Science of Cooking -- Class for Teens

A friend of mine asked me to teach a class for teens at the local community center where she works. I happily obliged -- besides the fact that she's a great girl, volunteering at her place is how I found my current job.

The class I'm teaching will be 8 weeks long for an hour each week. I got to pick the topic, so my class focuses on the science of cooking, something that I love dearly and know very well. I decided to add the science part in because it's easy to tell kids to "add this" or "stir that", but if they don't know why they're doing it, then what's the point. Plus, if it gets them even a little bit more interested in science (or cooking), then it's a huge win.

The first class in the 8 week series starts tomorrow. Here's the syllabus:



Tomorrow's class is about pretzels. Why pretzels? Because they're easy to make, very hands-on (the students will actually get to feel the gluten forming in their hands as they mix and knead the dough) and they're really, really good coming hot from the oven. It's a great first lesson.

I've figured how many batches of dough I need to make so I can swap dough out as needed. (3 total, in case you're curious). The class is only an hour -- way too short to make pretzels from start to finish (due to rising time). Luckily, I've watched enough cooking shows to know that I can swap out my bowls of dough. i.e. We'll make the dough in class so they can feel what it's like. Dough needs to rise. Swap bowls with a dough that has already rose. They'll get to punch down the dough and roll out their pretzels. Then swap again since the pretzels need a little more time for their final rise. They'll get to boil and season the pretzels before we bake them. Then, we'll still have time to eat them at the end. A lot for an hour, but I did a dry run and had time to spare, so I'm hoping it will all fit.

Rather than just talking, I'm also going to try to have hand-outs for each class. For example, here's tomorrow's pretzel class hand-out. You'll see the recipe on the left, which I've broken down into colored steps (middle column). In the right column is the why behind what we're doing.



So wish me luck on Wednesday night and hope for no whammies. It will be my first multi-day class that I've solo taught.