I miss ding experiments

I love cooking, especially baking. This is because they are like mini experiments. I present to you here Project Raspberry Apple Muesli Muffins.

You prepare every little component- the cutting, slicing, mashing, crumbling.

You use little instruments to ensure accuracy, from the small trusty weighing scale to the big PMS-y oven.

Then come the tiny pots of carefully measured ingredients - sitting there all colourful and waiting to be delicious. White powder in the form of flour and not calcium (Ca) powder. Chunks of red in the form of raspberries and not magnified red blood cells. Small white cubes in the form of sugar and not Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) babies :-D

Just like in an experiment, you have your star ingredients which will make or break your final results! In this case, they are raspberries, apples and muesli! Project Healthy Muffin :-)

The fun part is always the process of mixing, heating, blending, whisking, beating, kneading.

For every experiment, especially in biology, there is a yucky part like dissecting a rat, picking fainted Drosophilas and blending an animal liver. For me, the yucky part of today was pouring in the milk. Yuck, hate milk.

Then you stir and stir and stir and stir. This is usually the time you talk and talk or complain and complain to your lab partners about the lab sessions, the lab demo, the weather, the big life issues, the period cramps and the bad cafeteria food. How I miss.

Finally the star ingredients are added in. This is the most crucial time when you are silent and serious and every one of your lab partners are holding their breaths. At the same time, it also means time to go home soon, which is always good.

Towards the finale, everyone would have heaved a sigh and be feeling pretty good about themselves - regardless of the final result - cause that is something to be worried about later during the report-writing stage.

I like waiting times during experiments. The mere seconds for centrifugations. The very minutes for enzyme reaction. The good hours for chromatography. The long days for bacterial growth. Mostly, the minutes passing by as your hard work bakes up with a tummy-rumbling aroma~

What is better than an experiment? Good results. Like these nicely-browned muffins. Bites after bites of juicy berries and zesty apple cubes.

Mm hmm, a successful experiment on a Sunday afternoon. I admired this like how I used to admire the beautiful blue of a certain chemical element (oh gosh how bad does this sound?).

And it seemed like my lab partner for this experiment was yet again, asleep near my feet:-D

I miss the laboratory days in science. The white coats and lab manuals and head scratching. I miss pippetting and nutrient agars.

Anyone wants a lab assistant for a day?

*The muffins ended up not sweet enough so I slapped some creme de luche on each of them - Results fabrication?