What a 4-H Member Thinks About the Multicultural Baking Project

By SVO, Age 10, with Surfside 4-H

This year we had a multicultural baking project and we learned about baked goods from all over the world. I loved it! We had a blast!! It was really fun to learn about different kinds of foods and a variety of cooking and baking techniques.

Our project leader talked about safety and mise en place and then let us run the project. Mise en place means everything in its place and you have to measure out all your ingredients before starting to cook. We, the 4-H members, decided on the timeline for the day, the order we would prepare and bake pastries, and we switched off on workstations: doing dishes, measuring, stirring, cooking, and baking. It was delicious.

The baked goods really were from all around the globe! From a South American recipe we made alfajores, a sandwich cookie with a caramel filling. Challah bread is a braided yeast bread from the Jewish culture that takes 2-3 hours for the dough to rise. Everyone knows about chocolate chip cookies and sugar cookies from the United States. Cremeschnitte is a delightful custard cream cake from Croatia that we made the custard from scratch on the stove. We tried to make egg tarts from Hong Kong but we didn't get to try these because we accidentally put too many eggs in the crust. The kolczkis from Poland were really good and they were similar to a pinwheel cookie. Pavlovas remind me of marshmallows off the fire because of the flavor and their texture. They are a meringue and were really crunchy on the outside but really soft in the middle and melted in my mouth. Pavlovas are from New Zealand and were my favorite. The recipe had the wrong bake time though and we burnt the first batch which made them taste more like marshmallows on the fire.

I would highly recommend other 4-H members learn about foods from other places, you may find your new favorite food!