Portfolio # 11

What a journey this has been. I can not believe that we are about to complete our eleventh portfolio item. I swear it feels like just yesterday it was August. Where does the time go?

Baking bread is an ancient art. Every culture has a specific type of bread based food, on which its people have survived for thousands of years. Bread comes from the "Germanic root, and originally meant a piece or bit of a loaf, with loaf meaning the leavened, baked substance itself. Over time, loaf came to mean the intact baked mass, and bread took over loaf's original meaning" (McGee, Harold. On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. New York: Scribner, 2004).

New developments in bread making have come with advances in science and technology. It is now easier and more acceptable for people from all kinds of life to take part in the art of bread baking. Today, about 85% of bread in the United States is made by 28,000 commercial bakers (source).

Changes in the recipes and the ingredients used in breads has become a common evolution. One of the most significant transformations regarding the white bread has been the addition of milk solids. Milk nutrients are added to the bread either through liquid milk, condensed milk, or powdered milk. The use of milk in bread has many advantages. The nutrients and chemical composition of milk improves "the color, texture, symmetry, and quality of the loaf, without appreciably affecting the cost per pound" (source). Additionally, the added milk in bread provides vital proteins for nutrition. In fact "bread made with milk has about ten percent protein, which contains all the amino acids now recognized as indispensable to life" (source).

Baking Technology and National Nutrition Article

Homemade Poptarts: Pastry Lesson Continued

Homemade Pop tarts
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Crust:
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2 sticks of cold butter, softened a bit
8 Tbsp cold water

Cinnamon sugar filling:
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
1.5 tsp cinnamon
4 tsp all purpose flour

Additional fillings:
Nutella
Grape Jam

Ready to get to work?

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Grease two cookie sheets.

In a medium sized bowl mix flour and salt. Cut butter into chunks and add to flour mixture. Use your fingers to break down and distribute the butter throughout the flour mixture. Add one tablespoon of cold water to the dough at a time, mixing after adding. A soft dough should form.

If you live in a warmer climate or in the swamp (like I do) then chill the dough for about 20-30 minutes. This will help prevent the butter from melting and not give you a panic attack when you realize that the dough won't stop sticking to everything and that you are not going to be able to give your lovely sister a birthday present. Trust me, too much of a head ache.

After dough has been chilled, lightly spread flour on a smooth surface. Cut dough in half and roll out to 1/8th inch thick square or rectangle. Repeat with additional dough.

Cut rough edges off around the rectangle and cut your pop tarts. I got 10 out of this recipe (so you will need at least 20 squares, it all depends on the size of the pop tarts).

Spread your desired filling on one square. Top with a semi matching dough square and press edges together with your fingers. Crimp the sides with a fork to ensure that the pastry is fully closed.

Bake for 7-8 minutes and cool on a wire rack.

I melted some white chocolate chips in a small bowl with about a teaspoon of shortening to spread on top and added some sprinkles for the nutella pop tarts. I also drizzled just a tad on the grape jam ones. For the cinnamon sugar filling I melted about a tablespoon of butter and added some brown sugar and cinnamon and brushed it on top. The rest I left plain, for the purists.

Nutella filled with white chocolate spread and sprinkles!

Grape jam filled pop tarts with a tad of white chocolate drizzled

Cinnamon sugar filled!

Petit Pain Au Chocolat

Baking is always an adventure. I love trying new things. I especially love when whatever I am trying comes out just lovely. I made chocolate croissants for the first time not too long ago. A lengthy process for a delicious treat that you can easily demolish in thirty seconds or less. For some reason I forgot to save the recipe that I used for the croissants that I baked. But I did find another recipe that is similar to the one I used!

Petit Pain Au Chocolat

Here are some pictures of the croissant making process:

1. Get yourself some chocolate.

2. Roll out your dough.

3. Cut your dough into strips. Hint: Chocolate croissants are traditionally not formed in the crescent shape.

4. Starting at one edge of the dough, take a piece of chocolate and tightly roll it in the dough.

5. Time to bake! 

6. Time to eat!

You can see that the croissant has a ton of flaky layers and the fluffy bread in between the layers. They really are bread-pastry hybrids!

