Re: Refrigeration question - apple dessert with high sugar content

I work with bacteria, but I'm not a physician or a microbiologist, just so 
you know.  (I'm a biochemist/molecular biologist.)

I would say that eating the apple crisp the same day it was made should
present no problems.  I'd even eat it the next morning.  Longer than that,
I'd worry a little bit if it wasn't refrigerated.  Remember that when
you're cooking the apple crisp, you're also cooking whatever bugs might be
present inside, so when you pull it out of the oven the growth clock
starts at zero (most of the bacteria will have been killed).  Sugar can 
work as a great preservative, but probably not at the levels it's used in 
baking (more like in jams and jellies, where it's about 25% sugar and 
sucks the water out of whatever bugs are present).  So I'd say you would 
have been safe, but maybe for different reasons.

All this to say that I think you probably owe her an apology.
-- 
______________________________________________________________________________
Lou Hom >K'93                        
[EMAIL PROTECTED]               
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~lhom/