Rise Up is a popular co-curricular at STU and is loved by high school students and middle school students alike. The baking co-curricular focuses on French pastry making. Another co-curricular trimester means another Rise Up bake-off. At the end of every trimester, the popular co-curricular hosts its triannual mini bake-off, and at the end of the year, the three winners of each mini-competition compete against each other at the Great STU Bake-Off.
Ms. Hyde, the co-curricular advisor, says that it was a wonderful trimester with bakers from every skill level. She continued to talk about how some kids didn’t know how to use a hand-mixer before they took Rise Up. She said it was nice to see the collaboration between different students to ultimately make something that looked good and tasted even better.
During this past trimester's bake-off, Kian Blinn, Elisabeth Trauner-Coady, and Amory Harris competed against each other for the spot at the Great STU Bake-Off. Both Amory and Kian participated in the famed co-curricular last year; both enjoyed it thoroughly. When asked about her favorite thing about the baking co-curricular Elisabeth responded, “I really like the part where we get to take home the delicious foods.”
During this competition, the bakers were given two days to make a French pastry of their choice. On the second day, the contestants were judged on the dish they made. Amory made a strawberry charlotte cake with homemade ladyfingers, Kian made pecan caramel sticky buns that had a nice combination of flavors and textures, and Elisabeth made madeleines dipped in chocolate, which were delightfully textured (which is very hard to do with a madeleine).
Kian finished his dish on the first day of the competition, so all that was left to do was to heat and plate the dessert. Kian described the making of the dish as putting caramel on the bottom of the pan, layering out the dough, rolling them up with the imitation rum soaked raisins, and roasted pecans. After rolling them, he arranged them into the pan and brushed them with butter and the imitation rum. Then, all that was left to do was send them into the oven to bake. The brioche gave a nice light airy base to the caramel topping, which is denser and sweeter. The raisins inside of the dish were soaked with imitation rum, which added an interesting element to the pastry.
Amory's process of making their cake [pictured on cover of article] included cutting strawberries, one of the key ingredients to the cake, and making the crème mousseline, another crucial part of the charlotte cake. After Amory finished the crème mousseline, they started assembling the cake.
Elisabeth finished her chocolate dipped Madeleines and admired her dish. The rich chocolate paired nicely with the vanilla flavor of the dense Dough of the Madeleine. Minutes before the judges arrived, Kian threw the rest of his sticky buns into the oven to heat them for the judges, and Elisabeth and Amory started to plate their delicious dishes.
The two judges arrived and explained that one would judge on presentation and the other on taste. They did a blind sampling of all three of the dishes and went into a side room to deliberate.
The judges declared that Kian’s dish was warm, really tasty, a good color, not too dry, and rose well. They also enjoyed the great texture and said the flavor profile was on point, not too sweet, and included the perfect amount of filling. The judges also said they would have loved it if Kian's presentation was a bit better.
Next, the judges enjoyed the good texture on the outside of Elisabeth’s madeleines. For a constructive critique, the judges said that maybe the cakes were a little firm. “Really good, nice and fluffy on the inside, maybe a little higher heat at the end to get it a little crunchier on the outside, [I] love the strawberry on the outside but you could have added a strawberry drizzle too,” said one judge. It’s really tough to make a good Madeline, but Elizabeth nailed it.
Lastly, the judges thought that Amory’s strawberry charlotte cake was well layered with a nice finish on top. One judge said, “Looks like homemade lady fingers, love a good lady finger. Really good lady fingers.” The judges enjoyed the light and fluffiness of the cake, commenting, “[The] Flavor profile is right on with this cake.” The cake had a good balance of flavors and was really well cooked. When cut, the cake showed clear layers, which showed how good of a job Amory did of putting it together.
The judges really enjoyed the presentation and taste of Amory's charlotte cake and named them the winner of this trimester's mini bake-off by one point.
Liam Evans