We love books and baking at The Hutch Post, but you may not know that I (Chad) also teach Algebra and Calculus.
Booooo! Hissssss!
Yes, I know it probably feels like betrayal to realize you’ve been consorting with a Math teacher these past several months, but better I show my true colors now than after you’re so deep into the pie pan you can’t escape.
The truth is, many of us grew up hating math.
I suspect some of it had to do with the fact that math is hard. Some of it may have had to do with the fact that Algebra is more like learning a foreign language than anything else. And some of it probably had to do with that nagging question: When am I every gonna use this? None of this has to do with my real life!
I totally get it. But consider a related question: Do we ever use beauty? And yet, we want our lives to be filled with beauty nevertheless.
Math is more like beauty than we realize. We recognize math much in the same way we recognize beauty. And we want our lives to be filled with math, whether it is immediately useful or not.
For example, imagine waking up one day to find that 2 + 2 = 5 or that the world had begun to spin backward or that gravity was reversed. Imagine that the multiplication tables could change on a daily—an hourly—basis. We would all become neurotic basket cases! That sort of uncertainty would be terrifying.
Thank God, this is not the case. We will arise tomorrow to the same universe governed by the same laws and able to be examined using the same mathematical principles of today. Math is not about creating a system out of thin air. Foundationally, it is about exploring the way our Savior is holding the universe together in the same way yesterday, today, and forevermore (Col 1:17).
We tend to think of math as problem-solving. It is. But the biggest problem isn’t in the textbooks.
Math’s greatest benefit lies not in what you can do with it but what it does in you. Our minds tend to chaos, but math disciplines us to think in orderly ways toward a solution. In other words, math is a tool for conforming our minds to the “mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16).
Math is hard. And when you feel that pain, math is having its full, beautiful effect.
Some of the most beautiful recipes are the simplest. Enter Alton Brown’s dutch baby: good for breakfast or a late night snack, made with basic ingredients you’ll always have on hand. A light squeeze of lemon and a sprinkling of crunchy vanilla sugar make it perfect.
Ingredients
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 cup whole milk, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
extra sugar and vanilla
Lemon wedges, for serving
Make it.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Melt the butter in a cast iron skillet.
Meanwhile, whisk vigorously together all the other ingredients in a bowl until a very thin batter is formed with no major clumps.
Swirl the melted butter in the skillet to coat, then whisk in.
Pour the batter into the hot skillet, and bake in the oven for 20 twenty minutes until dark brown on edges and puffed.
Cut into wedges with a pizza cutter and top with vanilla sugar (granulated sugar stirred with 1/4 tsp vanilla) and a squeeze of lemon.