Every person has a favorite restaurant, a place that brings them comfort. They may order the same meal at every visit or have trouble deciding because they love everything on the menu. It could be a place where they go to relax and simply enjoy a decent meal. Whether it is a fast food joint or an upscale five-star establishment, it depends on the individual. The Brown Derby is this place for me. Although I’ve only eaten there once, that should tell you how much I enjoyed my experience there. The Brown Derby is a restaurant in Orlando, Florida that receives many of its patrons from the tourists roaming around Disney World. The restaurant is dimly lit by chandeliers that hang from the ceiling. There is a dark maroon carpet that complements the dark stain of the numerous tables well. However, this is not what catches your attention when you first walk in. The restaurant honors their famous patrons by hanging caricatures of them on the walls. The hundreds of animated faces give The Brown Derby the unique quality that every restaurant should possess. The food is some of the best I’ve ever had at any restaurant. When it came time to order dessert, my brother asked for another filet mignon instead because the meal was so delicious. The Brown Derby is the reason that banana cream pie is now my favorite dessert and unfortunately, I have not found a banana cream pie that has lived up to the one I had at The Brown Derby. The entire experience from the venue, the food, and the wait staff was excellent. If you’re ever in Orlando, a visit to The Brown Derby is an absolute necessity. Ashley H.

“The Cake Ball Incident” Every time there is a holiday, we have a bake sale at my dance studio. The one baked good that runs out literally within seconds is the cake balls. As everyone rushes to buy them before they run out, I always wonder why I don’t try making them myself. So, one snow day I decided to try an experiment. My mom and I had a box of chocolate cake mix and icing so we decided to try it out. I goggled a recipe, and after reading it, we decided to see what we could do. The recipe said to first bake the cake and then crumble it and add icing. We did exactly that, but somewhere along the way, we made a major mistake. I hadn’t remembered the exact amount of icing, so we just added how much we thought seemed right. Buy boy were we wrong! What was supposed to be cake balls, turned out to be a goopy mess of super moist cake. They wouldn’t stay in the ball formation, even after hours of staying in the fridge. Although this wasn’t exactly successful, I took a lot away from the experience. I can always remember this instance as an example of how baking doesn’t always go as planned and sometimes the only way to learn is from first making mistakes. Also, this event proves the importance of following recipes. I’m not sure when I’ll attempt to make cake balls again, but I will definitely stick with the recipe! I don’t regret making the cake balls, but do wish they had turned out better. This will give me motivation in the future to make better food. By taking Baking and Pastry this year, I hope that such an experience will never happen again. However, I know that cooking takes time and practice and I am extremely excited for this semester. At the end of this class, I hope to come out with a better sense of handle in the kitchen and also have a great time. I really enjoy baking and can’t wait to improve my skills this year! Ridhi S.

I always grew up an Irish boy. My family is very Irish and we show it. Usually at family events and Irish dish is present. Although I enjoy a lot of holidays, my favorite is saint Patrick's day. This is because of the Irish foods. My mom cooks our meal from scratch and with a little help from the family cook book. I love corn beef and cabbage so much. Every year the corn beef is cooked perfectly. The best part about it is the glaze she puts on it. It is a sweet glaze that goes really well with the meat. When I found out what the glaze really was, I was quite surprised. It was a spicy mustard and current jelly mix. These two ingredients alone are not my favorite, but together on corn beef I loved them. The reason why corn beef is my favorite meet is because, when cooked right, it falls apart in your mouth when you eat it. This is actually the only time of the year I have corn beef though. The cabbage on the other hand, I have all year round. The cabbage is also a great part of the meal. It is lightly salted and peppered and put in a broth. Plain and simple is how we like it in the king household. This meal is my favorite and perhaps my families favorite because it is so simple and delicious. The natural sweet flavor of the corn beef and the seasoned cabbage go really well together. In all, I can't wait for St. Patrick's day to come around so I can have some good old corn beef and cabbage -Ryan K. Class 2

Baking has always been something I love. From the time when I would help my grandma with the rolling out the cookie dough to baking on a daily basis, I have always loved making sweets. Even though tasting your hard work is a good thing, my favorite part has to be making others happy. I love to make cookies, cupcakes and other things for my friends and family because it is fun to see their reactions. One of my favorite things to make are chocolate chip cookies. There's nothing like biting into a freshly made, warm, chocolate chip cookie. It really is heaven. I've tried many different recipes. Some come out fluffy and cake-like, some are thin and crispy however my favorite is a thin chewy cookie that's soft on the inside and crispy on the outside. One thing that I have noticed that has a made a huge difference in the taste of the cookie is the salt. Yes salt. It's weird to think that something sweet could depend upon the complete opposite flavor of salty. I found that using a good amount of salt really brings out the sweetness of the cookie. People may say that I have three signature things that I make. One is those chocolate chip cookies I just talked about while another is double chocolate white chocolate chip cookie. Sounds good right? They are a mix of unsweetened, semisweet/bittersweet cookies with white chocolate chips. I first got this recipe when I was at a baking camp in Massachusetts. We made a huge batch of them and I had tons left over. When I returned home I shared some with my family and everyone immediately loved them. Ever since then I have made these beloved cookies. The last things that I make consistently are Oreo truffles. People go nuts for these! The funniest part is that it is the easiest thing to make. All you do is mix crushed Oreos, cream cheese, and vanilla extract. You roll them in little balls and then dip them in chocolate. Anytime any of my friends have birthdays, these are the most requested things that I make. I would recommend these easy treats to any chocolate lover. As you can see, I love to bake. However I also love to buy baked things too. I mean who doesn't. One of my favorite places to get amazing cookies is Insomnia Cookies. This is a chain bakery normally located near colleges. The whole idea of this bakery is late night snacks for college students, hence why they are located near colleges. What separates this place from any other ordinary bakery is that they come straight out of the oven as you order them. Now there is something you have to understand. A warm cookie to me is the best thing in the entire world. If I could have one thing before I die, it would be a gooey, warm cookie! That is why this place is in my eyes as good as it gets! -Christina Moore (Class:2)

