It's So Hot in Nebraska, You Can Bake Biscuits in Your Car (nypost.com) 189
An anonymous reader quotes the New York Post:
The National Weather Service in Omaha, Nebraska, baked biscuits in a car Friday amid a major heat wave in the Northeast and Midwest... Within 45 minutes, the dough had begun to rise, the NWS said. After an hour, the pan had reached 175 degrees, and the tops of the biscuits were at 153 degrees.
"This is a good time to remind everyone that your car does in fact get deadly hot. Look before you lock!," the NWS said... After baking in the sun for nearly eight hours, the biscuits were edible, but the middle remained "pretty doughy." The pan maxed out at a blazing 185 degrees.
"This is a good time to remind everyone that your car does in fact get deadly hot. Look before you lock!," the NWS said... After baking in the sun for nearly eight hours, the biscuits were edible, but the middle remained "pretty doughy." The pan maxed out at a blazing 185 degrees.
Well that just takes the.... (Score:5, Funny)
... no, nevermind.
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My neighbor also had a dog called biscuit. It died of old age though, unlike the dog in this story.
Re:Canada Uses (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Canada Uses (Score:5, Insightful)
This deserves upvoting. Please at least add what unit you are using, even if you are wildly inconsistent.
Re: Canada Uses (Score:3)
Re: Canada Uses (Score:1)
Poor beavers. Explains a lot about the mounties though.
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Meh, much of the world that uses metric is not 100% metric. Sometimes they'll use older measurement for cooking (because that's what was on grandma's recipes). Sometimes they'll be metric for distances but traditional for weights. Sometimes metric is official but in practice the populace still uses traditional measurements (ie, in the UK it's still highly common to hear someone's weight given in "stone").
And metric was difficult to adopt in most countries as well. The reason some countries adopted was b
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And yet, that sort of inconsistency is world wide so don't worry about it too much.
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Slashdot is an American Website, However it is accessible internationally.
Just as all the stories and comments should be in english.
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I'm assuming those numbers are Fahrenheit because an oven at 180 degrees would bake perfectly fine cookies. In fact, they would be burnt to crisp after eight hours.
175 F = 80 C
153 F = 67 C
185 F = 85 C
Come on, slashdot. This is an international web site. Act like it.
Naturally it's Farenheit... but the whole article is a lie.
If they were doughy in the middle it means it was NOT hot enough to bake biscuits... it might have been close but ultimately it sounds like the stunt failed.
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Yeah, it is fake for baking/cooking, but you had died inside, like any other mammal.
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So we've been reduced to debating if the editors should enforce using only Metric and never English systems of measure?
I know this is Slashdot but man.... Really? I got to say, that's mildly amusing.... I sure hope it was intended as a joke.. But again, this is Slashdot....
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You even state why they assumed C over K!
"Because you won't cook shit at 185 K."
So are you being:
A: Ignorant (curable)
B: Stupid (incurable)
C: Trollish
D: Obtuse
E: All of the above.
Isn't that hotter than the electronics can take (Score:3, Interesting)
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All car electronics are rated above 80C (Score:5, Informative)
A lot of AV systems, etc. say maximum temperature 50 C. Do you get a lot of electronics failures in US States which reach this sort of high temperature?
Most stuff in a car can handle temperatures of at least 80C and typically much higher. Stuff like components in the engine compartment are typically rated for 110-125C or more. My day job is making automotive wire harnesses so I've had to do testing for this sort of thing. We've had to bake circuit boards to the point they fail. Most wire insulation actually used in cars such as TXL [awcwire.com] is rated for up to 125C. This is not unique to the US - all car companies globally use similar specs. If a bit of electronics can't handle those sorts of temperatures they would fail rather quickly. Electronics operating in an enclosed metal box (like an engine compartment) in desert heat can easily go well north of 100C.
And yes high temperatures are a thing in large parts of the US. Ambient temperatures in places like Arizona routinely get above 40C and that means electronics will get a fair bit hotter than that.
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The engine itself gets pretty close to 400F. Thats why the need for high temp engine paint sold in automotive sections.
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The engine itself gets pretty close to 400F. Thats why the need for high temp engine paint sold in automotive sections.
Some parts of the engine never get much above the boiling point of water, while the face of the piston and the exhaust valves can each easily get up over a thousand degrees. Aluminum melts around 1250 F, so you should never run sustained exhaust gas temperatures over about 1100 (as measured by thermocouple in the exhaust manifold, preferably next to whichever valves have the poorest cooling.) Pretty much everything these days has an aluminum head, pistons, or both, and most high-output engines have either s
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It's the same deal with extreme cold as well, simply because there already existed those same environmental conditions, e.g. Africa, Alaska, etc. Get to take vehicles on field trips to NM, etc.?
