh. For a better all-around crust see the Better Graham Cracker Crust recipe. Butter binds this recipe together.  I hypothesize[...]

Snickerdoodles

Who doesn’t like cinnamon-sugar shortbread? Any Hungry Physicists making these should be warned – people will ask you to make them constantly. This recipe is great for working with Little Lab Partners, too!  (even those lab partners who can’t seem to follow instructions and lose track of the number of drops of potassium permanganate they titrated into your solution, ruining the lab you spent hours preparing…. Deep breaths… those days[...]

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Although exploring the nuances of chocolate chip cookies is reason enough to bake, this opportunity should be used to experiment with a cooking stone. Everyone knows how chocolate chip cookies should turn out, see how using a stone improves them! These cookies are difficult to handle right out of the oven, but harden as they cool.  If chewier cookies are preferred, add one or two additional egg yolks to the[...]

Rum Balls

Naturally Hungry Physicists love chocolate, sugar, and liquor. Why not combine everything you love into one epic confection?! I successfully modified this recipe for several different liquors, and you can too! Be creative! Powdered sugar, also referred to as Confectioner’s Sugar, is just sugar with a smaller grain size and some cornstarch.  It absorbs differently into a recipe, and in this case helps act as the binder for the mixture. [...]

Amaretto Bread Pudding

This recipe is being improved, please check back in late July for an updated version! As you practice baking and cooking, you’ll start to notice how changing the steps or cooking method affects the outcome of your dish. Bread pudding is made predominantly of bread, eggs, milk, sugar, and vanilla. Does that ingredient list sound like… French Toast? All that really differs is the cooking method. This recipe works with[...]

Steak – New York Strip

STEAK! I feel that Kosher Salt is a superior form of salt when cooking (not quite the best for baking though).  Kosher salt is not actually Kosher – it’s used in the process of making meat Kosher because it absorbs moisture differently, and sticks to meat and other foods better.  Therefore, this salt is less apt to dissolve into the sauce or grease leaving the meat under-salted.

Hard-Boiled Eggs

Scavenger hunts, egg salad, practical jokes … what do they all have in common? Hard-boiled eggs! But, boiling an egg takes more than just water and heat, it takes finesse and science. Some Hungry Physicists may have experienced a green or gray ring forming around the yolks of their eggs.  This discoloration results from overcooking the eggs; sulfur from the egg whites bonds with iron from the yolks to form[...]