December 15, 2010 Meeting

In his talk, “The Science of Chocolate Chip Cookies,” Jeff Potter will discuss the variables that impact the properties of chocolate chip cookies. Does hydration time matter? What are the key variables for chewy versus crispy cookies? And why is the chocolate chip cookie more American than apple pie? Using the humble cookie as a starting point, he will explore various tangents—from gluten formation to chocolate polymorphs—to show how food science plays an important role in the kitchen.

Jeff Potter is the author of Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food, which The Washington Post recently called “one of the most useful books on understanding cooking.” When he’s not thinking about chocolate chip cookies, he works as a software engineer and consults to startups about Internet technologies.