I’ve made Nestle Tollhouse cookies a million times. I make them all the time with my friends, I made them while I was taking Culinary 1 and 2, and sometimes I make them by myself just because. But, the most recent time I made cookies from scratch did not go well. The recipe is like secondhand nature to me, but it just did not go as planned. The first thing that went wrong was softening the butter. I’m not sure what the recipe actually calls for (it has escaped my mind), but I took out a whole stick of butter to soften for the cookies. We were only making half of what the recipe said, so I thought that was the right amount of butter. I thought one stick was enough because that’s what I remembered, but when I put the whole stick in the bowl, my friend said that we only needed half a stick, actually. So I put half of the stick back in the fridge and just softened the half stick. That was mistake number one. I should have checked the recipe and to this day, I still can’t remember if it should have been a whole or half of a stick because I never checked the recipe. The second thing that went wrong was when I took out the brown sugar it was one giant, hard, dry block. I know that happens to brown sugar if it is stored in the air, but this was a brand new box. I still have no idea why it was in a huge chunk. We weren’t going to let that stop us, though, so we started chopping and banging, doing anything to get enough brown sugar for the recipe. After probably around 30 minutes of using knives, forks, spoons, and every other utensil we could find to chop, we only had around 1/16 of a cup. That’s not nearly enough to make cookies, and we were only making half of what the recipe said. All of the other ingredients were already in the bowl, so instead of just ending the cookies, we added extra white sugar to finish the brown sugar requirement. That was mistake number two. When the cookies came out of the oven, they looked interesting to say the least. We let them cool for a while and then tried to pick one up. It crumbled in my hands. They were the consistency of biscuits. Still, I was craving cookies, so I took a bite. They were fine, but definitely didn’t taste like normal Nestle Tollhouse cookies. After two cookies each, my friend and I were so thirsty because the cookies were dry. And crazy as it sounds, we both got stomachaches after, so something was definitely wrong with our cookies. We should read the recipe and make sure we have all the right ingredients next time! Cari W.

Pancakes seemingly simple
yet are very delicious
perfect breakfast treat.

Crepes sweet or savory
the best are with nutella
breakfast or dinner.



Caroline C.

A few weeks ago I bought a giant tub of chocolate chip cookie dough from Costco. If I ever needed to make cookies for someone I would just scoop the dough from the tub, put in on a cookie sheet, and then put it in the oven. It would only took like a half hour total to make which was convenient when I was in a rush, but when homemade chocolate chip cookies taste better. In the future I have to think of the time benefit or the taste benefit. Amy M

The other day I helped my mom make cookies for my little brothers class. We found all of the ingredients that we needed and then we started to bake. We put M&Ms and chocolate chips in the batter and then we put the cookies in the oven to bake for about 35 minutes and then when we took them out they took about 20 minutes to cool. My brother and his class loved the cookies that we made for them! I was happy that I got to help make them. Emily R.

I love to try new things. But once I find something good, I stick with it. Something so good that no matter how many times you try it your mouth always waters. And for me that special dessert is a napoleon from the dinner. Its creamy and pastry goodness tastes like heaven. The two-dollar pastry is cut bigger than your head and is as tall as the Eiffel tower. But, trust me… you WILL finish. It’s just that good. I sometimes think to myself and say,” MJ, you should really learn to make these” But then I wonder how much weight I would gain because knowing me I would bake them 24/7. So, I stick to the dinner and I am never disappointed. It’s sad that some of the best desserts come from our local diner. What our town really needs is a good bakery. YUM. Maybe after Mrs. Hoagland teaches me all the tricks up her sleeve this semester ill open one and provide napoleons for all! With love, MJ

 

The other day my mom and I decided we wanted to make brownies. So we looked up a recipe on the internet. We gathered our dry ingredients and our liquid ingredients and got to work. It was an easy recipe to follow and it took us about 10-15 minutes to prepare our brownies and they went into the oven for about 25 minutes. Before they went in we wanted to add peanut butter chips and they made the brownies 100% better. They were delicious. Mikayla K.