Baking and Chemistry

Jasmin decided that she wanted to make pumpkin bread tonight.  She mixed up the ingredients, put them into a pan, put the pan in the oven, set a timer, and waited.  When the timer went off an hour later, she opened the oven only to discover that her loaf of pumpkin bread was far from solid.  She set the timer for another 10 minutes, but the extra time had not done the trick.  Another 10 minutes passed, but the newest Darling was once again disappointed to find that the bread had yet to transcend its gelatinous state.  The following conversation then took place.

Kyle: Hmmm.  What size pan did you use?
Jasmin: 9x5, just like the recipe said.
Kyle: Did it say to use one pan or two? (We had this problem once in the past)
Jasmin: Two, but I halved the recipe so that it only made one.
Kyle: Are you sure you followed the recipe?
Jasmin: Yeah.  Well... there was one part that said to use half a teaspoon of baking powder and I accidentally used one teaspoon instead.

*Kyle in his head* Well that wouldn't do it.

Jasmin: And I used some extra pumpkin.
Kyle: How much extra?
Jasmin: It said to use 8oz.
Kyle: How much did you use?
Jasmin: Whatever was left in the can.
Kyle: Sweetie, baking is like chemistry.
Jasmin: And I did really well in chemistry!!
Kyle: Why did you do so well in chemistry?
Jasmin: Because I followed the instructions exactly.

Then we laughed for a while.  It ended up being delicious anyway, of course, despite the fact that we had piles instead of slices.

The result of the pumpkin pile experiment.