Lesson 7: Pastries

Pastries. They are everywhere. Haunting the foodie souls in coffee shops and tantalizing the hungry with their glistening, flaky layers unveiling a seductive filling. Now I am a big fan of pastries, I love how airy and crispy the layers are. It's kind of like eating mostly air. Which is why I can eat five of them and not gain an ounce. Right?

Pastries and bread are very very different from each other. A slice of sandwich bread and a danish pastry look nothing alike. They do not taste similar either. Why the difference? The main difference between bread and pastries is not the ingredients, but the amount of ingredients. Each recipe will call for water, but the amount of water used will have a large impact on the resulting baked good. Pastry dough uses significantly less water than bread dough. The water is used just to hold all the ingredients together, not to activate the gluten like in other types of bread dough.

Pastry dough also uses more fats than regular bread dough. It is the use of fat that further keeps the dough from falling apart. When a pastry is baking most of the water in the dough is evaporated. This leaves the finished product dry and crumbly. The pastry, however, will not be bland because of the extensive use of fat. When biting into a pastry the outer, flaky shell protects a more delicate and buttery inside.

What are common pastries? Most of the time a true pastry is not eaten by itself. Instead, pastries usually take the form of a container for a variety of fillings. For instance pastry dough can be used as a crust for quiche, meat pies, fruit pies and tartes, and custards. The commonly assumed pastries like croissants and Danish pastries are really a bread-pastry hybrid (McGee, Harold. On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. New York: Scribner, 2004).

There are several different types of pastries, each serving a particular purpose.

1. Crumbly pastries: The "short pastry" usually tear apart into irregualr pieces
2. Flaky pastries: These tear apart into irregular, thin flakes. For example, the American pie crusts.
3. Laminated pastries: Constructed of very thin layers that shatter in the mouth, like phyllo sheets, streudel, and puff pastry.
4. Laminated breads: A hybrid of the thin layers of the laminated pastries with the soft texture of bread, like the croissant.

* Source: McGee, Harold. On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. New York: Scribner, 2004.

Portfolio # 10

Working Memory, Motivation, and Teacher-Initiated Learning

As a tutor, I have seen the impacts of the education system. It is unsettling to work with so many college students who have trouble with basic reading comprehension, phonics, spelling, and grammar. I am not an expert in the English language, by far, but I take great pride in my ability to read and write well. A difference between me and some of my students is how we were taught to read. I was taught by my Mother since I was homeschooled for Kindergarten, most other students learned to read in school. The methods that my Mother used and the curriculum of some teachers differed greatly. I see a great need for the development of a reading curriculum that teaches students how to read so that when they do enter college, they have been practicing and perfecting their skills. Reforming the approach we take to teaching students how to read is one of our first steps.

1.       Goals:

a.       Curriculum should be fun and engaging

b.      There should be good use of all the student’s senses when learning

                                                               i.      Sound, touch, visual, etc

c.       Creativity

d.      Teachers should engage and evaluate students on a one on one basis to ensure that every student is reaching their full capacity.

2.       Evidence

a.       Article on the use of working memory, motivation, and teacher-initiated learning

b.      Working memory: thinking while learning

c.       Teachers should be used as tools for encouraging and inspiring students

d.      Teachers should work so that the students are using their working memory

3.       Relating to the Final Project

For my project, teaching is somewhat important. Essentially, I am trying to teach or provide the means for an individual to learn and understand just what processes are occurring when one bakes. Also, through video postings of demonstrations I can demonstrate the processes that I have written about. That way my audience has both a visual aid from the video and a logical description from my writings.

