All Things Word and Baking- Stack em’ up

Poem

Welcome back my wonderful friends. To begin with, here is your poem!

Good Timber
By Douglas Malloch

The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain
And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.

The man who never had to toil
To gain and farm his patch of soil,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
But lived and died as he began.

Good timber does not grow with ease:
The stronger wind, the stronger trees;
The further sky, the greater length;
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.

Where thickest lies the forest growth,
We find the patriarchs of both.
And they hold counsel with the stars
Whose broken branches show the scars
Of many winds and much of strife.
This is the common law of life.

By Edgar Albert Guest

Song

Book Club

This go around, I believe you are to choose your OWN book and let Ms. Macheil know which book you are reading.

Rebus

This week we will be doing some word riddles. Feel free to ask your siblings or parents to take a guess at these as well.

What am I:

1. Always in front
2. Runs but doesn’t walk
3. Has teeth but no mouth
4. Goes up and down but doesn’t move
5. Always right on time
6. I have keys but no locks
7. Moves RAPIDLY without legs
8. Answers you even when you don’t ask a question
9. Always follows you
10. When you feed it, it grows but it doesn’t have hunger

Next, our vocab (that’s short for vocabulary words).

2: Vocabulary words

Vocabulary Word Instructions:

Triskaidekaphobia	irrational fear of the number 13
Kerfuffle	Describes something askew or a commotion
Gobbledygook	Meaningless or hard-to-understand language

3: Unjournaling

With new words practically SPILLING off of the end of your tongue, get our your unjournaling book. Go ahead and read the prompts from the previous weeks. This week I would like you to complete ONE writing prompt from your unjournaling book, HOWEVER I would like you to choose between #110 and #120 Write your response in your vanguard journal. ( so your children will one day be able to read it)

4: Free Write

Now for something a little bit fun and perhaps a little bit different. Have you ever read a fairytale and thought, well that’s not how it’s suppose to end! Well, now’s your change to rewrite one. Take any fairytale of your choice and rewrite the ending. Here’s a fun one if you need a little inspiration.

All Things Baking

Alright! Put your notebooks, pens and computers to the side and preheat your oven, it’s time to warm up our baking skills with a new little ditty for your baking tool box.

This week you will:

1. Bake 2 amazing round cakes (one recipe will give you two rounds)
2. Cool and freeze your round cakes
3. Level your frozen round cakes
4. Whip up a batch of really amazing chocolate buttercream (yum… and I say again.. yum)
5. Bring an apron, your buttercream, frozen cake rounds and cookie sheet to class

FIRST:

Baking your amazing round cakes. We have done rectangle, but have you ever done round? They are a little tricky but DEFINITELY worth learning! You will need to pull out your 9 inch, 8 inch, or 6 inch round cake pans (two of them). If you don’t have any, you will need to borrow some. Tell your neighbor that in return you will give her a slice of amazing cake;). You will also need to find a recipe from scratch. I’m asking that you make vanilla, yellow or chocolate. You choose. I really like cake by Courtney recipes. They work really well. But ask around. See what looks good to you.

You will also need to learn how to prep your pans. Round pans require a little more effort and DEFINITELY need to be lined. It’s such a bummer to make a cake to have it fall apart when you take it out of the pan. Greasing the bottom, placing parchment and then greasing the parchment are good rules of thumb. Good ole pans from way back in the day used to have these little spinners in them that would make it so they would come out lickedy split, but they are really hard to find. The video below has some helpful tips. FOLLOW THEM!

When you pour your batter into the pans, do your best to pour the batter into each pan evenly. It will cook better, and decorate a little easier. Remember to spread the batter rather than bang the pans against the counter. Banging the cake lets too much of the “fluff” out.

Baking times are a little longer for cake rounds than cupcakes. The magical oven temp is about 325. There is a reason for this. Cake pans that get hot TOO quickly will give your cake a gigantic dome. This is a bummer when you stack round cakes because stacked round cakes need to be pretty flat. When the pan gets hot on the edges, the cake on the edges cooks faster than the middle so all of the gases and leveling created from your ingredients will push up through the middle. A slower temp over allows the pan to heat up a little slower which allows the edges to cook slower. There are things you can do to REALLY keep the edges cooler but we will not be doing that at this time. Just for fun I will include a fun sciencey video. For know, keep your oven temp 325 and allow it to cook longer. Then check like you did with your rectangular cake and cupcakes. First, look through the window. Does the texture look the same in the middle as on the edges? If it’s glossy, it’s likely not cooked. If it looks good, carefully open the door. Gently touch the very center of the cake. It should be nice and springy. If it is, insert a tooth pick. It ought to come out clean or have a few dry crumbs. Take it out and cool in the pans for a few minutes on your stove.

SECOND: Cooling and freezing your rounds. When you cool your cake, keep them in the pans for a few minutes, then carefully cut around the edges just to be safe. Then invert (turn upside down) onto a cooling rack. Carefully remove the pans. If they won’t come out, carefully tap the bottoms or if REALLY stuck, flip them back over and recut along the sides. With the pans off, allow the cakes to cool completely. Then take the whole rack, cake and all and place it- uncovered- into the freezer for at least 30 minutes to prep for leveling.

. THIRD: Leveling the cake. Like I said, round DOMED cakes DO NOT STACK WELL. So… we level. Basically you are going to take a serrated bread knife and carefully cut the dome part of the cake off. This is a little messy. Freezing the cake helps. Watch the video. It will help a lot. They use a turn table. If you don’t have a turn table, place the frozen cake, dome side up on parchment paper and turn the parchment paper OR keep the knife as LEVEL as possible and cut as level as you can. When you are finished, wrap EACH CAKE ROUND SEPARATELY in plastic wrap and put it back into the freezer. IF YOUR CAKE BREAKS INTO TWO PIECES, FREEZE EACH OF THE PEICES AND BRING THEM TO CLASS AND WE WILL SEE WHAT WE CAN DO.

FOURTH: After you clean up the mess from leveling your cakes, whip up your chocolate buttercream. This stuff is dreamy indeed! I love making the chocolate ganache. It’s so satisfying to our the hot cream over the chocolate chips. Be sure that you read through the recipe before you make it and then have it in an airtight container for class. This will need to stay on your counter until class so don’t make it until Wednesday and KEEP IT AWAY FROM THE HEAT OF THE STOVE!!!!! OR IT WILL RUIN!

FOR THE BUTTERCREAM

• 1/3 cup ( 77 g) heavy whipping cream 
• 10 oz. dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 2 cups (452 g) unsalted butter, slightly chilled
• 5 cups (625 g) powdered sugar, measured then sifted
• 1 teaspoon (4.2 g) pure vanilla extract
• Pinch of salt

FOR THE BUTTERCREAM

• In a microwave safe bowl, heat the chocolate chips and the cream for about one minute. Stir until mixture is smooth. Allow to cool slightly. (this is the ganache)
• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter for about 2 minutes on medium-high speed. 
• With the mixer on low speed, add the ganache. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl and then mix on medium-high speed for about a minute, until the mixture is smooth. 
• Gradually add the powdered sugar, one cup at a time, followed by the vanilla and salt.
• Buttercream can be store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for a week.
• When you’re ready to frost the cake, bring the frosting back to room temperature and mix by hand with a wooden spoon to push out all of the air pockets. 

See you in class!

Ms Jinger