As with all experiments, please check with one of your adults that they are happy for you to try out Zoe’s ‘Depression Cracker Pie’. Tell them what’s involved, what you need, and get them to stick around to watch — you’ll need to test it on someome anyway!
Hypothesis
Zoe has been learning about the Depression era and found out that in times gone by when food was scarce, people used some unusual ingredients to make ‘fruit’ pies. She decided to test this recipe out as an experiement.
Would it really taste like a fruit pie? And if so, would her family be able to guess what kind of fruit pie it was supposed to be?
Begin by looking at the list of ingredients and the method below, then write down what you think it will taste like yourself. (You might not think it will taste like fruit at all, and that’s okay too, of course, but if it did taste like fruit, which would you guess?) This will be the idea you will test – your ‘hypothesis’.
Ingredients
You will need:
For the Pie:
- 2 cups water
- 1 cup white sugar
- 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
- 30 buttery round crackers (like Ritz)
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 (9 inch) prepared pie shell
For the Topping:
- 1 cup crushed buttery round crackers
- ½ cup packed brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ⅓ cup butter, melted
Method
- Preheat the oven to 220°C.
- Boil water, sugar, and cream of tartar, then add whole crackers and boil for 5 minutes.
- Pour the mixture into the pie shell, sprinkle cinnamon, and drizzle lemon juice.
- Mix crushed crackers, brown sugar, melted butter, and cinnamon for the topping.
- Bake for 15 minutes, reduce heat, and bake for an additional 15-20 minutes.
- Serve warm.
Results and Conclusion
When you’ve done the experiment (ie made the pie), and tasted it to see if your hypothesis was correct or not (and tried it out on family and friends too like Zoe did), feel free to share your results – what happened – and your conclusions – what you found out – by telling us about it in the comment box below.
