Roper Corp.'s oven testers support Pillsbury Bake-Off contestants

Home economist Diana Pack moves freshly baked oatmeal cookies onto a cooling rack in the Roper Consumer Info Test Lab at the Roper Corp. in LaFayette, Ga. Pack works with Krista Henderson in the lab testing ovens for the company by baking.

LaFAYETTE, Ga. - Diana Pack and Krista Henderson spend their days slaving away over hot ovens.

Prototype ovens, that is.

The women are home economists at Roper Corp.'s 1,350-employee stove assembly plant. They really get cooking when the plant's designers and engineers develop new cooking ranges.

"Every new product that we design comes through the kitchen here," design engineering manager Don Gregg said.

As engineers design ovens, they tinker with different variables, such as rack position, the size and shape of heating elements, cavity size and the split-second speed and sequence at which computer chips turn heating elements on and off.

"We try to predict as much as we can on a computer," Gregg said.

But he admitted: "You don't know how it's going to cook until you get to Diana and Krista."

To test a stove, the women typically make baked goods, which are more sensitive to heat variations than, say, a pot of beans. Angel food cakes, layer cakes and sugar cookies are test kitchen staples.

The home economists follow a standardized set of steps, called engineering test procedures, under which they systematically record such things as the color, evenness and the height of a cake baked at a series of temperatures.

"It's more of a science experiment [than cooking]," Pack said.

She and Henderson don't just eyeball or estimate their readings. They use precise instruments to measure the results, including a digital colorimeter that gives a numerical rating to a cake's brownness.

"We try to take as much subjectivity out of it as we can," Henderson said.

Another step to eliminate variations is carefully measuring and weighing egg yolks and whites - as opposed to using whole eggs. A "large" egg can vary too much in size for their purposes.

The women are well known at LaFayette-area markets, such as Bi-Lo, Walmart, ShopRite and CVS, where they buy cake mix, flour, sugar and other ingredients - sometimes by the case.

"They know our faces, and they know we work for Roper," Pack said. "Cashiers will ask, 'What are you going to do with all that food? Can we come and eat?'"

When they're able to snag a goodie, Roper's engineers and designers snack on the test kitchen's experiments.

"When they're testing, this is a very popular place," Gregg said.

Most of the test kitchen's food gets donated to a Walker County shelter run by the Family Crisis Center of Walker, Dade, Catoosa and Chattooga counties, Roper spokesman Scott Reece said.

BAKE-OFF RANGES

Pack and Henderson left Friday for Orlando, Fla., for the 45th annual Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest.

The LaFayette stove factory, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Electric Appliances, made all 100 GE electric ranges that'll be used in the bake-off. The home economists are on hand to help contestants with any questions or concerns leading up to the final battle that takes place this weekend.

Contestants aren't allowed to do trial baking in the GE ranges, but they can familiarize themselves with the controls, Henderson said.

"Maybe they're used to cooking on a gas cooktop," she said.

The bake-off has a top prize of $1 million, and "with a million dollars riding on it, they can kind of freak out," Henderson said.

"You have some, they're just very calm. You have others that will spend a lot of time with you and the range. They just want the time to get comfortable," she said.

For the past seven years, Pack and Henderson have traveled every year to the bake-off, which has taken them as far away as San Francisco and Hollywood, Calif., and Dallas.

The bake-off has used ranges made in LaFayette for several decades,

"It's a real source of pride for us," Reece said. "It's always nice to ... say 'Hey, those ranges come from LaFayette, where I work.'"