About ten steps _____________ the Church is a grotto.
Answers
Explanation:
Well. That was an unexpectedly drawn-out blog holiday, was it not? Lovely science fans, I am so sorry the delay… it all started with a week in Cornwall. Unfortunately for my holiday, but fortunately for my career, I had to cut short my Cornish idyll to rush home for some job interviews, which I then got offered. I have spent the past fortnight finishing up freelance work, equipping myself to do a job where I don’t work in my pyjamas in my spare room, and generally giving myself a bit of a break to celebrate the end of months of rubbish job hunting. By the time you read this, it will be my first day in my new job, which is exciting. So, I apologise for the extended blog break, sometimes a girl just needs a holiday. And a new job.
Anyway, before I went away, Kat sent me a kitchen science question. She asked me “why does whipping cream make it go stiff? And does temperature have an effect on the time it takes to whip?”
I actually love this question. I love when people ask me questions for the blog anyway, and I particularly love when they ask me things I had never thought to wonder about but immediately NEED to know as soon as I get asked. In fact I read this question in the supermarket, and forced my husband to come and spend 5 minutes with me reading the labels on the various pots of cream trying to figure out the answer myself.
I figured that there must be a clue to the answer in looking at the difference types of cream, because single cream is difficult to whip into a stiff foamy solid, whereas whipping cream or double cream is considerably easier. The most obvious difference between a pot of single cream and a pot of whipping cream, apart from the different coloured packaging, obviously, is the fat content. Single cream has around 30% fat, wh maereas whipping cream has 36-40% fat. Double cream has 45%+ fat content. It was fairly easy to assume that this is the crucial difference that allows the change in consistency. And indeed, it is, but what’s more interesting is how it works…
Cream is basically fat-full, low-protein milk; if you leave fresh milk alone to stand then globules of fat naturally float up to the surface and bob around, creating a fatty creamy layer of deliciousness that can be skimmed off the top, leaving the majority of the protein behind. This cream, with its high fat content, can be whipped.