Lemon Bar Lab

By: Thane and David

Abstract:
We were motivated to conduct this lab because we were curious what made
Lemon Bars more sour and how good the Lemon Bar was based on the tartness. We
conducted this by making three different batches of Lemon Bars. Starting with one
teaspoon of Lemon Juice we increased the amount of Lemon Juice by one teaspoon.
After reviewing this data we could see that it was indeed the Lemon Juice that made the
Lemon Bar more sour.

Introduction:
The goal of this project is to improve the quality and quantity of the food. We will
do this by changing a variable within the recipe. We are making lemon bars, our goal is
to change the amount of lemons but more specifically the amount of lemon juice. We do
this in hopes of finding the perfect amount of tartness and gooeyness. We will be using
1, 2, and 3 Teaspoons of lemon juice in our experiment for each batch and different
lemons for each batch. We expect changing these variables will change the gooeyness,
tartness and the pH levels of the lemon bars. We expect that the patch with the highest
pH level will have the best flavor and taste because of the already heavy amount sugar
in the recipe we are hoping that the lemon juice will balance the flavor more. The Lemon
bars with the lowest pH level may be less well textured and more crumbly than the other
patches thus resulting in a less enjoyable eating experience.
http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/luscious-lemon-squares/c01a5935-6f52-419c-af08e8c267c1aaf7-Link to Recipe

Methods:
Variable:
Lemons

Independent variable:
The independent variables for our lemon bars are the types of lemons and the amount
of lemon juice squeezed from the different types of lemons.

Dependent variable:

The dependent variable will be measuring the pH of three different types lemon juice
which will be measured using a Vernier pH probe.

Controlled:
The controlled variables for making the lemon bars are the temperature of the oven
(350 F), and also the amount of ingredients that are used in the recipe to make the six
batches.
Qualitative:
.Tartness, texture, gooeyness, flavor, sweetness.
Quantitative:
Cooking Temperature, pH, Cooking time, and Amount of Ingredients

Ingredients:

Lemons
1 cup of all purpose flour
2 Eggs
2 tablespoons of Lemon Juice
cups of Butter
teaspoons baking powder
1 cup of Sugar
1/4 cup of Powdered Sugar
2 teaspoons Shredded Lemon Peels
teaspoon of salt

Directions:
1. Heat Oven to 350 F
2. Mix flour, butter, and powdered sugar. Press in ungreased square pan,
8x8x2, 9x9x2 inches, building up - inch edge.
3. Bake crust for 20 minutes.
4. Beat brown sugar, lemon peels, lemon juice, baking powder, salt and eggs
with electric mixer on high speed for about 3 minutes or until light and fluffy. Then
pour it over the hot crust.
5. Bake 25-30 minutes or until no indentation remains when touched lightly
in the center. Let it cool; dust powdered sugar over the top.

Results:

Lemon A

Lemon A

Lemon B Lemon B (Big

Lemon C

Lemon C

Amount
Of
Lemon
Juice

2
2
Teaspoon Teaspoon
s
s
2.61

Survey Results:
Figure 1

(Big
Lemons)

Lemons)

1
Teaspoo
ns
2.49

1
Teaspoons
+
flour by
cup
+
& half
cup of
powdere
d sugar
+
stick of
booter
4
teaspoon
s of
shredded
lemon
peels
3
tablespoo
ns of
lemon
juice

3
3
Teaspoon Teaspoo
s
ns
2.52

Link to image(bigger):
file:///C:/Users/Owner/Pictures/Screenshots/Screenshot%20(12).png
Link to Data Spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/a/animashighschool.com/spreadsheets/d/10DWnn
1hEL7Sg9sTLNiCZXcf5dIgYda0x_-lkzl68tas/edit?usp=sharing
Discussion:
In this experiment were testing if you change the amount of lemon juice will it
have an effect on how sour our Lemon Bars are. We constructed a survey for people to
take after taste testing our food. The responses to the survey will hopefully show us if
adding more Lemon Juice will make our Lemon Bars more sour or not. We expected
that the more Lemon Juice there is, the more sour our Lemon Bars would be. After
Reviewing responses from our survey it seems to be the case. People reported that the
amount of sourness was stronger in the samples of food that had more Lemon Juice.
This can be seen in the Pie Charts above in Figure 1. As I stated earlier the more of our
independent variable(Lemon Juice) made our Dependent Variable(Sourness/Tartness)
larger. Our Results are the backbone of our lab, there would be no experiment or lab
without these results. These results are very important because they show us how to
make Lemon Bars more sour without lowering the quality of the flavor. Our experimental
design was strong idea when we first planned out this project, but in our execution we
saw the flaw in its design. It was a systematic error more than anything because our
experimental design was to broad to see a change in results.

Conclusion:
Our experiment to test the pH of lemon juice to know what kind of lemon is the
sourest and the best for baking lemon bars, from the data we collected for our results
section it does actually turn out that lemon group B with the lowest pH levels of 2.49
were said to be the most sour and tart. We personally thought that lemon group C would
have been the winner because its the batch with the highest pH, our hypothesis was
incorrect and our results show us that because of the survey results collected during the
all school exhibition. Looking back on the recipe we used we could have lowered the
sugar amount and increased the lemon peel and lemon juice ingredients to bring out
more zing into the flavor, but it also could have made the mix for the lemon bars not
creamy enough and could have had a strange reaction with the baking powder as well.
In the end our lemon bars turned out rather averaged and crispy but rather good for
homemade pastries, we were able to collect all the data needed for knowing either
which lemon to buy because of its tartness or which is the cheapest lemon to buy
because the pH is rather all in the same range for the store bought lemons.