Gâteau Michelle

Well, it is the start of the school year and let me tell you, I can feel it!! I am teaching my cooking class again at Chase’s elementary school and it is going great!! I have 17 kids this semester- I know!! what the heck was I thinking??!!!- and they are soooooo great! I spent the first couple of weeks trying to figure out exactly how to manage them and get everything done that we needed to do. This is no small feat since we have only one oven. We are making it work though. Can I just say, Thank God for husbands!!! He has really been helping me out this semester while I await volleyball season to be over so that my helper will come back.

So I suppose you are wondering just what types of things we make in our class. Well, this semester we are taking on quick breads (banana, pumpkin, cranberry, zucchini and blueberry) with 3 variations, nuts, pineapple, chocolate chips etc. I just depends on the bread. There are chocolate chip cookies with 3 variations and snickerdoodles that everyone loves to make, so we make it every year. We are spending 2 weeks doing Halloween goodies-caramel apples; mummy, owl and spiderweb cookies; mummy dogs, candy necklaces and decorating cookies that I am bringing from home. Then we are moving on to cupcakes. Not just your average cupcakes though. Of course not, you would say, because you know me! We are making specialty cupcakes for our school Mercado. They will work in groups and make popcorn cupcakes, penguin (our school mascot) cupcakes, dirt and worms cupcakes, ornament cupcakes and snowball cupcakes. The kids will share with each other and donate some to the school cake walk. I am super excited about those!!! The last event that we will do this year is ornament cookies that the kids can hang on the tree or around the house if they like. These will be more intricate than the gingerbread houses we did last year.

I am still working on the plans for the spring semester, so if you have any ideas, please let me know. I know that we will make sugar cookie barns (from the wonderful Whimsical Bakehouse website, http://www.whimsicalbakehouse.com/), ratatouille, perogis, and have a family dinner but I have 15 weeks to fill!!! I also think that we will do a Mardi Gras theme for 2 weeks, I want to make King’s cake that they can take home to bake. Other than that, I have no idea what else we will do. Really, send you ideas and I will see if I can make it work in my class.

Until then…. Happy Baking!!!