The Cookie Lab

Background:

It all started -- innocently enough -- with cookies and milk. Sam eats cookies and milk at least every other day in our apartment and he made an observation that caused not a little angst in our little apartment. He noticed that dunking an Oreo cookie completely under milk made the cookie less soggy than did dunking it only partially.

Naturally, I couldn't accept such a seemingly blatant contradiction of logic and physical propriety, so I challenged him on it. Much to my surprise, the cookies seemed to be, in very fact, soggier when only partially dunked. However, Sam jumped to a conclusion that I wasn't prepared to make. His contention was that the cookie was soggier because it had absorbed more milk. Mine was that one couldn't jump to such a conclusion (sogginess could, possibly, be related to some factor other than milk absorption) unless we had tested the hypothesis with a concrete methodology. Thus, we arrive (with great flourish) at...

The Cookie Lab

Introduction and Hypothesis:

All evidence seeming to indicate that Oreo cookies have a greater propensity to absorb milk while being only partly submerged in the liquid, we propose to test this hypothesis by measuring the percentage increase of mass of an Oreo after its having been either wholly or partially submerged in milk. Our intention is to determine which method affords the best absorptive environment for the cookie. It shall be tested and proven as follows.

Method:

We tested a total of twenty cookies of known individual mass, ten being submerged completely and ten being only partially dunked in the 1% milk. Each cookie was allowed to absorb milk for 30 seconds and then drained through a slotted spoon for 5 additional seconds before being massed again with the same scale. Measurements were accurate to tenths of grams. Please refer to the pictures attached for setup visuals. The most scrupulous care was taken to ensure that effects of human contact were minimized. Gloves were worn by each participant who came into contact with a cookie and the bowl into which the cookies were placed while being weighed was wiped clean between measurements.

The Full Dip:

The Partial Dip:

Draining:

The equipment was graciously "provided" by Brigham Young University (albeit without their knowledge) and data were recorded on a spreadsheet and analyzed using the concrete, time-tested methods of statistical analysis.

Data:

The results of our experiment are as follows.












You'll notice, however, several errant data points in the Full Dip method, in which four cookies lost mass after having been soaked in milk for the full thirty seconds. The fact that this anomaly only happened in the Full Dip method is not without import. It is completely within reason to remove these points as unexplainable anomalies associated with the method (extreme cookie crumbling comes to mind as a possible explanation). With these points removed, we present our official data.


Data Analysis:

Our results were shocking.


It seems quite evident that the partial dip method is the most effective for absorbing the maximum amount of milk over a short amount of time. As is quite clearly shown, partial dipping absorbs 16.1% more milk per cookie weight in thirty seconds.

Conclusions:

The results of the lab lead to many more questions that must be answered. For example, we cannot assume that the absorption function in time is totally linear. How much milk would a cookie absorb if each were dipped for one second, or for a minute? Over long periods of time, it seems logical that the full dip method would yield greater efficacy. Further research could be done to determine the shape of the functions as determined by the amount of time a cookie is submerged.

The most pressing question is, of course, what causes a cookie that is less submerged to absorb more milk. One explanation is quite easily illustrated by dunking a cookie in water. When it is fully submerged, the cookie slowly releases air bubbles into the water. Dunking the cookie partially in water for thirty seconds and then fully submerging it yields few to no bubbles. In other words, air leaves the cookie (thereby allowing milk to take its place) faster when it is only partially submerged because of the difference in pressure between the part of the cookie in the milk and the part of it in air. That pressure difference is decidedly less when the cookie is fully emerged, causing air to escape less quickly.

It should also be noted that the sogginess produced when the cookies are partially submerged in milk for thirty seconds renders them almost completely unpalatable.

Acknowledgements:

Many thanks, again, to Brigham Young University for its unwitting participation in our experiment as well as to Maddy, bowl-swabber; Erica, equals-button-pusher-and-paper-towel-getter; Courtlin, milk-pourer; Brandalyn, time-keeper; and all other observers, participants, and supporters of our cause.