Banana Muffins

• 1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup plain yogurt
• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup ripe bananas, mashed
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

In another bowl, combine the egg, oil, yogurt and vanilla. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in bananas and chocolate chips.

Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake at 350 degrees F for 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.

Adapted from: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chocolate-chip-banana-muffins-2/detail.aspx?event8=1&prop24=SR_Title&e11=banana+muffins&e8=Quick+Search&event10=1&e7=Home+Page

Reflection:

I thought that everything went very well. The muffins turned out REALLY amazingly good. Once again, we had great team work and that made the process very easy. I don’t know why but our first batter that we started off with was too short, so we couldn’t fill out our whole muffin tin. So we had to make another batter and we used the small muffin tins to hold in the extras. But the second time we made it, we ran short of bananas so we had to use extra yogart, which turned out just as good. I learned that if you were to put vanilla extract in anything, you’d have to mix it up with your wet ingredients first and then mix the whole thing together. If you don’t, you’d end up with a patch of the baking with vanilla, and the rest of it without.

Vanilla Cupcakes

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line one 12-cup cupcake tin with paper liners. Set aside.

Process sugar and butter in a mixer until very creamy, scraping sides as needed, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, pulsing after each addition. Add the milk, water, and vanilla; process to blend.

Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Add the dry ingredients, in 3 batches to the wet, pulsing, and then scraping batter off the sides of the processor as needed after each addition. Process until the batter is very smooth and pourable.

Evenly pour the batter into the prepared cups, filling them 3/4 of the way full. Bake until the cakes are just firm and spring back when gently pressed, and the tops are golden, 20 minutes. Cool slightly in tin, and turn out of tin when cool enough to handle. Cool cupcakes completely on a rack before frosting.

Yield: 12 cupcakes

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 25 minutes

Recipe from Mrs. Gelowitz’s personal collection.

 

Class Buttercream Icing

Ingredients:

• 1 cup solid vegetable shortening
• 1 teaspoon Wilton Flavor (vanilla, almond or butter)
• 7-8 teaspoons milk or water
• 1 lb. confectioners’ sugar
• 1 tablespoon Meringue Powder
• pinch of salt (optional)

Makes:

About 2 1/2 cups icing.

Instructions:

Cream shortening, flavoring and water. Add dry ingredients and mix on medium speed until all ingredients have been thoroughly mixed together. Blend an additional minute or so, until creamy.

Chocolate Buttercream

Add 3/4 cup cocoa or three 1 oz. unsweetened chocolate squares, melted, and an additional 1 to 2 tablespoons water to recipe. Mix until well blended.

Recipe retrieved fromhttp://www.wilton.com/classes/wmstudents/.

Reflection:

1) What went well?

2) What would I do differently if I were to make this recipe again?

3) What have I learned about decorating cupcakes?

1. I think adding and mixing the ingredients went pretty well. Baking it and putting it together was fun! Like I’ve said in my other blogs, my team members were the ones that make cooking fun and also tasty at the same time.

2. If I were to make the cupcakes again, I’d get more muffin tins. Our cupcakes overflowed and it was just a big mess. It was hard to decorate the cupcakes because they were abnormally huge.

3. I wasn’t there for the decorating of the cupcakes, but my group members really enjoyed it and they made beautiful decorated cupcakes.

Ingredients

• 3 baking potatoes , (unpeeled)
• 3/4 tsp chili powder
• 3/4 tsp paprika
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

Preheat oven to 450 F.

Place baking sheet in 450°F oven for 5 minutes or until hot. Meanwhile, cut each potato lengthwise into desired shapes. Rinse with water and dry with paper towels. Place in potatoes in a large bowl and toss with oil, chili powder, paprika, salt and pepper. Bake in single layer on the hot parchment lined baking sheet for 15 minutes. Flip the potatoes and bake for an additional 15 to 18 minutes or until crisp and golden brown.

Recipe is from Mrs. Gelowitz’s personal collection.

Reflection:

What I’ve learned: I’ve learned that in order to make these fries crispy, you have to make them into really tiny little pieces. I thought that the pieces that I chopped up was small enough to make them chip-like but it wasn’t.

