Another great way to teach students how to bake in mass quantity, maintain quality control, and market food attractively is to sell boxes of several kinds of Christmas cookies. My students made boxes of 3 dozen Christmas cookies including peanut butter kisses, chocolate crinkle, Russian Tea Cakes, gingerbread, sugar, raspberry thumb prints and coconut macaroons. The community generously supports the fundraiser often profusely thanking me for making their holidays easier.
Food Network is very popular among my students so I decided to have them create their own show! I specifically have them demonstrate how to make a cake in front of the class but this idea can be tailored to any unit that lends itself to student demonstrations.
Given a basic knowledge of how to make homemade pasta and how to deep fry, students will synthesize these methods to create cannolis. This recipe is one that I created after much experimenting due to a “zero tolerance” alcohol policy that does not allow us to use any form of alcohol in our recipes. That being said, the shells taste good but may not taste as authentic as one might like. My goal was for the students to be able to learn the process more than the taste.
