When making a proposal, consider that committees evaluating PhD dissertation still look for the originality factor. They would want to see to it that you are working on something genuine and also promise great contributions to your field. Your audience has now become professionals with high standards. You are expected to present something that matches or at least comes close to their level of knowledge. This part of taking up the doctoral degree trains you to become a professional researcher yourself  ~ dissertation today

we so totally got this. just start calling us dr. monza and dr. nic.  (aussies do such crazy things with names.)

dr. monza & dr. nic - research can be so grueling

a few months ago, i was having a chat with an australian friend, nicola, about the pros & cons of cadbury creme eggs.  and that got us wondering as to what might be the differences between the ones made in “the land of the free and the home of the brave” and those made in “the land down under”.  and from that little conversation we hatched a ph.d. idea that oozes originality and also promises to be a massive contribution to our field – a mostly undefined field, but i’m pretty sure whichever lucky school we decide to bless with this dissertation will appreciate our need to not be tied down to anything too specific.  and, as if acquiring eggs from two countries wasn’t difficult enough, we upped the ante by making a batch ourselves.  for real.  and, yes, it’s as difficult as it sounds.  or maybe not.

as with any good research project we had our fair share of research assistants from both countries and i don’t think any kind of dissertation writer worth their salt would feel good about neglecting to give credit where credit is due.   the following researcher assistants hail from the land of oz (not to be confused with the yellow brick road oz, this one has ‘roos and outbacks – but not the steakhouse, but maybe those, too)  sue t. answered a desperate plea for corn syrup and posted it, enabling us to take on the challenge of homemade creme eggs.  cath p. and beth l. contributed the australian cadbury creme eggs and cheryl chez a. transported them to chiang mai.  in her suitcase.  research assistants from the land of opportunity include michael (my husband), he transported the initial american contribution.  but, being unaware of the huge scale of this project (and possibly the lack of self control of one or two of the doctoral candidates), more were needed.  bonnie c. answered a frantic facebook status update and mailed plenty more eggs – enough that the good ol’ u.s. of a. didn’t end up with egg on her face.  (egg… ha ha).  and our last research assistant was an american living in chiang mai, laura h.  her role was taste tester – she was very good at tasting eggs.  so with the gathering of necessary supplies we were ready to begin.

our initial observations led us to conclude that the eggs were wrapped differently and that the aussie egg was bigger than the american egg.  (for the purposes of this project bigger is a very exact unit of measurement.)  we were both a bit surprised by these findings, but we double checked and confirmed that they were indeed accurate.  after our initial comparisons we got to work on the batch of homemade eggs.

ingredients

first up was creating the egg innards. i’m not sure if we used the exact technique that cadbury does, but i feel pretty safe guessing that we didn’t.

i’m not up on the exact mechanics of how real chickens go about getting their yellow into the middle of their egg white, but we found it very helpful to have cold hands when it came time to embed (official lingo) the yolk into the white.  luckily, when we’d checked a14 out of the hospital a few months ago we thought to grab her ice pack thing.

time to prep the chocolate.  then coat the eggs.  one thing that we were certain would set the homemade eggs apart from the store bought is the coconut oil we used to help set the chocolate.

we assumed there would be other minor differences, but were optimistic that they might not be too noticeable.  we were working with a handicap – not having molds – but were confident that this was only a slight obstacle, one that we could easily overcome.

after we’d created the best replication of a cadbury creme egg we had to let them firm up.  and, not the kind of gals who just sit on our laurels, we went ahead and did some cleaning up.

well, it looks like only one of us was actually doing the cleaning up. maybe i was just sitting on my laurels.

and now for the heavy duty ph.d. dissertation worthy stuff – complete with supporting evidence.  first, a visual examination of the eggs.

wait, wait, wait…  there’s one missing.

that’s better.  upon close inspection it is obvious that one of these eggs is noticeably different from the others.  that’s right, the one on the far left is obviously bigger.  and if you guessed that’s because it’s the australian egg, then you’re pretty smart.

surprise, surprise - the one we made is on the far right

now, we weren’t sure why the australian egg was bigger.  the packaging told us that it weighed 39 grams.  the american egg weighs 34.  but we wanted to know why?  (intelligent types and 2 year olds always want to know why – proof again of our ph.d. worthiness).

again, look at the one on the left!?!  it’s got gobs more chocolate.  we were shocked.  so shocked that we didn’t get out any measuring devices to find out just how much more chocolate it had.  but, for our purposes, gobs is as exact a scientific measurement as bigger.  at this point we noticed that our homemade egg wasn’t an exact replica of either of the others – being the observant lasses that we are.  but we were still feeling like it could hold it’s own.

and now for the results of the taste test.  after some serious deliberation about our personal capabilities we came to the conclusion that for each of us to try to eat an entire one of each of the three different types of egg might prove difficult.  and dangerous.  so we went with eating 1/2 of each of them.  which meant we would be eating 2 whole eggs each.  what?  oh, how did we get that 3 halves make 2 wholes?  well, we added a fourth secret ingredient homemade egg.

that one there on the far right?  it has orange extract in it.  it wasn’t part of the official dissertation.  but rather an opportunity for us to show initiative (i think that’s another ph.d. worthy trait).

so how’d the eggs stack up?

we both agreed that the australian egg was better.  the extra milk chocolate seemed to help cut the overpowering sweetness of the fondant egg innards.  we also agreed that we weren’t exactly sure it was a good thing that milk chocolate was cutting the sweet.  the american egg has 10 fewer calories going for it.  you should never undervalue 10 fewer calories.  our homemade egg had an added coconut flavor, from the coconut oil we added to the milk chocolate.  i found this to be a lovely addition.  my favorite might have been the orange egg.  i’m a sucker for orange/chocolate pairings so it was right up my alley.

but i think the most valuable thing we learned was that what goes up must come down – sugar highs don’t last forever.  and coming in a close second was that we could make some pretty good creme eggs ourselves.