Creativity - Baking Lessons
Learning Outcomes:
• Increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth
• Undertaken new challenges
• Planned and initiated activities
• Worked collaboratively with others
• Shown perseverance and commitment in their activities
• Developed new skills
30 April 2013 Today we tried to make some Macarons. We failed to make it as this was our first time to make Macarons. The result that we produced did not shape like the Macarons that are sold in stores. Our Macarons were very sticky, flat, and flimsy. We planned to make another recipe of macaron for our next meeting. We reflected on the process that we did and see what we did wrong, so next week we can make successful macarons. We think that the problem was with over-mixing the mixture of the meringue. I personally was aware that I had develop new skills through understanding cooking ingredients and became more aware of my ability to cook. 14 May 2013 Today we tried to make cookies with caramel filling inside. The cookies are made from a basic cookie recipe, such as flours, sugar, and egg. For the caramel filling, we cooked a can of condensed milk in a pan, on a low heat stove. This time, we successfully made the cookies in one trial, because the skills needed to make this cookies were for beginners. From today's lesson, we managed to developed our baking skills. I personally learned to make caramel from condensed milk. I experimented on how to make a nice caramel by adding other ingredients such as cream, milk, and salt. I was also aware of my strength, that I could follow the steps to make the cookies in the first try. 28 August 2013 Today, we had a chance to try and make a bread pudding. It was a simple recipe but we had to make sure the taste was right. We used enough amount of bread and let it scatter around a medium bowl. We pour in the liquid that consist of mainly milk and spices to add flavor to the bread. We then oven it for several minutes until the pieces of bread have soaked the liquid until it dried. We undertook a challenge with experimenting on the taste of the bread pudding. We adjust the recipe to suit our tastes. The result turned out to be delicious and the cinnamon that we put was not too strong, so we were able to conquer our challenge. 11 September 2013 Today, we challenged ourselves to create our own recipe from based on experimentation. We made a sandwich from marshmallows with chocolate, peanut butter and Oreo cookies filling. We melted all the ingredients so it would be a thick liquid that we can fill it inside the marshmallow buns. We froze it in the refrigerator for a day and took it out the next day. We tasted the marshmallow sandwich and it turned out to be delicious. It was good for our experiment and maybe with our skills we can develop this recipe in the future. This also helped us to work collaboratively with each other because each of us have different preference and ideas on making the recipe. We tried to combine our ideas so that it will result into one recipe that satisfies our wants, which was rather difficult. 9 October 2013 Today, we tried to bake a classic chocolate cake. Although the recipe was simple, but the process required us to be precise. The ingredients needed to also be accurate so the batter for the cake will rise according to how it should be. We faced a few troubles with making sure whether the batter is correct or not, because at the end, the cake did not rise according to how we excepted it to be. We tried to figure out that maybe we did not put enough soda powder to make the cake rise. The texture was fudgy, so we also thought that maybe we had not set the temperature of the oven correctly, so when the timer rang the top part of the cake has baked properly, but not the inside. Next time, we would make sure to carefully put the ingredients. ello hello hello hellohello hello hello hellohello hellohello hellohello hellohello hellohello hellohello hellohello hellohello hellohello hellohello hellohello hello hello 6 November 2013 This week we made Chocolate Oatmeal Muffins. We integrated our knowledge from making a cupcake and a chocolate cake. This uses our strengths and developed skills from previous trials. To make the Chocolate Oatmeal Muffins, we add oatmeal into the ingredients to try how it would end up when we make it into a soft muffin instead of a cookie. It turned out to be nice and fluffy. With the chocolate, it adds bitterness to the muffin, which is suitable for people who is not into sweet desserts. Now, we have more knowledge in baking comparing to the first meeting of this activity. We were able to planned well each week of who should bring which ingredients and what we are going to bake for each week. | 7 May 2013 Today we tried to make another Macaron. We looked up for a tutorial video in YouTube to get a better understanding of how we should make the Macarons. We followed the recipe and method from the YouTube video and tried it on our own. This time, we succeeded to make our own version of macarons. Well, at least better than the previous week. We were able to undertake a new challenge, which was to not give up on making another macaron. We also developed new skills in cooking macarons and learned what made our macarons successful this time. Next week, we plan to make cookies that are suitable for beginners. 28 May 2013 Today we made a different type of cookie, which is Caramelitas. This was another easy recipe to make since we did it without any errors. We had a few troubles though with some of the ingredients. We forgot to bring brown sugar, so we tried to find another alternative ingredient that we can find in the school's kitchen. Also, we had trouble with the caramel. Since we made the caramel earlier before the baked oatmeals, the caramel began to thicken, where it actually should be liquidity. We divided the jobs amongst us so that we can make the Caramelitas effectively.e 4 September 2013 This week we tried to bake a dessert that we found interesting from cooking website. It is called the Smores Bars. We used chocolate and peanut butter that is topped with caramel and marshmallows. We baked it inside the oven and leave it for several minutes. However, it turned out that the marshmallow did not melt properly. We thought it was because the oven that we are using was not adequate enough so the marshmallow could not melt properly. We tried to figure out on how to melt the marshmallow by using a torch fire to burn the marshmallow, which resulted a faster result. From there, we developed a new skill to use a fire torch as a tool. 18 September 2013 Today we made another type of cookie, which is a double caramel chocolate chip. It has the basic ingredients to make a chocolate chip, but has an additional of caramel. We used a solid caramel that we bought from the store and place it inside each roll of cookie dough. Then, we baked it in the oven and waited for the chocolate chips and caramels to melt. We used our strength of our basic knowledge in making cookies from previous trial, and develop that to make this chocolate chip cookie. We make ourselves understand the basic needs for making cookies from these trials, which improves our skills. ello hellohelloello hellohelloello hellohelloello hellohelloello hellohelloello hellohelloello hellohelloello hellohelloello hellohelloello hellohelloello hellohelloello hellohelloello hello hello 23 October 2013 This week, we decided to make banana cupcakes. We tried to incorporate a type of fruit in our cakes. The result ended rather well for our first trial. We can taste the banana properly; it was not too much of banana or too less. The sweetness was also just right, since we did not use too much of sugar because we knew that the banana will make it sweet. We also tried to make some cream frosting. However, the type of cream was unsuitable for baking. The sugar that was added into the mixture did not dissolve with the cream. So, the frosting was just a chunk of cream with particles of sugar. We tried to fix the frosting mixture by putting it inside the refrigerator. After several minutes, the mixture turned out to be a little harder so we were able to place it on top of the cupcake, though the frosting was very sweet. Through this, we learned how to fix a problem by using our logical sense. 30 October 2013 Today, we tried to make chocolate muffin with cream cheese frosting. It was easy to make the frosting this time because we had the correct ingredient for the cream cheese. As for the chocolate muffins, we had some struggles to create a nice and moist muffin. The first batch of muffins that we tried turned very soggy and the batter did not rise well. However, it had a nice taste; not too sweet nor bitter from the chocolate. We then tried to do another batch of muffins. This time, it turned out well since the batter has better ingredients so it has risen well during the baking process. We figured that there was not enough soda powder in the first batch that it could not rise well. For the second batch, we topped all the muffins with the cream cheese frosting, which tasted even better for the chocolate muffins. |