Background
On every thanksgiving do you still have room for desert if you do most likely your about to eat sweet potato pie. Sweet potato pie became an African American thanksgiving desert as black people back in the day did all the planting, harvesting, and cooking for sweet potato recipes, including pies, was created and were refined by black people. Only after slavery ended and black people had access to better equipment and key ingredients did sweet potato pies begin to find a place in black kitchens.
Science of Pie
For Pie, temperature is important for its texture as molecules flow more quickly past each other at higher temperatures. Hot pie filling straight from the oven will be runny, but when it starts to cool down the filling begins to set. With eggs being made around 70% of water they help create structure and stability within the batter helping it hold shape. They provide protein that creates a chemical reaction to the crust with Maillard reaction occurring between amino acids and sugar molecules like glucose. Maillard reactions happen faster at higher temperatures and with that causes the crust to become browned (375F or so) to brown pie that extra bit more.
Hypothesis
With up to three eggs it will result in a better pie, that tastes and looks better than with six eggs or none.
Procedure
The independent variable for this experiment was the amount of eggs used and the order I did the ingredients. (The order really didn’t affect it much though) The rest, including cooking time, and temperature (375) was kept the same overall.
1) Wait 45 min for sweet Potatoes to boil in hot water
2) Peel off the skin and mix them up together
3) Mix whole stick of melted butter,(Crack 3 or six eggs and mix them in)
4) Mix 1 ½ cups of sugar, 1 tablespoon of vanilla abstract, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, and 1/8 of nutmeg in the sweet potatoes
5) Take out crust and put mixture in it
6) Set oven for 375F and 50 minutes and wait until its finished
Trial One
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Trial two
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Trial Three
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Amount of eggs
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No Eggs
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3 Eggs
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6 Eggs
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Experimental Procedure
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½ cup of melted butter,1 ½ cups of sugar, 1 tablespoon of vanilla abstract 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/8 of nutmeg, (375 temp)
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Used 3 eggs and changed spices order nutmeg, cinnamon, and vanilla
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The same but used 6 eggs
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Observations
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Pie looked stale not browned or stable
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The pie was more browned/ and smooth
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The pie was a lot softer
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Results
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The taste was dry
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Had a nice shade of brown
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Tasted much more juicy than the others but at the same time stale
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Pictures
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Analysis and Conclusion: Shown in the data the eggs were beneficial to the pie in certain ways. As the structure of protein from the egg changes from the temperature heat it sticks more for better shape and form of pie . The Eggs also helped the pie be a lot smoother when it came to volume and texture being able to keep the fats and liquids combined. Without them the structure wasn’t as solid and was lacking a brownish texture which felt like an impact when tasting it was all sorts of mixed to me. However, with 6 eggs it felt unbalanced as too much of protein and including the moisture from the eggs left it a little bloated and dry in terms of taste. As I hypothesized 3 eggs left a good balance for the pie to maintain proper form and the Maillard reactions occurred slower compared to 6 eggs where its speed up rapidly reacting to the sugar too quickly to keep it stable.
In conclusion, while eggs aren’t completely needed to make sweet potato pie it most definitely adds qualities that make pie even better. As found throughout my results the best balance for a good pie be 3 eggs.
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