Portfolio # 9

I love food. It's wonderful. Am I a problem child in grocery stores? Most definitely. Everything looks good and I am probably always hungry. That being said, my go to snack is (drum roll please) yogurt. That answered seemed somewhat anticlimactic. Here is the girl that spent two and a half days making croissants and her favorite snack is yogurt. Foodie love is weird like that. Yogurt has quickly become one of my favorite things to eat. I love the creaminess, the wholesome nutrition, and the vast variety of flavors. Just mix a little trail mix and a chopped banana with yogurt and try it out. I promise you will fall in love with it.

10 Reasons Yogurt is a Top Health Food

Yogurt is not only scrumptious, it is also very good for you (hooray for tasty healthy foods!). According to the article "10 Reasons Yogurt is a Top Health Food", there are many reasons one should eat yogurt. I'm sure that there are nearly 1,000 reasons, but for times sake we will go over ten.

1. Yogurt is easier to digest than milk. This is important for me because slowly but surely I am becoming lactose-intolerant. Now the simplest milkshake puts my stomach in knots. Sometimes life is unfair. Anyways, yogurt can be eaten by individuals who are lactose intolerant because of the culturing process. The live active cultures in yogurt create lactase, which is the enzyme that lactose-intolerant individuals lack.

2. Yogurt contributes to colon health. Yogurt has these nifty active cultures in them. These active cultures are basically bacteria and that bacteria helps your colon stay happy and healthy.

3. Yogurt helps absorb other nutrients. The lactic acid in yogurt is useful in the breaking down of the milk calcium, which makes it easier for our bodies to absorb.

4. Yogurt can boost immunity. People with high levels of yogurt intake produce higher levels of immunity boosting interferon.

5. Yogurt helps heal the body after infections in the intestines. When the intestines are infected, the enzymes that help break down lactose are affected. Yogurt contains less lactose and more lactase, making it easier to digest

6. Yogurt can decrease yeast infections. Eating yogurt daily reduces the amount of yeast colonies in the vagina.

7. Yogurt is a rich source of calcium. Eight ounces of yogurt contains 450mg of calcium, this is 30-40% of the recommended daily amount of yogurt for an adult.

8. Yogurt is an excellent source of protein. Plain yogurt contains around ten to fourteen grams of protein per eight ounces, which amounts to twenty percent of the daily protein requirement for most persons.

9. Yogurt can lower cholesterol. This may be due to the active cultures in yogurt and yogurt binds to bile acids which have been shown to lower cholesterol.

10. Yogurt is a "grow food". Yogurt is vital for growing children because of the easier digestibility of the proteins and because lactic acid increases the absorption of minerals.

Naan Bread Recipe

Naan Bread

source

1 cup warm water

1 package (.25 oz) of active yeast

3 Tbsp milk

1/4 cup sugar

2 tsp salt

1 egg, beaten

4.5 cups bread flour

2 cloves garlic

4 Tbsp butter, melted

To kick it off, take 1 cup warm water and add 1 package of yeast to the water. Stir a little and let sit for 10 minutes. The yeast should get frothy, like this:

After 10 minutes, pour the yeast/water mixture into a large bowl. Add in sugar, milk, salt, and egg (beaten), give the mixture a quick stir. Add in one cup of the flour at a time until a soft dough has been formed. 

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 6 minutes.

Lightly oil a large bowl, add dough into the bowl and turn to cover all sides. Cover and let rise one hour.

After one hour, punch dough down. Add in 2 cloves of garlic, well chopped or with the help of a garlic press. Knead until garlic has been well distributed. 

Separate dough into 12 balls and place on an ungreased cookie sheet, cover, and let rise for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat grill to medium high heat and grease.  Melt 4 Tbsp of butter. 

After dough has finished the final rising, spread into flat discs. Place dough on heated grill, spread a little melted butter on top, and cook for about 4 minutes, when the dough bubbles (like a pancake) it is ready to flip. Repeat with other pieces of dough. Place in a bread basket to keep warm, serve immediately.

Voila! Delicious, garlicky, and did I say delicious already?