There seems to be a certain tendency to forget that for decades, the USA was the world leader in most automotive technology. (Though perhaps Europeans have always been ahead in body design technology.) And one reason why the USA is an ideal place to develop new vehicle technologies is that we have every type of terrain on the planet somewhere within our borders, though sometimes you have to go to Alaska. This is less of an advantage since the birth of the EU and free movement between member countries, since
US automobiles (Score:2)
There seems to be a certain tendency to forget that for decades, the USA was the world leader in most automotive technology.
Maybe for a spell after WWII while everyone in Europe was rebuilding but that didn't last long. European car makers have long led in a lot of technical innovations and since the 1970s the US hasn't been a reliable technology leader as a general proposition. The Mercedes S Class was for decades the car to look at if you wanted to see what was coming next. While there was a lot of good stuff coming out of the US too, seldom was the US the uncontested leader in automobile innovation and by the 1980s the US
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Yeah, more like made it accessible for the masses due to line manufacturing and launched American car culture.
As to what makes a "great" vehicle, that's pretty much a matter of taste. I think my Corvette is pretty great, but wouldn't give 10 cents for a BMW. (otherwise known as "Break My Wallet.") as I don't care for the body styles. I did like my old Datsun 240 Z and Saab 99EMS a lot as well. Repair costs for European cars always made me hesitant to buy a Euro ride after a friend
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In extreme cold electronics (with perhaps the exception of an LCD displays) tend to work fine in cold weather. However for cars in such cold weather they need to still pump fluids which are much more viscous at these temperatures.
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Nope. Most vehicle electronic packages are in the engine compartment, and when they aren't they're inside the ducting for the AC system itself. The article itself is clickbait, you'll see a run of similar stories every time that there's a heatwave going on. In the colder parts of the US and Canada we see more failures from the cold. Simply because when it gets cold(-20 to -40C in the winter) everything goes brittle.
It's similar to the 'frying an egg on a sidewalk' or 'road melting' because of high tempe
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Yeah, he's definitely not a mechanic.
However your computer engine controls, engine sensors, large fuses, fusible links, and solenoids are located in the engine compartment. The smaller fuse box, entertainment system(s), cabin controls, VATS, and heater/AC motors are generally (always an exception if you look hard enough) concealed within the dashboard and doors with the remainder scattered throughout the
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The only thing I see incorrect is "when they aren't they're inside the ducting for the AC system itself."
Yeah, he's definitely not a mechanic.
Funny, the papers I got 24ish years ago say otherwise. And I still do occasional work for my buddy who runs an established chain of garages here in Ontario.
I'll wait for you to find what model year of Cadillac's and BMW's made the move to put it in there because it was considered the best option over the cabinet computer failing or causing reboot issues. To give you a hint, this was done mostly with vehicles that had a HUD projected onto the windshield as either a standard feature or massively overpriced
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You obviously don't know much about vehicle design, or have odd ideas about what is inside the engine compartment and AC ducting.
Better than you apparently, why don't you go dust off a hard copy of Chilton's when you get to the diagnostic flowchart part, let me know.
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They definitely reside in the cooler areas under the hood (save for sensors that are directly connected to the engine and exhaust) above the engine but close to where airflow pulls heat out of the engine compartment. Yes, they do their best (sometimes anyway) to keep the electronics in the airflow, but a good amount of the total electronic
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Take it from someone who designs in-car electronics for a living since nearly 30 years:
So you're the idiot that has made the life hell for every mechanic since the introduction of the geo metro. Fuck and you buddy.
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Commercial electronic components are generally rated for 70 degrees. Then you take into account the localised heating in the chassis by the components and the fact that you need a temperature differential to dispose of heat and appliances are often rated (read that as tested) for 50 degrees, which is hotter than the room you want standing in. The localised heating impact can be huge but doesn't occur if the device isn't powered.
In practice 70 degrees isn't going to cause a failure. Virtually all components
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A lot of AV systems, etc. say maximum temperature 50 C. Do you get a lot of electronics failures in US States which reach this sort of high temperature?
Standard consumer grade stuff is typically rated at 0-70C. The next grade up is -20C to +85C, which is perhaps the most common for electronics. Automotive electronics are usually rated at +105C though anything near an engine is going to be +125C, sometimes greater.
