Another baking experiment

So, this is a writeup of a cake-based experiment which now took place sufficiently long ago that I've almost completely forgotten about it, so if this writeup seems hazy on the details, that's why. The idea was to find the optimal combination of flake type, covering type and bit size for a chocolate/otherwise cornflake/otherwise cake. The combinations on trial were as follows:

• Milk chocolate, white chocolate, or melted marshmallow
• Corn flakes or bran flakes (bear with me)
• Full size flakes, or crushed up flakes.

The theory is that a) I've seen all three types of coating employed with almost unilateral success, b) bran flakes work REALLY well, since they're naturally sweet and it's a good way to hide fibre in your diet, and c) crushing up the corn flakes should in theory mean there's a higher chocolate to flake ratio, making the cakes chocolatier, which in truth can only be a good thing.

Overall the baking went well, and I was ably assisted by two other people,

who I'm sure wouldn't like to have their names associated with cookery on the internet. We had a great time crushing up cornflakes - I discovered the optimal implement to be the flat bottom of a wooden egg cup, but the end of a rolling pin came in second.

We then discovered that we'd prepared far too much cornflakes for the amount of chocolate we had. We pressed on regardless, and in retrospect probably should have put some of them back in the box. We'll do that next time - readers, I'm making mistakes here so you don't have to.

The next major discovery we made, apart from how awesome I am at making a Bain-Marie out of a bowl and a pan (skills I learned from my Mum; you never forget these kinds of things) was that marshmallow, when melted, goes FRICKING WEIRD. It becomes very sticky, and incredibly stringy, resisting all attempts to 1: transfer it from the container it's in to somewhere else and 2: mix with other substances easily. We eventually somehow subdued it enough to make it stick to some cereal products and stay in paper cases.

Overall, we basically ended up with a FRICKING SHEDLOAD of cereal based coated cake products, and kudos to the people of my immediate friends and the maths department for helping me to eat them all.

The conclusions we drew from the experiment were four-fold:

1. All of the cakes were pretty nice.
2. We could have done with more chocolate, or less cereal.
3. People avoided the bran flake ones, but when they did eat them, thought they were pretty nice.
4. Crushing up would be quite effective at making them stay together better, IF we'd used more chocolate. Which we didn't. So they crumbled everywhere.

Watch this space for further caking exploits, especially since I'm due to submit my corrections soon, at which point I'll have a LOT more free time (and thus will presumably start mucking around with baking again).

Stories worth telling are... worth a few dollars, surely?

I love being a mathematician for so many reasons, and one of them is because I find mathematics interesting, not just as a subject, but as a culture. People working within maths have proven themselves to be awesome, terrifying, unbelievably nerdy, creative, interesting, tedious and wonderful in equal parts.

For this reason, I'd be very interested to hear the results of Samuel Hansen's new project - he's planning to create a series of audio shows/podcasts which document stories from the world of mathematics. It's called Relatively Prime: Stories from the Mathematical Domain, and will make use of his existing skills in creating podcasts (as evidenced by his many many existing maths news and interview podcasts, some of which I listen to on a regular basis) and enthusiasm for the subject.

Samuel lives in Las Vegas, but I met him when he was over for the MathsJam conference last November, and it's impossible not to notice his obsession with maths and maths communication. Yes, that is a photo of him up there, stood next to some maths, just to prove his maths credentials. He has recently graduated from the University of Nevada, where he specialised in graph theory, the funnest of all the theories.

He's hoping to work on the series over the next year, and to help him fund this project, he's got a Kickstarter page on which you can pledge money to him. He needs to raise $8000 by 3rd August, and I'd recommend that if you can spare any money (even just $20, which is less than £20) you should pledge it. He even has cool rewards for people donating increasing amounts of money, including producer credits and your chance to do a voice over. I would really love to see this project happen, so head over and check out his video at least.

(Incidentally, if anyone was wondering why this blog post didn't contain any references to either robots or baked goods, your regular fix can be found here and here).

UPDATE: Samuel's Kickstarter has been funded! Watch this space (or more realistically, my twitter) for news of when his first show is out.

Robot Tuesday - Robots vs Pirates

In what can only be described as awesome, ReconRobotics has developed a robot which is used to fight pirates. That's actual pirates, which are almost like what you're thinking of but more modern and with better guns. The ReconScout Throwbot, a throwable robot which could not possibly have a better name, is a one-pound remote-controlled device equipped with a camera, which can be thrown on board a passing ship, and moves itself around and up metal walls using its magnetic wheels, to send back video footage and information about the size of pirate crew and how well-equipped they are, before pirate-fighting forces board the ship.

This article from Discover Magazine, which has a short video of the little dude in action, also says, "The Throwbot can take useful video even if it's pitch black below decks, using infrared illuminators. ReconRobotics is also developing a marsupial robot deployment system, which is exactly what it sounds like: a big robot that carries around the recon robots, then shoots them out with high precision when the time comes." Which is a shame, because I was seriously hoping they'd be deployed by ninjas riding unicorns.

Robot Monday - Robots with balls round-up

Here's a quick rundown of some recent excellent videos featuring robots, balls and/or robots with balls.

