Culinary Partnerships Build a Foundation for the Future
IVVC Culinary Arts has partnered with Teaching Methods (formerly Early Childhood Development) on a couple of occasions. We worked together to plan out some healthy snacks for the class to serve to the children. We had to figure out what kids would eat, and how to make it into something more nutritious. Of course, we also had to figure out how to make the food appealing to the kids and make it something that they would want to eat. The class managed to come up with a few ideas, with some being more out-of-the-box than others, and we ended up with a good list.
We learned about simple nutrition so we could help children eat healthier and make healthier food choices, and hopefully not so pumped up on sugary snacks and drinks like most of us. We now know statistically most Americans eat far too much sugar in our diets. Unfortunately, it’s much more than we should consume to remain healthy. So we try to learn about lower sugar snacks and give the preschoolers fun and healthy options.
IVVC Culinary has also worked with the Sandwich Life Skills program on a few occasions. The Life Skills program serves students with special needs, from all walks of life. The program helps them overcome those challenges so they can progress further in life. When the program came to work with the culinary students, we showed them how to decorate cookies and painted pumpkins together. The students and teachers from both classes had lots of fun, and can’t wait to work with each other again.
Working with the different programs is important to the class because it demonstrates the variety of people we could be working with in the culinary field. After all, there is much diversity in the culinary workforce, so it’s beneficial to be exposed to different kinds of people in the beginning. It’s important to the class and our teacher that we know how to react and work in those situations. Our teacher is very adamant that we know how to present ourselves and our work to everyone. She is also very insistent that we learn how to work in groups and how to work alone. She teaches us skills for our class that also can be used in everyday life. Many of the skills that we have learned in class are helpful and useful in our daily lives.
One such skill is public speaking. Most jobs you get will, at some point, require you to talk and do public speaking. Chef frequently has us present our work to the class and various teachers around IVVC, including but not restricted to, Mr. Barbic, Mr. Moody, Mrs. Lissman, and Mrs. Edwards.
Another skill that is emphasized is organization, or mise en place. Everything that you do can be made easier with organization, no matter what you are doing or where you are working. These skills and many more are valuable skills in any workplace, and they start getting you ready for college. All of this preparation at IVVC makes us feel more confident and prepared as we approach graduation and the next phase of our lives.
Keeping with the trend of Culinary Arts, the 2nd year students of the class are working on cake decorating for the Halloween Buffet. Of course, when Halloween comes around and it involves cakes, you know that we have to make some spooky cakes. Fortunately, the end product is delicious. Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as you think to get to the end result.
To start off, you have to make the cake batter. Simple, right? Well, it depends on the kind of cake that you’re trying to make. For something like a pound cake, it’s rather simple as long as you don’t accidentally burn yourself when you take the pan out of the oven. Or as long as you don’t burn the cake, either. Or even both! For something like a chiffon cake, it may be a little bit more difficult. After creating the cake batter, you have to bake it. Speaking from experience, please, please, PLEASE keep an eye on your cake! It’s terrible when you accidentally burn your cake, and it’s going to be worse when you frost the cake and the burnt part can still be tasted.
Going on that related tangent, you also have to consider what kind of frosting you’re going to use for your cake. For example, let’s say that you’re making an angel food cake. Light, delicate, definitely too light for a heavy frosting such as a fudge frosting. Something like a foam frosting or even a ganache would be better suited for the job.
Once your cake is out of the oven and cooled, along with your frosting being prepared, then comes the task of frosting your cake. For a bit of advice, you want a flat side to frost on for the top, so you’d need to flip your cake over so the bottom of the cake is now your top. Even so, you need another flat side to actually have the cake stand. If the top of your cake is rounded (like most are), then you need to get your trusty serrated knife and create a flat surface by cutting off part of the cake top. Make sure you save those cake crumbs just in case. You might need them later. However, if you don’t really need them, then feel free to either throw them away or straight up eat them. Once your cake is flat, preferably on a cake board or other surface you don’t mind getting frosting on (Trust me, it will get frosting on it.), get a portion of your frosting and place it into a separate container. This is honestly a bit of a trick for me, since this will help me remember that the smaller container is your crumb layer frosting. You don’t want to have crumbs showing through your frosting, so it’s best to have one spatula for crumb frosting and one spatula for the rest of your frosting.
Once the base layer is done, you can either leave it as a plain frosted cake or go a bit further and decorate the cake using piping bags and different kinds of tips. This was actually a bit of a pain last year, since we kept losing couplers for our piping bags (where our tips attach so we don’t have to put them in the bag), but that’s just a small obstacle to overcome.
Some cakes take longer to finish than others in different stages, like one cake may take longer to frost than another one because of the size difference. After all, you didn’t really expect a 3-layered wedding cake to take as much time as a simple birthday cake, did you? Well, unless your birthday happens to land on your wedding, and in that case, congrats. All in all, cake decorating, although time consuming and sometimes a hassle, can really pay off in the end. To be honest, the task leans more towards the people who are up to it, such as those doing the baked goods in the kitchen, though I have to say, if you’re up for it, then I’m not stopping you!