Food and Nutrition 3-21-18

Hi everyone! Welcome to another year of "Food and Nutrition!" :D In this article, I will be interviewing another NSA student about their cooking experiences. In addition, I will feature one recipe each month and explain how to make it.

This month, I interviewed Anna about her cooking experiences.

Anna's kitchen experience began when she was about 5 years old. Though young, she clearly remembers helping her dad stir the spaghetti sauce for that night's dinner. It took some practice to perfect her cooking but Anna can now make the dish herself. :D

That wasn't the end of her learning experience, however. One day, Anna decided to make a chocolate cake. Everything was going well until the cake batter started getting too thick.

Anna tried to thin the batter by adding some water to it. As she poured more and more water into the batter, it turned into jellified chocolate pudding.

Though it no longer resembled a cake, Anna pressed on. She continued to stir and bake the mixture as planned, and when she was finished, she was rewarded with a dish better than she originally planed. And now she shares her tips with us!

Anna's advice to anyone who is new to baking is:

1. Stir continually unless the recipe says otherwise

2. Do not add extra water unless it is absolutely necessary

Chocoholic's Dream

Ingredients:

1 cup margarine or oil

1 cup water

4 Tablespoons cocoa powder

2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup buttermilk or sour milk

2 eggs, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon salt

Frosting:

1/2 cup butter

1/3 cup milk

4 Tablespoons cocoa powder

1 box powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup chopped nuts or up to

1/2 cup orange zest (optional)

Instructions:

1. Mix margarine (or oil), water and cocoa in a medium sized pan.

2. Bring to a boil.

3. Add flour and sugar, mix well and remove from heat.

4. Let the mixture cool slightly, then add baking soda, buttermilk, eggs, vanilla, and salt. Stir well to incorporate all the ingredients.

5. Pour the mixture into greased and floured cake pan.

6. Bake at 400F for 20 min or until toothpick comes out of cake clean.

7. Start making frosting about 10 min after the cake goes into the oven. Make the frosting in the previous chocolatey pan.

8. Combine butter, milk and cocoa powder.

9. Bring to a boil, remove from heat.

10. Add powdered sugar, vanilla and nuts (or zest).

11. Spread on cake as soon as it comes out of oven.

Notes:

1. This recipe works even if you ran out of eggs. Just use 1 Tablespoons of ground flax seed and 3 Tablespoons of water to substitute for 1 egg.

2. The cake batter pictured below might look a little thick. To stop this from happening, stir the batter continually. It should help.

That's all for this month!

If you have any recipe suggestions or would like to be interviewed in a future article, please contact me. :)

See you next month!