In this blog, I talk about schoolgirls smearing soldiers in butter. For the faint of heart or the easily offended, don’t worry; you can read on.
The butter versus margarine test was simply part of an experiment at Sherborne Girls school to put to bed the long-asked question of how to cook the perfect boiled egg. The "soldiers" in question -- that the girls wanted to make as strong as possible -- for anyone unfamiliar with the term, are little pieces of bread to be dipped into the egg.
The “Eggsperiment” was commissioned by the Royal Society of Chemistry and led by Professor Hal Sosabowski, principal lecturer in chemistry at Brighton University, and a team of 12 girls confirmed not only the optimum time for boiling an egg, but also the key variables that make up the perfect dipping soldier.
The perfect boiled egg takes six minutes, as previously suggested. The girls conducted their experiments on a selection of different-sized, free-range, fresh eggs supplied by Blackacre Farm Eggs.
And what of the soldiers? The conclusions of the experiment were that margarine makes a stronger soldier than butter, that white bread makes more effective dunking soldiers, and that optimum toasting time is 2.5 minutes. The perfect soldier dimension is 1.5 cm in width.
I told you there was nothing to worry about by reading on!
