A recipe for a cake calls for both liquid and dry ingredients. If you are following the recipe, how will the order in which you add the ingredients affect the mass of the batter?

Question

If you add the dry ingredients first, the final result will have less mass than if you added the liquid ingredients first. This is because the dry ingredients will be dissolved by the liquid ingredients.

If you add liquid ingredients first, the final result will have less mass than if you added the dry ingredients first. This is because the dry ingredients will dissolve in the liquid ingredients.

It will have no effect because the order in which ingredients are mixed will not change the fact that the mass of the batter will be greater than the masses of the ingredients.

It will have no effect because the order in which ingredients are mixed will not change the fact that matter cannot be created nor destroyed.

Answer 1

The most accurate statement regarding the effect of the order of adding ingredients on the mass of the batter is:

It will have no effect because the order in which ingredients are mixed will not change the fact that matter cannot be created nor destroyed.

In a cake recipe, regardless of the order in which you combine wet and dry ingredients, the total mass of the batter will remain the same as long as all ingredients are included. The mass of the combined ingredients is the sum of their individual masses, and the physical processes involved in mixing (such as dissolution or incorporation of air) do not change the total mass.