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Electronics actually can deal with heat better then we think. The specs for heat tolerance is set rather low, figuring a good safety margin. Normally if there is warping where casings are broken or connections are snapped or shorted. However I have seen server rooms run in 90+F rooms for days (while the AC is being repaired) with no problems. Modern CPU may cycle down in hot conditions as a safety measure but it rarely is a major problem. That said, it isn't a good idea to go out and test thousands of d
Heat Biscuits At Least (Score:2)
Any biscuits I've made say to cook them at 350F. If there's raw egg in the biscuits, I wouldn't recommend eating them if only cooked to 185F.
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185F is more than enough to kill harmful bacteria, especially considering they left them in there for hours.
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185F is more than enough to kill harmful bacteria, especially considering they left them in there for hours.
For biscuits, I don't think the food safety angle is really an issue. It's going to take hours and hours before a mixture of water, flour, baking powder and salt is going to become unsafe to consume.
What "cooked" means in the case of quick breads (actually bread in general) that don't contain eggs is more about being "set" than being safe to eat. I.E. where the gluten and water mixture has solidified hard enough to hold the shape. It just so happens that where this temperature will likely kill anything n
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Raw dough can also be dangerous because of the flour, not just the eggs.
https://www.cdc.gov/features/n... [cdc.gov]
Flour is not typically processed to kill germs. In the past few months there was a fairly big recall of products from multiple companies due to a possible E. coli contaminated lot from ADM Milling Co.
https://www.fda.gov/safety/rec... [fda.gov]
https://www.fda.gov/safety/rec... [fda.gov]
https://www.fda.gov/safety/rec... [fda.gov]
https://corporate.aldi.us/file... [corporate.aldi.us]
So, eat raw dough at your own risk, whether it contains eggs or not.
I full
Quite safe (Score:2)
Any biscuits I've made say to cook them at 350F. If there's raw egg in the biscuits, I wouldn't recommend eating them if only cooked to 185F.
Don't confuse the oven temperature with the temperature the food actually gets to. If you actually cooked a biscuit to 350F it would become basically charcoal. If it is actually cooked to an internal temperature of 185F you will be quite safe and a finished bread usually has a temperature of 190-205 or so. 165F is high enough to kill pretty much any pathogens that should worry you. And you can cook at lower temperatures safely if you do it for long enough. For example , at 155F it takes 5 seconds, at 1 [polyscienceculinary.com]
Low and slow is safe (Score:2)
The bacteria might be dead by the end but cooked slowly at that low of a temperature there's a chance that any toxins created by the bacteria as they grew might still be present in enough quantities to make you sick anyway.
Citation needed. What specific toxins are you referring to? If it is something like botulism [cdc.gov] that has more to do with improper storage and canning technique - not low and slow cooking. Lots of cooking methods are low and slow and quite safe if done properly. Sous vide, barbecue, smoking, confit, and more all have a long demonstrated safety record despite cooking at relatively low temperatures. The risk for these methods is that the food spends too long in the temperature range between 40F and 120F wher
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No egg needed in biscuits. Flour, fat, milk, salt, baking powder. You cook to 350 not to get the biscuits that hot (as sibling comment says), but because you want the maillard reaction to make the outside toasty and delicious. That's why so many things are cooked at that temp.
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Americans seem to have odd notions about what biscuits are and or how to speak English properly.
As usual, it's the British who don't know how to use a word. It's from the french [merriam-webster.com] pain bescuit, meaning twice-cooked bread, not cookies. (There are many twice-cooked cookies, the most popular of which is probably the biscotti.) It was never about sweetened breads. UK English always deliberately tries to sound poncy to convey the misguided sense of superiority among the inbreds, like adding an unnecessary syllable to Aluminum. There's enough of that bollocks to jam a lorry.
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It is only the americans (british perhaps, too?) who say/write Auluminum.
The rest of the world calls it Aluminium, like it is in every dictionary ... But those guys are not able to pronoubce Uranus or Zeus correctly, so what would one expect?
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I'm from the USA and I have a biscuit recipe (not the cookie kind, the savory kind) that includes eggs. This violates the general rule of thumb, but they are pretty tasty and very forgiving should you mishandle them or over work the dough.. However, my absolute favorite recipe for these kinds of biscuit includes little more than, flour, backing powder, salt and fresh heavy cream to cover both the liquid and fat components. Properly handled, the sweet cream biscuits will more than double in height, don't n
Re: Heat Biscuits At Least (Score:2)
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Oven temperature just dictates how long it takes to bring the internal temperature up to the cooking temperature needed to kill off harmful bacteria.
Chicken requires an internal temperature of 165F. It takes roughly 25-30 minutes for the chicken to reach that temperature at 350F but only 15-20 minutes at 450F.
At 175-185F for the pan in the car, this car could have potentially cooked safe chicken although it would have taken a number of hours for it to reach the correct temperature. I'm not sure I would want
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I just googled 'nebraska weather' and the results look kinda meh.... not getting above 100f at all this coming week.... what's the big deal?
