Photo by Matthew Septimus I was seriously offended, many years ago, when my late husband, Elliott, who was a doctor (ergo, a scientist), called me an alchemist.I thought he was putting me down, because my vision of an alchemist was one who spun hay into gold.This wasn’t undesirable but not my goal, which was to create foolproof gold standard recipes.

One day I thought to ask Elliott what exactly he meant by calling me an alchemist, and it actually was a most profound compliment.Elliott explained that scientists have many theories often proven wrong but, as an alchemist, I test and retest until the recipe is perfected.The uh-oh moment arrived, however, when he went on to say that a true professional doesn’t need to test quite as much as I did and that I wouldn’t have to if I had a full understanding of each ingredient! I immediately ordered the USDA book The Composition of Foods.

This decreased the number of tests, but there were still many until I was satisfied that I had reached the best version of the recipe.    Further research into ingredients, particularly butter and flour, led me to create what I am now known for on Wikipedia and elsewhere: the reverse-creaming method.But I didn’t actually create the method—I created it using butter.And butter gives a far superior flavor than shortening.

Conventional wisdom dictated that this method, fo

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