Let's Reflect

Reflections is such an interesting program. We are off and on again in our family. When the kids were younger, I would greatly encourage and nag and finally get them to do projects. Then I realized that I didn't care that much. If they wanted to, they could. If not...that's fine as well.

So the number of kids who did Reflections greatly tapered off. That is, until they realized that one of the prizes for participating is a ticket to our local theater. That is simply because our local lady who runs the Reflections program for our school is a go getter and she always gets tickets. I've never seen anyone do that before. Last year, only Daisy participated and she was excited to go to an extra play with her ticket.

So all the kids got on board this year. After all, they all had art on hand from the summer, so they each chose a piece. The theme was 'I Matter Because'. It was fun to see what each girl wrote for their artist statement. Some were very profound.

Pearl did her Curious Cats

Daisy did her shaded stairs

Ivory entered two categories. Most of the girls did 2D art, but Ivory did photography as well. You'll probably recognize these pieces from the art show.

Robyn entered one piece that was rejected. They said it was too close to the original reference. (Huh...that makes sense.) So she entered this one instead.

June did two entries. 2D and 3D.

I'm not sure I realized how great our Reflections lady, Jana, is until this year. Robyn goes to a different high school and therefore has a different person over her. Her person did practically nothing to award the kids for participating. I didn't realize it was different for every school. I love all the effort Jana puts in. It truly is above and beyond.

I always forget what order the levels are in. I think it starts at District, then Council, Region, then State? We'll go with that. 

The girls are never concerned about moving on. The real prize comes from participating, but it is still fun when a piece makes it to the next level.

Everyone received candy and prizes but some pieces moved their way through the system. Each school was on its own schedule. Everyone's projects were due on different days and the awards' ceremonies were separate as well. Ivory and Daisy were first up at the Junior High. If they like your piece, there are two awards you could get. First is the award of merit, which means your piece was admired, but it won't move on. Or you can get an award of excellence, which means your piece moves to the next level.

Ivory was at a performance that day, so I had to give her both her awards of excellence when she came home. Daisy's piece didn't move on, but she was very content with the candy.

Pearl's school was up next. She didn't move on, but she had a great time collecting her swag.

Robyn moved on, but there were no prizes for her. June also moved on with her 3D piece but parents weren't invited. (They just received their awards in the office.) I did like that Jana chose to skip medals for the high schoolers and give more gifts and candy. She figured they would like it more. I think she was right.

Robyn moved up again from Council to Region, with no fanfare. Ivory and June both moved up as well. (Only one piece from Ivory now.) We had a fun little award ceremony on the steps of the school. Ivory was taking it very seriously.

The Region level was all online. We waited to join a zoom webinar sort of thing. Then we watched as they announced each level. We knew Robyn hadn't moved on or gotten an award. They send emails to inform you. (Although she did finally get something from the school for her participation. I secretly think the lady is just pocketing the money and not using it on the kids.) We also knew Ivory and June received some type of award, but not which one. June got an award of merit. Great job!

And Ivory got an award of excellence so her photography piece will move on to State. I have no idea how that works, but we'll wait and see. 

Meanwhile, I took all the girls ticket vouchers today and got tickets for a bunch of performances. We should have a lot of fun this year. (Don't worry, I'm taking Robyn to plays as well, even though she didn't get a voucher. That wasn't her fault.)

The Great Cazier Bake Off (Schichttorte)

We watch enough of the Great British Baking Show that it seemed we should try something like it. We invited Grandma Dargan along for the ride. We chose a recipe and made sure that we had all the materials and ingredients we needed. Obviously there were going to be some judging issues since we were in different states, but the experience could still be fun.

At our house, we divided onto two teams. Then Pearl and Robyn decided to be the hosts. Sounded good to me. So, it ended up like this. 

Team one: Daisy and Mom.

Team two: Ivory and June

Hosts: Pearl and Robyn

Pearl and Robyn were also in charge of pictures and video. We have them to thank for all the documenting. They took a LOT of video and Robyn is working on getting a 'show' put together for us, but in the end, I still wanted to document with pictures on the blog. 

We had a list of many things that would be fun to try and bake. I chose three and then Grandma narrowed it down to one. She chose a schichttorte. It is a german style cake with 20 layers. We sure started out ambitiously. 

The big day arrived. We were ready to get baking. We even had all our ingredients covered by the gingham cloth.

Tyler was our resident Paul Hollywood. He is just a little better looking than the original. (Tyler isn't an expert baker, but you don't have to bake to use your tastebuds.)

Meanwhile, in Washington, Grandma was doing the same thing we were doing and documenting her own progress. (Sad that she didn't have funny hosts who talked in British accents.) When she sent her pictures, they were time stamped and they fit right in with our pictures. You could literally see that she was on the same step as us for most of the morning. These are her ingredients ready to go.

Ready, set...BAKE. Get cracking on those eggs.

Our recipe was nice and detailed. None of that "make a glaze" sort of instructions. We needed all the help we could get.

Our kitchen is big enough for two teams, but I did have to buy an extra hand mixer so we could work alongside each other.

June is showing you how a deer looks when it is caught cooking.

Lot of mixing and zesting going on. So far so good. 

Isaac happened to stop by. He hung out and watched a bit of the process. I think he might even have  been interviewed by the hosts.

Whipped eggs look remarkably similar in WA and in UT.

Don't mess with Daisy. She is a kitchen ninja.

I like that my girls feel comfortable in the kitchen. They are still learning (as am I) but everyone can follow a recipe.

I don't think grandma Dargan has a zester. But she managed all the same. And she even sifted her flour. I never do that.

The batters are done. Lick those beaters and let's get this cake in the oven.

Unlike any cake I've made before, the schichttorte goes under the broiler...about twenty times. You spread a very thin layer and bake it for a few minutes.

Once it is cooked, you add another layer of batter and back under the broiler. It means you are constantly watching the timer, the oven, and the color of your cake. The object is to alternate between light and dark layers. You cook every other layer a little longer making it a deeper shade and then you will be able to see the layers in your cake. This would be a dark layer, I believe.

The hosts were very helpful and attentive and not at all distracting. 

Hahaha. Can you see June photobombing in this one?

Our team ran out of batter before we reached 20 layers. Oops. No one's counting right?

Once we had twenty layers (or so), we took the cake out of the pan. Some edges were a little wonky and some were a little toasty, but that is easily remedied with a knife. Then we added an apricot glaze layer. It helps the chocolate glaze stick. The chocolate glaze was really fun. It slurped right over the sides. 

Then we added some white glaze and designed it how we liked.

Now place your schichttortes in front of your photo.

Looks good enough to eat. Our judge was happy to dig in. You can see all the little layers. Impressive, right?

The verdict went as follows. Team one won overall, with the best tasting torte (despite the missing layers). Team two had much more defined layers and 20 in total. Grandma won the decoration award. We just have to assume hers tasted good.

In all reality, it was a very dry cake. Most of the moisture is broiled out of it in all those tiny layers. The apricot was a nice touch, but if you took a bit without glaze, it was not as tasty. I think we made them correctly, but we'll happily leave that recipe to the Germans.

Once again, we'd like to thank our fabulous hosts. They really were amazing, and when Robyn finishes the video, I'll get it on here. It should be a lot of fun. 

It was a great first bake off. We'll probably do it again. No injuries or tears. There was only one melted recipe, since I think the hot pan was placed on top of it.