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Week 4

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In this final week, one of my main projects that I focused on was my fortune cookies. I was watching an episode of The Great British Baking Show, when this cookie came up as one of the technical challenges. I wondered if I could do it myself, and I figured it was a great idea for the last week. After watching the contestants on the show struggle, I wasn't exactly surprised by how hard it was, but it definitely wasn't easier than I thought it'd be. The difficulty came not in making the dough itself, but in the thickness of the dough when I put it on the pan, and the shaping of the cookie right when it came out of the oven. I had to put the dough in a thin circle (i would to about one or two at a time), bake it in the oven for about 7 minutes and 15 seconds, and then take it out and immediately shape it using my hands and a glass. I'd say about half of them didn't work out, but overall, I seemed to get the hang of it towards the end. However, I don't think I'l...
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Week 3

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Without question, I can say that my happiest moment from this week was taking my French macarons out of the oven and seeing that they turned out exactly how I hoped they would. I had tried to make macarons a while ago and they turned out horrible, which was why I had very little hope this time around. However, I think this project has taught me to be precise in my baking and pay attention to the little things, which definitely helped me this week since macarons are a very technical thing to bake. When I was baking as a hobby before senior projects, I'd often make dishes that weren't so technical, like brownies or cookies, so I wouldn't worry too much about paying attention to the seemingly minor details like straining powdered sugar and chocolate powder before mixing it in. As I've baked more complicated items though, disregarding those details became problematic. I've learned that being exact in my baking can be the difference between a successful dessert or a funk...
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Week 2

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A moment that was both happy and challenging for me this week was baking the lemon bars. I had never made nor eaten a lemon bar before, so I had no idea how it was supposed to look coming out of the oven, or what the texture of the final product was supposed to be. When putting the lemon bars in the oven, I was a bit wary because rather than the dough or batter consistencies I am used to, this was completely liquid. After about 30 minutes of baking, I pulled the bars out of the oven to see that they were still relatively liquid. The only thing the recipe told me was that it should be "jiggly", but there were no reference photos or other adjectives to help me out. I didn't know if it should be mostly solid with a little bit of movement, or mostly liquid with a little bit of solidity to it. I ended up putting it in for another 7 minutes until it baked a little more and relied on the next step (chilling it), which is where the recipe told me it would set it a little more. Ov...
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Week 1

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For my senior project, I decided to bake. I've always loved to bake in my free time and often found myself this year whipping something up for the family after dinner. I figured since we get so much liberty with our senior projects this year, I would spend extra time working on something that I already know I love to do. I tend to be inspired by my family, who is always coming to me with ideas for new baking ideas for them to taste test, or the internet, where I see videos that make me think "I need to try that". I decided to work by myself and pulled together this project by working with my advisor as well as flipping through cook books and looking in bakeries to come up with an idea of what I want to make. The goals I have for this project are to: - Learn more about the ways that different ingredients impact the way a baked good looks when it comes out of the oven -Work up to completing more complicated recipes - Try recipes I've never tried or heard of before (and...
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