Quadrocopters Juggling

A quadrocopter is a square flat dude which has a set of rotor blades providing lift at each corner. This means that it can precisely control its position, whether by remote control, or (and this is where we get interested) using an in-built AI. Some awesome videos of quadrocopters being awesome can be found here and here. But most excitingly, someone has stuck on some badminton racket heads, and taught a couple of quadrocopters to juggle a ball! They're not perfect, and do drop it a couple of times, and what they're doing isn't strictly juggling, since they're just hitting it back and forth, but the implications for automatic badminton training machines are mind-blowing.



Rollin' Justin

In what can only be described as an attempt to replace your dad, scientists at the German Aerospace Centre have developed a robot that can play catch, and prepare coffee. It has the ability to detect an incoming object and move its arm to make a catch, including catching two balls at once with different hands. It also has sufficient fine motor control to handle the putting of the little cartridge thing into the coffee machine and making a coffee. Now, if they could only develop a robot which could make me some tea...



Balancing Robot

And finally, since all good robot roundups come in threes, here's a robot which can balance precisely on top of a ball. Despite a tantalising initial shot of it holding a stack of glasses of water on top of itself, whilst maintaining uprightness, the rest of the video demonstrates the practical uses of such an amazing robot, such as carrying heavy weights, and my favourite 'omnidirectional wheelbarrow'. It's quite a nice idea, since the ball isn't part of the robot, so could be replaced if it gets damaged. I can totally see humans learning to ballroom dance with tall versions of these guys. In suits. Robot suits.

Robot Tuesday - Robot 007

According to this article I just found in New Scientist, Lockheed Martin's Advanced Technology Laboratories at Cherry Hill, New Jersey have developed a robot which has the ability to evade detection by humans. It knows how to sneak around and change direction enough that it won't be spotted by surveillance, from sentries in both known and unknown locations.

It creates a 3D image of its environment, and calculates lines of sight, in order to avoid them. Apparently the AI isn't up to much yet, but it is being developed and this is exciting. Unless you're worried about spy robots sneaking in to your top secret base past your spy defences.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928044.700-surveillance-robots-know-when-to-hide.html

Robot Saturday - Robot round-up

Having been part of the Big Bang Fair in London this week, I saw a couple of cool robot-based exhibits (including, but not limited to, a guy with a stall entitled 'Learning Mathematics with Robots' which is just a great concept). I have been inspired by this experience to share a couple of robot-related gems.

Hitachi develops robot that can rollerskate



He's 80cm tall, responds to voice commands and can move over uneven surfaces at up to 3.7mph. That's faster than I can move on roller skates, anyway.

http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/hitachi-reveals-roller-skating-robot-697359

Wall-climbing robot at University of Utah



If you're worried about the inevitable robot uprising, you can no longer be sure of safety if you're hiding on the roof of a building with completely smooth concrete walls with no interruption. THIS DUDE IS AFTER YOU!

http://www.unews.utah.edu/p/?r=080310-1
(Youtube Video)

And finally
Buttersafe, Tuesday 1^st March - Robot Cat

Odd Cakes

I'm visiting relatives this weekend, and was offered a taste of chocolate cake by someone who loves Marmite. As a person who is also not indifferent to Marmite in a positive direction, I was impressed by the deliciousness and nice Marmitey aftertaste. I found a recipe for a Marmite based cupcake, involving peanut butter, here, which are also topped with peanut butter.

It reminded me of a couple of other kinds of chocolate cake I have heard of/seen made which contain unexpected ingredients.

• Chocolate Guinness Cake
  
  It's possible to bake half a can of Guinness into a chocolate cake, and it still tastes pretty much like normal chocolate cake. I think you might need a little more sugar than usual to counteract the bitterness of the stout. You can also put some in the icing, if you make it carefully with icing sugar. This recipe by Nigella just has a plain cream cheese style icing, which I imagine works just as well.
  
  
  
  http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/chocolate-guinness-cake-3086


• Courgette Chocolate Cake
  
  In the same way carrot cake manages to involve a grated vegetable without being in any way at all wrong, it's also possible to secrete an entire courgette (also grated, don't be silly) in a chocolate cake. I believe it results in a lovely moist cake which doesn't actually taste like it's got a courgette in it. I imagine it's good for getting kids to eat veg, although as someone who has a serious love of courgettes anyway, that's unnecessary for me. This recipe from BBC Good Food looks awesome, and also incorporates mixed spice which sounds even lovelier.
  
  
  
  http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/633634/chocolate-courgette-cake


• Some other ones which I haven't had much experience of but which I have found recipes for:
  
  Tomato Soup cake
  Chocolate mayonnaise cake
  
  Also worth a mention is Red velvet cake, which is commonly coloured using beetroot, and is proper well red and that.

So, hopefully you've not been sick yet at the thought of such strange combinations. If you do try making any of these, let me know how it goes. I'm inspired/tempted to make a carrot cake, once I have a bit more free time.

I bet Tim Vine would have a fit.

EDIT: Just found a recipe on Smitten Kitchen, one of my favourite recipe blogs, for Red Wine Chocolate Cake. It apparently tastes just nicely of red wine, but it works best as a thin cake - not too tall, giving smallish portions - and goes well with a nice mascarpone cream.