What went well: Everything went pretty well. I have great team members that were cooperative and we shared what we had to do.

What I would do differently: Next time, I will not be cutting the sweet potatoes. They’re impossible to cut and I get frustrated a lot when it comes to cutting those things. And next time, we probably won’t put as much dressing on the potatoes, and NO dressing on the sweet ones. Because they were sweet, they tasted horrible with the dressing.

Quesadilla Recipe

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 5 minutes

Ingredients

Optional:

• Sliced mushrooms
• Green onions
• Black olives, sliced
• Fresh tomatoes, diced
• Chicken pieces
• Avocado

• Lettuce
• Apple cider vinegar
• Salt

Mom’s Buttermilk Pancakes

Ingredients

• 1 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 egg
• 1 1/8 cups buttermilk
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted

Directions

1. Preheat and lightly grease a large skillet or electric griddle.
2. Mix the flour, salt, and baking soda together in a bowl. Add the egg, buttermilk, and butter; stir together lightly, but keep it lumpy. The batter should look thick, spongy, and puffy.
3. Drop 1/3 cup of the batter onto the cooking surface, spreading lightly with the bottom of the cup. Cook until lightly-browned on each side, 1 to 2 minutes per side.

Recipe retrieved from http://allrecipes.com/recipe/moms-buttermilk-pancakes/detail.aspx.

Homemade Pancake Syrup

Serves 12

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon maple flavoring
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. In a saucepan, combine the sugars, water and corn syrup; bring to a boil over medium heat. Broil for 7 minutes or until slightly thickened. Remove from the heat; stir in maple flavoring and vanilla. Cool for 15 minutes. Serve over pancakes, waffles or French toast.

Recipe retrieved from http://allrecipes.com/recipe/homemade-pancake-syrup/detail.aspx.

Reflection:

Making the pancakes was alright. I enjoyed preparing the pancake mix and I liked stirring it. It was much harder than I had expected. Mixing the ingredients was a piece of cake but putting the mix on the griddle and flipping it was another story. I didn’t wait long enough to flip the pancakes to the other said, and when I did; I found out that the one side was not done, at all. Because it was still soggy, the pancake broke into pieces. So that’s why it looked very unattractive. The making of the syrup was terrible. First time we made the syrup, it turned out white. It didn’t look quite right so we looked at everybody else’s syrup and they were all brown. So we knew something was wrong. It turned out that we used the wrong recipe. So we had to restart. But in the end, the pancake and the syrup was still edible. So it was all good. Maybe next time, I will not be in charge of flipping the pancakes because it looked horrible.

 

 

Ingredients

 

 

 

1. Place puffed wheat in a large bowl, and set aside. Grease one 9×9 inch pan.
2. Grease the rim of a medium saucepan to prevent boil-over. Place the cocoa powder, corn syrup, brown sugar, and butter or margarine in the saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring often until mixture comes to a full boil. Allow to boil for 1 minute, and then remove from heat.
3. Pour chocolate mixture over puffed wheat, and stir until puffed wheat is evenly coated. Using a buttered spatula, press mixture into the prepared pan. Allow to cool, then cut as desired. Wrap squares individually, or store in an airtight container.

Recipe retrieved from: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chocolate-puffed-wheat-squares/detail.aspx

Reflection:

Making the puffed wheat cakes were fun! I did not think that I would be able to make any sort of foods, but I did it! Usually the stuff I make end up gross or being burnt, but I got to say, the puffed wheat cakes tasted pretty amazing. I liked how our group was so cooperative and everyone worked very well as a team. Everyone had a job to do, and no one was left out of anything. I think what we could’ve done differently was be a bit more organized with our utensils. We should have pressed the wheat cake down while it was cooling off because my cake was falling apart when I was eating it. I learnt that making wheat cakes was not that hard. All you need are some proper instructions and the right tools to help you make them. I also learnt that you had to use bleach to wash dishes. Who knew that washing dishes had so many procedures? Overall, this session went pretty well! Hopefully the next time will be as fun!