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Check the humidity. Much of the Midwest just got hit with heavy rains and flooding, when that is followed by a heat wave you get high humidity, and disease. (Mosquitoes, soil-borne pathogens...) Plus the pairing means sweating doesn't cool you, because of the lack of evaporation.
I lived in Austin for a year and a half. While I was there, a month-long heat wave killed a bunch of old people. It never got over about 100, but it also never dropped below 75, the humidity never dropped below 75%, and it was 99% e
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The big deal was more the humidity levels. While the outside temperature was mid 90s the humidity brought the heat index up to around 115-120. That can cause breathing issues for people that are susceptible to it and that level of heat can cause heat illness to crop up pretty quickly as well.
With the higher humidity it makes the inside of the car an even more sever greenhouse than on lower humidity days.
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And don't forget, Sky Harbor Airport (Phoenix, PHX on your ticket) shuts down takeoffs when it's 120F there - not because it's unsafe, but because, allegedly, there are no takeoff stats, no tables, for those temperatures.
I doubt there's much danger until it gets more like 130F, but then again I go out and mow the lawn when the planes are grounded, I'm as used to this as I was 99F and 96% humidity in Maine summers. And we got no ocean shore here.
It's worse, whatever it is. Just stop trying to fix it.
My first thought reading the headline (Score:4, Funny)
was that maybe biscuits was the name of the family dog, or a nickname for a kid.
Please remember to check the back seat before leaving the car.
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If you can't remember you have kids, maybe you shouldn't have kids.
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If you can't remember you have kids,
I keep trying to forget but they keep reminding me they exist.
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In certain "disadvantaged" American communities, the purpose of having children is to collect more money from the government. The more children they have, the more money they get. They don't care about the children themselves. They just need them to initially get that welfare boost. After that they have little use for the children. It really goes to show how insidious the welfare state and socialism are; even the most fundamental of human activities are twisted for nefarious purposes.
Sadly, that may be true. But wouldn't they lose some of that welfare if some of their kids got fried? I would think that even if they DGAF, simple self-interest would get them to not leave their kids in an oven-like car.
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Racist dumbfuckery with zero basis in reality.
Dumb.
Fuck.
Er.
Eee.
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My wife always put her purse behind the driver seat in the floorboard so she would be forced to open up the back door, thus ensuring she would avoid such a crisis.
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I've heard a recommendation to put your cellphone in the back, so you'll remember your kids when you get your phone.
Interesting priorities.
Not about priorities (Score:2)
Parents who have left kids in hot cars would have sworn at the time that they were dropped off at the babysitters. It's not about "priorities", it's about how the human brain works under stress and when routines are interrupted. It's not saying your cell phone is more important than your kids, it's about ensuring you don't misplace them while thinking about the other
Nebraskan here... (Score:1, Informative)
High in Omaha on friday was only 97, which isn't even remotely exceptional by July standards. Meanwhile highs for sunday through thursday were/are forecast to be in the mid 70's to low 80's.
Among a flood of retarded global warming hysteria on this site, this one is even more retarded than usual.
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I'm a few hours south in Kansas your not kidding when you say they are hyping a small temperature spike in an otherwise mild summer. It's usually in the high 90s this time of year and we are getting a few days as expected and the rest has been 70s and 80s. I'm not saying I want a hot summer, I'm very much enjoying the lower cooling cost.
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Missourian here. We got some hot days last week, but as a whole this hasn't been a bad summer, and isn't even close to what we got last year.
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It reached a feels-like temperature above 110F here in New England the other day and people were going nuts. Honestly the temperature wasnt so bad but the humidity was oppressive as fuck.
I've always thought the mid-west to be dryer than average... low humidity because of rockies drain the air... am I wrong on that too?
Ah, Farenheit... (Score:3)
This sounds extremely impressive until I realised it was ÂF, not ÂC.
185 F = 85 C
Certain hot enough to cook steak. Beef is considered cooked once it hits 58C (~136F). So leaving a person in a car that hot would cause them to start cooking.
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Beef is considered cooked once it hits 58C
You monster. That poor beef died only to be cooked medium! Do you not value its life or your tastebuds at all?
Re:Ah, Farenheit... (Score:5, Funny)
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You monster. That poor beef died only to be cooked medium! Do you not value its life or your tastebuds at all?
Cute, but 58 C is just about the middle of the range for medium rare [wikipedia.org]. I wouldn't take a filet quite that high, but certainly less tender and/or more marbled cuts like a ribeye, flank, or strip benefit from a few extra degrees.
