• rumba@lemmy.zip
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    2 days ago

    Yeah, that whole episode was a shit show.

    replacing butter with coconut oil, using dry egg powder using 100% dark cacao. making guesses on vanillin

    He under sugared it by a lot with the dark chocolate, the egg reconstitution was a guess, he didn’t let it hydrate, who knows how old that flour or baking soda was.

    • NOPper@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 days ago

      That’s like…80% of his style if you’ve seen his other videos. Seems like a lot of cash into lab equipment to make goofy YouTube content. Not complaining about it, he’s been entertaining for a long time now.

  • getFrog@piefed.social
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    2 days ago

    A chemistry teacher I had like a decade ago used to insist that being good at chemistry has a great correlation with being good at baking, because both are about following recipes. I’d say that video disproves that claim.

    • muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      He’s right for the wrong reasons. Chemists and bakers were able to connect the dots of “when I do this, that happens” in a way other people cant.

    • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      My wife is proof that the recipe doesn’t matter. She bakes like most people cook, a pinch of this, a pinch of that, oops too much that, maybe more of this… Rarely does it come out too bad.

    • Liz@midwest.social
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      2 days ago
      1. Maybe good at actual synthesis but there’s loads about chemistry that isn’t solutions in beakers

      2. Assuming your teacher is right humans are fuzzy data points and an anecdotal counter-example does not disprove the trend.

      • [object Object]@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        Okay, I watched the video and that cookie was bound to be awful.

        • the chocolate was 100% dark, you need to add sugar and/or milk. Most chocolate chips are semi sweet.
        • was that flour even baking flour?
        • something was definitely off with that egg, there was no adhesion.
        • he mismeasured like 4 things due to spillage not tared out. Probably no real difference.
        • I’m suspicious the vanilla extract was done correctly.
        • his mixing sucked
        • an oil based cookie is going to have less flavour than butter based.
        • the actual cook was done wrong because he removed it from the oven. The stuff he saw on the top was likely due to bad mixing, the cracks due to flour. When he removed it and put it back in the vacuum oven it would have just suctioned the cookie outwards instead of rising inside.

        Plus, there was no control cookie from grandma.

        • Eldritch@piefed.world
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          2 days ago

          Hey hey hey now. You don’t watch Nile Red to see him do things easily, competently, or even the right way. You watch him to turn vinyl gloves into cherry soda. 😋

          • [object Object]@lemmy.ca
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            2 days ago

            I’ll have to watch more of his videos to assess.

            I did appreciate the energy and the sheer over engineering of it.

            I just think he can do better.

            And we need to know how the impure cookie from grandma tastes out of 10. For science.

            • Eldritch@piefed.world
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              2 days ago

              When it comes to chemistry he’s very knowledgeable and has done some really impressive and hard to do chemical reactions. But he’s studied science and chemistry and comes at everything he does from that angle. Which doesn’t always work out how you might think. This being a case in point. Just like the super Red Bull video they did. Or when they created dry pelleted human Chow.

              • okwhateverdude@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                Or when they created dry pelleted human Chow.

                god, I watched that vid. When it is described on camera as pre-chewed hamburger and they can barely choke down a spoonful because of how dry it is, I was amazed they even joked about trying to actually make and sell it.

                • Eldritch@piefed.world
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                  2 days ago

                  Yes lol watching them process whole burgers, a pizza, and a complete KFC meal. With chicken, corn, mashed potatoes and gravy into a liquid slurry was also a bit of an anxious horror show.

              • Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                He’s very iffy when it comes to safety, too. The comments section for his video about making his own liquid nitrogen is littered with experts telling him how insanely unsafe his setup is and how he’s basically built and installed a ticking time bomb in his workshop.

                • ChilledPeppers@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  2 days ago

                  Honestly, aint nothing I trust less than youtube comment experts. Checkout william osmans answer to the “experts” on his xray machine. (Will and Nile are friends and have a podcast together, aptly named safety third).

        • too_high_for_this@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          I’m a chef. Watching Nigel do anything with food hurts my soul.

          I also suspect that tasting and smelling some of the things he’s made, like ultra capsaicin and synthetic ass, has destroyed his senses.

        • cinoreus@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Nile reds cooking skills are shit. If you wanna watch more (also worse) watch him roast coffee.

        • atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works
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          2 days ago

          To be totally fair to him, NileBlue is his second channel where he puts things he’s less proud of. At least that used to be the case, it’s been a minute since I’ve been on YouTube.

          • EpeeGnome@feddit.online
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            2 days ago

            Yeah, the stuff on Nile Blue is more improvised and/or insane. It’s where he has an excess of “Fuck it, we’ll do it live” energy. Nile Red is for when he actually knows what he’s doing. When you watch Nile Red you see him actually being competent and professional.

        • lime!@feddit.nu
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          2 days ago

          the thing he learned afterwards is that the reference substances sold by NIST are for like… particle size testing, or chemical analysis. they are usually sterilised so that the substance does not change over time (wrt mould and such), but that process does not take human consumption into account. that flour could have been like a decade old.

        • [object Object]@lemmy.ca
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          2 days ago

          I want to start a debate:

          Do you people use mayonnaise on the outside of your grilled cheese, or butter? Or margarine?

          Similar to this cookie I find mayo (oil based) gives too clean of a flavour, whereas the frying of the butter improves the grilled cheese with a bit more caramelization and flavour on the bread. Salted or unsalted are both preferable to me.

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            I’ve always used butter, mainly because the idea of heating/cooking mayo weirds me out even though I know rationally that it’s a perfectly valid thing to do. (Probably something to do with how it goes all translucent and gross if you leave it to dry out, whereas butter stays palatable.)

            I haven’t used margarine since I moved out of my parents’ house. Baby boomers might be into that fake shit, but I’m not.

          • zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 days ago

            I use mayo because my wife and two of my kids are lactose intolerant, but as long as you use a decent mayo (e.g. Dukes) it comes out pretty good. I have also found using a slight bit of seasoning (mix of salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, maybe cayenne) kicks it up a notch. Sure, using salted Kerrygold butter is slightly tastier than mayo, but it isn’t enough to make a big difference IMO…

    • rumba@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      The egg needed more water, more sugar, the oil could have stood to be mixed in semi-solid the dough should have been chilled.

      For what he did, i’m kinda shocked it came out round and not completely flat.

      • Berengaria_of_Navarre@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        White chocolate AND cranberry. On its own, no clearly it isn’t better than dark chocolate. But, as a combination in the context of chewy cookies, it’s definitely better.

      • rumba@lemmy.zip
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        2 days ago

        With a dried fruit modifier, white is better than dark. The real question is: is a chocolate chip cookie better than a white chocolate cranberry, and i think that answer is yes.

        But a dark chocolate cranberry is meh at best.

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Yes he is. Watch the second half of the video I linked: that’s the primary difference of the “2.0” recipe.

          (The first half is just a history/recap of the standard Tollhouse recipe, and is safely skippable for our purpose.)

          • Berengaria_of_Navarre@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            The only way to tell for sure is to try them side by side. I’ll give it a try next time I make cookies and let you know. But it might be a while, because I’m trying to cut back on sugar a bit.