Baking with Math & Science

"My therapist told me the way to achieve true inner peace is to finish what I start. So far today, I have finished 2 bags of M&M's and a chocolate cake. I feel better already."
Dave Barry



















It's a wacky world. And getting wackier.

I think a wacky world could use more dessert. It's possible that all the rancor and sniping is sourced from dessert deprivation. Failure to recognize the importance of something sweet in daily life. Erma Bombeck once observed, "....Just think of all those women on the Titanic who said, "No, thank you," to dessert that night. And, for what?!" I think she was on to something. A day without dessert could be your last day with a meal. You just never know.

In the spirit of tripartisanship, I offer a truly egalitarian vision for creative baking that should melt the resolve of even the most hardened pol.


























I give you Neapolitan.

You know it from that brick of ice cream your mother scooped into three magical colors and flavors onto a cone. For the family that couldn't decide what they liked or simply couldn't afford to keep three separate containers of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry on hand. I remember raiding the chocolate stripe to the consternation of others. But, I've matured. I appreciate that the very idea came over here from Naples, Italy and morphed into any three flavors slapped together without a divider.

To my mind, the decision to settle on chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry in America was fortuitous indeed. For one thing, it's pretty. It's like a wedding on a stick. White or creamy white bridal gown, black or dark brown tuxedo for the groom and his men, powder pink for the bridal attendants.

Go to any fast food joint with a milk shake menu, and you can always depend upon those three flavor choices. It's like clockwork. How convenient! Somewhere along the line, these flavors established themselves as timeless. Oreo Cookie, Cookies & Cream, and Coffee may come and go. But, CVS is forever.

The pictures show a couple of techniques for making Neapolitan cupcakes that anyone with a chocolate cake recipe, a vanilla cake recipe, and a strawberry buttercream recipe can recreate. No new recipes are posted here. Just follow the geometry of half chocolate, half vanilla batter in a cupcake cup. Frost with the strawberry, et voila!

Stacking the batter horizontally is simple. Put the chocolate on the bottom and the vanilla on the top.

Splitting chocolate and vanilla vertically takes more precision, but not much more. If your batter is thick, spoon one on the right side of the liner. Then spoon the other one on the left side. If your batter is thin, transfer each batter into its own measuring cup with a pouring spout. Pour each batter simultaneously into the liner, holding one on the left and one on the right. If you've ever had the Half & Half soup at California Pizza Kitchen, you probably figured out how they do that. If not, just use your imagination. Think back to high school science.

A little thing like that hardly scares me. I overcame cake geometry during my Cheesecake Era. At that time, I worked in an office that enjoyed celebrating birthdays. My wonderful group was almost big enough by itself to consume an entire cheesecake. Which was helpful. Baking a cheesecake was dependent upon ensuring that I had no leftovers after I ate my one piece. I experimented with flavors and styles over a few years and raised the bar on myself.

That's when the Neapolitan bullseye was created. I had a recipe that called for the three traditional flavors of cheesecake batter. I made the Chocolate with Godiva Chocolate Liqueur. I made the Vanilla with fresh vanilla beans. I made the Strawberry with Dekuyper Strawberry Passion Schnapps. Any one of these batters as the entirety of the cake would have been fabulous. The directions I was trying to follow called for layering the batters, one on top of the other.

The first time I tried it, a funny thing happened on the way to baking with science. I poured in the chocolate. Then, I layered the vanilla over the chocolate. Then, I layered the strawberry over the vanilla. I baked the cake. When I cut the cake, I could see that the three layers were not in perfect symmetry. The goal had been to achieve the look of the old-timey box of Neapolitan ice cream. It wasn't perfect enough to satisfy my sensibilities about presentation. But, it sure ate good.

Ate good enough to be made again. The second and future times I made this cheesecake, I just went all out with physics. My pea brain remembered enough of the course I had stumbled through at USC to know that I could do something formidable with cheesecake batter.

I poured the chocolate batter from the very center of the pan. I then poured the vanilla batter from the very center of the pan, and it predictably displaced the chocolate batter to the side. Then I poured the strawberry batter from the very center of the pan, and it predictably displaced the vanilla batter to the side. The top of the cheesecake was mostly pink, encircled by a narrow halo of vanilla, which was encircled by a narrow halo of chocolate.

I took it to an office party and put it on the dessert table. When it came time to cut it, I was called forth to do the honors, because nobody wanted any part of serving a cheesecake. To my complete delight and the total confounding of the observers standing around, the slices looked like a miracle of math and science, just like I had planned. Each of the batters curved up toward the top of the slice in a baking freak of nature. The cross section of each slice was both a work of art and a calculated outcome of science.

"How did you do THAT?"

I didn't tell anyone then, but I'm telling you now.

Now, go forth and multiply.