Zoe Chase's Senior Project: Baking

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...

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...