Wednesday, December 10, 2014

How to bake a cake...

This Friday, we happily welcomed a team of friends from Pine Grove Community Church in Wisconsin.  They have come with hearts eager and ready to serve in any way they can.  Although their main objective is to run an English camp for the school this week, they also will be investing in the personal development of our teachers through team building seminars....and a cake class! 

After a late arrival on Friday night, they jumped right in on Saturday morning with lessons in cake.


Why cake?  Every year at graduation time, there is a demand for cakes, both for the school and for the families of the graduating students.  Since there is no place in the Anse-Rouge area to order cakes, someone on the Lemuel staff--last year, it was our intern Jenna--usually ends up taking it on.  I have had requests from teachers (including Wiltha, who is wearing the black and white shirt) to show them how to make cakes, but have never been able to do it.  They were very happy to finally have an opportunity to learn.  Now, they will be able to take the cake orders at graduation time.


The class' Master Baker Jim first demonstrated how to make a boxed cake...


...then he handed it over to the teachers to give it a try.

Just before the class started, Katie surprised Jim with the apron with the Creole message that you see above.

After the boxed cakes, the entire class worked together to make a cake from scratch.  Everyone had a lot of fun!



After the cakes were baked to perfection, Kirstin taught everyone how to make the icing.  Then it was time to ice and decorate...




In Creole, we have a word: degaje.  Essentially it means "make do with what you have" or "figure it out."  Katie did a great job of degaje when she asked for a plastic bag to create a pastry bag for decorating.  As you can see from the final result below, the teachers had a blast with it!


After the class, everyone took a trip to the beach to kick off the week....with cake, of course!

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