You may be confusing the final temperature of the finished steak with its temperature when you take it off the grill -- keeping it on the heat until you measure 58 C likely would cause it to overshoot into the medium range during resting.
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Only well after it's dry and it can't sweat anymore. In the excellent "Experiments and Observations in an Heated Room" by Charles Blagden from the 1700s (well into public domain) the author experimented with two people and one dog (and a steak and some more things I believe) sitting for something like 45 minutes in an oven at 112C. Everybody (who wasn't dead already like the stake) survived relatively well.
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I imagine that the steak didn't survive for very long with a dog in there.
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I imagine that the steak didn't survive for very long with a dog in there.
The experiment was repeated in China in the 1800s and the dog didn't survive either.
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Hence, person == beef ???
God, maybe vegans were right all along ! Beef is not food, it's our friends !
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So leaving a person in a car that hot would cause them to start cooking.
You've never set foot in a sauna I take it.
85 C is nothing.
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The FDA says that the safe minimum internal temperature for beef is 145F (~63C). So not only can you cook it, you can cook it safely (as long as you leave it long enough so the internal temperature equalizes with the outside layer).
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Ignore the trolls, yeah, biscuits in America are more like scones at a glance than what we Americans would call cookies (you would call biscuits). Our biscuits in America are more like a hunk of bread that is usually buttery, you put more butter and then dip them in syrup in most places I've been to. Maybe jam/jelly/honey... you get the idea. I've got one on my desk for breakfast right now... going to eat it with no toppings since I'm not at home.
British to American:
Chips = French Fries
Crisps = Chips
Biscuit
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Also, on the jam and jelly thing... I least in my family we called everything jelly, whether it was labeled jam, jelly, or preserves.
Jam/Jelly/Preserves technically depends on how much fruit is actually in the mix... although in the UK if you say "Jelly" most people will think you're talking about Gelatin/Jello.
The whole idea of Peanut Butter and "Jelly" sandwiches became slightly less gross when I moved to America and realized people were talking about jam. Still a disgusting concept, but not as bad as putting Jello in a sandwich.
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But then how do americans distinguish between cookies and biscuits?
Or do they have a different word for cookies?
Whether it is the crunchier kind that is more common in the UK or the softer kind that is more common in the US, the sweetened baked confections are both called cookies in the US. Occasionally you will see them sold as "biscuits" if they're trying to sound posh; but almost universally they are called cookies.
99% of the time when Americans say biscuits they are talking about the flakey buttery bread type of product.
Cookies almost always means small sweetened baked confections and biscuits almost always mean
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You want a scorchingly hot fire, so that the outside undergoes the Malliard reaction and produces a tasty browned surface while not overcooking the inside.
It's even better if you cook it sous vide at very low temperatures before trying to brown the outside (regardless of whether you want rare or medium). If you're relying on just a hot fire you tend to get an inconsistent piece of meat with inconsistent levels of done-ness throughout the steak.
But yeah, global warming is fake news. (Score:1)
Enjoy your sustained 90+ degrees, you fucking idiots.
Misleading Headline (Score:5, Informative)
The headline says, "It's So Hot in Nebraska, You Can Bake Biscuits in Your Car" but you that isn't quite what happened.
From the article: After baking in the sun for nearly eight hours, the biscuits were edible, but the middle remained "pretty doughy."
So, while they may have been made "edible" after 8 hours in the sun, they were not, actually, "baked". Plus, I would definitely want to check the internal temperature of the biscuits to make sure the middle got hot enough to kill all of the bacteria.
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You don't need to worry about bacteria in raw dough in normal situations. You do need to worry about parasites though... last I heard if you froze (put in your freezer) your flour for a week or two it would kill the parasite eggs, which allows you to eat raw dough made from that flour all you want. Raw cookie dough anybody?
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1. Bacteria ain't a worry when baking bread.
2. Not all bacteria should be killed just because it's bacteria, unless you're a soap manufacturer / advertiser.
Well, not really (Score:2, Insightful)
...I read that account when they originally posted it, and they admitted that only the outside was "baked" - in effect, that bit had just dried enough to be crusty and faux-baked*. The inside was still entirely unbaked dough. They advised the hottest the pan got was 185 which is still pretty hot, but I'm relatively sure you could park a car in many southern cities in high summer and see those sorts of temps on a dark dashboard facing the sun.
*and while I love them, tbh for American-style baking powder bis
That's nothing..... (Score:2)
...A friend of mine fried eggs on a sidewalk summer before last. Gets that hot every year in my neck of the woods.
Good thing the man made warming (Score:2)
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Global warming will be beneficial for Russia.