Baked Goods and Judges

You'd think an FCS Foods Teacher would utilize her college education to instruct her students on the basic concepts regarding Function of Ingredients.  Not this one.

I could practically write a book... Everything I Needed to Teach High School FCS I Learned While Preparing for the Mississippi Valley Fair.  Who knew good ol' 4-H would be the foundation of my career knowledge?  Those Saturday afternoon meetings in the basement of an ag store of some sort... Feed and Seed?  I can't remember what the name of the building was or where it was located, but I can remember every detail of the pop machine in that basement.  Brown exterior, deep freezer-style with a lid that lifted to reveal the pop bottles.  Orange, Pepsi, Mountain Dew.  I could picture all the business farmers showing up for meetings in that basement and buying a bottle of pop on their way in Monday morning.  Man, how I envied being a business farmer on Monday mornings.  No matter how much Heather and I tried to wiggle those glass bottles out of the machine without 35 cents, they wouldn't budge. 

I made an attempt after each meeting regardless.

I can't remember college final exams or what they entailed to save my life.  However, I can remember Berdell Arp dissecting my cookies which were prepared with honey in place sugar at the Mississippi Valley Fair like nobodies business.  The disapproving look of 'Old lady dissects moist, sweet cookie and kinda likes it, but isn't sure about the texture' is embedded in my brain in place of my Foods 2 Final Exam knowledge from ISU. 

Go figure.

With that said, I decided the best way to teach my Foods students about ingredients would be pressure from judges. 

Welcome Cupcake Wars.

Foods 2 students (I have 7) were taught ingredient functions.  I currently teach this concept in Foods 1, but since I didn't teach all 7 students in Foods 1, we're reviewing.

On Monday I introduced the challenge and by Friday, the competition was hot.

The students were asked to develop a cupcake recipe (from scratch) to present to the judges Friday.  They were given a theme, which was "Holiday".  After their recipes were developed and submitted to me, they were given 3 secret ingredients.  2 of which needed to be incorporated into their cupcakes somehow. 

Secret Ingredients were: Applesauce (imagine that), Junior Mints, Skittles.

The 2 girls in my class designed and presented Christmas as their theme. They had trees, reindeer, penguins and Santa cupcakes.  Great creativity, but their cupcakes were dense and heavy.

 Team Halloween presented Frankenstein Cupcakes.  Good mint cupcakes and icing, but the icing was a bit thick and the display could have been scarier.

 Team 4th of July presented Red White and Blue Flag Cupcakes.  The judges decided the display was too simple and the flavor of the cupcakes and icing was bland.

 The judges hard at work.

 The Christmas group presenting their display.

The winner in Foods 2 was Team Halloween.  A dark Chocolate-Mint Cupcake with Peppermint Icing. 

I like a challenge, so I asked Foods 1 complete a Chocolate Chip Cookie Challenge on Friday as well.

The students had to prepare the "Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Ever" again, understanding function of ingredients.

This class has 20 students (my max) and we located 10 judges for this round.

The below cookies were the winners.  They included a quote as garnish.

The next team brought in ice cream, homemade chocolate sauce and milk to serve with their cookies.

 The judges sampling cookies, while the competing kitchens give each other evil eyes.

The business teacher sent a student to video the contest to be uploaded to u-tube, while the art class had a student photograph.

The groups were more nervous during their presentation than I anticipated.  They made me look good with all their cookie knowledge.

Afterwards, I seriously contemplated digging out index cards to write "What I did and what I learned" regarding the lesson.  But from the excitement from the students and my fellow teachers afterwards, I think I'll remember. 

Hopefully the kids will too...