Cupcake? Wars? Yes, Culinary Arts II-III classes climbed the top of that candy mountain. Just in time for Halloween, making cupcakes too scary to eat! To further our culinary skills our task was to, in three days, designs, create and bake beautiful cupcakes to be judged on FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH (not really) I just wanted to add to the atmosphere. Are you feeling it yet Mr. Krabs? We were! Our culinary room turned into the Willy Wonka forest as everything to top our cupcakes was required to be edible.
On our first day around what seemed to be “candy land,” the class was divided to make white-as-a-ghost creamy, smooth, buttercream, and cupcakes in two flavors: vanilla and count chocula. Have you ever used twenty-five pounds of confectioners’ sugar? Yeah, that is how much powdered sugar was needed for this sweet tooth war. Our teams were those of double, double, boil and trouble or a single cauldron bubble. With a pair of people they were able to present two, to four cupcakes, while the lone werewolf was to present one-two cupcakes.
The race had begun and we were sprinting, to construct a cupcake that was most creative, most scary, best Halloween themed, best plating, and best overall. Our Halloween town consisted of everything from witches, pumpkins, ravished bunnies and maggots. Have you seen the scene in The Wizards of Oz where the witch is crushed by Dorothy’s house? Yes, you are correct, the witch was placed gently on top of one cupcake, and under another! The best part of the whole experience was no bad blood (pun intended) between the members of our culinary classes as we cheered each other on in winning the categories.
Did you know Halloween originated in the ninth century being a part of the Celtic mythology to protect the living from roaming ghost? Oh here is another quick trivia fact before I end this paper the fear of Halloween is known as Samhainopobia, (Samhain the pagan holiday for Halloween. Samhain is a festival of the Dead. Meaning “Summer’s End”. )
At last our creatures were ALIVE (Frankenstein no?) and everyone won, well, because we got to eat the cupcakes after! Those best of the best monsters claimed their trophies and crawled back into the coffins and the masters walked off with a sweet treat. All the “Nightmare Before Christmas” was put to sleep, waiting for the next year of cupcake wars, Halloween edition.
-Mariah Harman
Culinary one; the open door to everything that is delicious and heavenly. This week culinary one has been focusing on what makes the kitchen, the kitchen; the organization of it all; tools and their beautiful cupboard homes. It is such an important part of the kitchen is understanding where everything goes, the quicker you find it the quicker you eat right? “Who doesn’t love eating?” said no one ever.
Students in Culinary I have been learning the names and functions of 50 different kitchen tools. To help them, Culinary II-III students have been organizing the equipment in drawers and cupboards so they’re easy to find. The Culinary I students follow a list to locate everything from measuring spoons to sauce pans and pastry blenders to muffin tins. There’s a lot to remember!
Students in Culinary II and III at Chap have been compiling “Smashbooks.” Smashbooks are interactive notebooks that give students the chance to create their own text books. They have taped or glued in reference pages with measurements and cooking terms, as well as a table of contents and recipe contents pages. Instead of writing down notes, they can doodle the notes. It’ll help the student be organized and are able to go remake recipes at home. Since it’s called “Smashbooks” everything is all smashed together and that’s the fun of it! Students are able to be creative and it brings out their hidden artistic side.
