Here is another of the cooking tips that can help you be more successful when baking and cooking. This tip was recognized one day when I engaged in a little problem solving in the kitchen while transferring dry material from one bowl to another. The solution to the problem might prove useful, so I'm sharing it with you as another of the cooking tips that you might put to good use.

The task at hand was transferring a large bowl of relatively heavy material to a smaller bowl. I had to use both hands to hold the first bowl, so using a tool to help with the transfer was out of the question.

The Problem...

Dry material in a bowl acts much like water in a bowl - it forms a rounded edge near the lip of the bowl when you start pouring (shaking or dumping) it. The problem is that dry material doesn't naturally readjust its own fit in the container like water. Instead, it wants to retain its shape as you pour it over the lip of the bowl. That means that the narrow rounded leading edge of material that meets up with the lip of the bowl keeps getting wider and wider as you pour.

If you're transferring dry material from a small bowl to a larger one, it's not a problem. If you're going from a large bowl to a smaller one, it could create a situation where the material fans out on the lip of the bowl to a point where it's much larger than the bowl you're pouring into.

Problem Solving...

The key to solving the problem is to recognize that when you first start pouring, the dry material presents a relatively narrow rounded portion of material at the lip of the bowl. It's only when you continue to dump it out that the width of the material across the lip of the bowl gets larger and unwieldy.

The Solution...

To avoid this problem, simply shake the material back into the bowl and start again each time you reach a width of material that is too wide for the bowl you're trying to put it into. Each time you start again, you'll start with a narrow leading edge of material that will grow wider as you continue to pour. So, you may have to start over again many times, but soon you'll have so little material left in the bowl that it can't spread itself wider than you'd like.

The solution to this problem could be useful to you in the kitchen. Even if it's not, it may have any number of applications elsewhere. From a problem solving standpoint, this example shows that the solution was found by replicating a point in the task where there was success. Instead of accepting changing conditions in the bowl, the solution was to recreate conditions that promoted success.

I enjoy the challenge of problem solving. In this case, having someone else use a spoon would have been easier and faster, but not as much fun.

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