Essential Ingredients
My First Video: Essential Ingredients
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When we are in the classroom, the first recipe that I do is Strawberry Whipped Sensation.
Strawberry Whipped Sensation - My Food and Family
It is a lovely conglomeration of all things processed, and therefore delicious. My main reason for choosing this recipe is, however, because it introduces my kids to the classroom layout and where things are, while requiring a minimal amount of measuring or actual skill. What it does make abundantly clear is whether or not the students followed the directions correctly. This has ended in all sorts of “oh crap” moments. Some fun examples:
One group ended up with an entire block of butter in the middle of the strawberry mixture. (Imagine a frozen block of butter right in the middle of your strawberry ice cream.)
Mixing the melted butter in with the condensed milk and strawberries instead of the oreos for the crust.
Using all of the whipped topping in the mixture instead of saving some for icing it once you are ready to eat it.
There were as many “versions” as there were groups. The great part about this recipe is that no matter what mistakes are made, it will still taste good. This is very important for a first lab experience because it gives them a look into what the class is like when they are successful. We will save the mistakes that ruin the end product for later in the semester. Soul crushing is never the best way to begin a teaching experience. The final products give us edible and varied results that we end up laughing about, sometimes for years after when they have me for later classes. The most valuable lesson, sometimes the ugliest things taste the best.
When brainstorming how to make this super simple recipe relevant for online learning, I struggled a bit. It is super simple, but there are already videos all over the internet of making this exact recipe. The way I solved this problem was to do a bit of combining. We had a brief lesson on essential and non essential ingredients in recipes. Essential Ingredients are those that are a cornerstone of the recipe. They serve some function and therefore cannot be removed or even sometimes replaced. Think flour in a pancake recipe. Non-Essential ingredients however are the fun ones. These are the ingredients that if you want to leave them out or swap them, it suits your taste better or is more fun! For example, onions and celery in almost anything. You can take them out and the recipe still exists, but it doesn’t have enough flavor. (In my humble opinion) But, add in bell peppers, and you might invent something completely new and fun.
So all that to say, I decided to change up the recipe in 6 ways. The condensed milk, whipped topping, and butter were essential, but everything else we could play with. Our versions were:
The original-strawberries, Oreos, lemon juice
Banana Pudding: Bananas, Vanilla Wafers, Cream Cheese
Blueberry Cheesecake- Blueberries, Graham Crackers, and Cream Cheese
Brownie batter- Cocoa Powder, Oreos, Chocolate Chips
Grasshopper- Cocoa Powder, Grasshopper Cookies (Or thin mints), Andes Mints
Cookie Dough- Cookie Dough Pieces, Chocolate Chip Cookies (The simplest and probably the best)
In their video questions, I asked the kids what versions they would like to do and they had great ideas!
Reeses with nutter butters
Pumpkin with pie spice and ginger cookies (can’t believe I didn’t think of that one.)
Caramel and Chocolate Chip
Cookies and Cream
Peach with Cinnamon oatmeal
Strawberry Cheesecake
Dark Chocolate and Cherry
There were lots more as well!
I learned a lot making this video. For example:
My counter is too shiny and makes a rough reflection.
Framing is EVERYTHING. I ended up with my aspect ratio being wrong. I would love to upload again but currently this one has the most views. Oh well. We learn things.
Leave the text on the screen longer to let people read it.
My intro screen was hard to read. (It took me several videos to fix this.)
I didn’t learn this for the video, but definitely use plastic wrap instead of foil. The foil sticks sooo badly.
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This is the camera Equipment that I use for my YouTube videos.
Check out the final video here. It may be one I am terribly embarrassed by in a few years… or later this afternoon.