Son's cooking class...fire

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My son 16 has been bringing home “homework” from his cooking class. We adjust the recipes to be gluten free, if necessary, otherwise I let him go for it & he only needs direction in the cleanup dept.

Today was “busy day cake with broiled cocnut topping.” I made adjustments for the cake to be Gluten Free. Then I read the directions for the topping.BROWN SUGAR< BUTTER< COCONUT and milk. Now, the recipe said Put the topping on cake & put under broiler for 4 minutes.
Too Long, I thought. She’s the teacher, let’s see what happens.
After the sugar caught fire & I shut off broiler & smothered fire with a cookie sheet over the cake pan, (this after only 2 minutes under the broiler) I wondered what I should say to the teacher? My son says if I tell her it caught fire, he’ll get an F, but it was HER directions that were wrong-too much time for that amt of heat. What do you bakers out ther think I should do?
 
Tell the teacher what happened, without throwing blame at anyone. She may have figured out the mistake herself at home.

Personally, if she blamed me for the mess after I explained what happened, I would take it, because I want to imitate Jesus, who did not reply to those who accused Him of all sorts of things.
 
Well at least that teacher ain’t in charge of the chemistry class.
 
I wrote a note this morning explaining what happened & why we thought it happened. We’ll see.
 
Hopefully the teacher will be humble enough to recognize their error.

Hopefully.
 
The recipe sounded so familiar…

I found it in my Better Homes and Garden’s New Cook Book 1996 edition.

It definitely says the following:
Spread Broiled Coconut Topping over warm cake. Broil about 4 inches from heat for 3 to 4 minutes or till golden.
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Unfortunately I have never made it so I don’t know if it works or not. However, it doesn’t sound like the teachers mistake. I bet she got that recipe straight from this (very popular) cookbook. If the copy she gave your DS says “or till golden” I would say he learned his lesson: next time watch more carefully for that golden stage.

Hopefully the teacher understands, though, and doesn’t fail him!
 
Great googly moogly. Caramelizing sugar hard, PLUS the coconut oil? They’re lucky the place didn’t torch to the ground! :mad:

I mean, come on, if you’re qualified to actually TEACH cooking, you NEED to know some basic chemistry and so on, to prevent disaster, and also to make edible food. Ay yai yai…
 
The recipe didn’t say “till golden” but it was a handwritten copy, nothing stated where it was from.
I know, hard knocks of life and all that. I’m just his happy mommy who is sad at failures! He was just so intense with the whole cooking thing it was fun! (This is my Asperger’s son. It was so cute to watch him work.)
 
Hehe, cool. Kids with Aspergers can be really wonderful (I tend to think of it as a personality type, not an ailment per se) and their intensity in inspiring in itself. So, okay, now that he knows this is NOT how it’s done, hey, get him interested in chemistry and physics too (if he isn’t already!) then applying it to cooking, and the perfectionism that goes with it!

He could turn out to be a whalloping great chef! As well as a brilliant researcher too. 😃
 
Nepenthe said:
Hehe, cool. Kids with Aspergers can be really wonderful (I tend to think of it as a personality type, not an ailment per se) and their intensity in inspiring in itself.

I agree. He’s a wonderful kid.
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Nepenthe said:
Great googly moogly. Caramelizing sugar hard, PLUS the coconut oil? They’re lucky the place didn’t torch to the ground! :mad:

I mean, come on, if you’re qualified to actually TEACH cooking, you NEED to know some basic chemistry and so on, to prevent disaster, and also to make edible food. Ay yai yai…
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Indeed, someplace along with line the cooking teacher should have had a course with a label such as Introduction to Food Chemistry.
 
OutinChgoburbs said:
Indeed, someplace along with line the cooking teacher should have had a course with a label such as Introduction to Food Chemistry.
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Or she is just assuming too much! I know when I give instructions for cooking things I make sure people understand what I am telling them because I have been cooking since I was 14 - family meals that is - and much has come naturally to me so my errors tend to be ones where I got distracted as opposed to not knowing what will happen so I tend to think others will “get it” too.

This cake topping is a favorite of my families so I learned early that you have to watch it, closely, because from “done right” to “caught on fire” is a very fine line - like only seconds!

Don’t blame the teacher but hopefully she learned a lesson as well as to giving cooking instructions - be very specific - i.e. this topping will burn quickly if not watched closely, check every 1 minute and take out when just browned.

Brenda V.
 
Brenda_V said:
This cake topping is a favorite of my families so I learned early that you have to watch it, closely, because from “done right” to “caught on fire” is a very fine line - like only seconds!

Brenda V.
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No kidding.
 
Your poor son!! I have a long history of cooking fires. These include:
  1. putting popcorn in the microwave for the time the popcorn box called for and going into the living room to watch TV … I got to the microwave in time to see the popcorn burst into flames, so I threw the bag out the window, and sprayed it with the hose. Who knew our microwave had a popcorn button?!!
  2. trying to make french fries. The oil caught fire.
  3. A day later, trying to cook eggs … guess some of that oil sprayed onto the burner:shrug:
  4. making coleslaw. There were witnesses, but they laughed so hard they couldn’t help me smother the flames. Then they told all of our friends.
 
Making Coleslaw? How on earth does THAT cause a fire?!

We did eat the cake-scraped off the charred topping & served it with ice cream. Cake is cake, right?
 
ajcoley1 said:
Making Coleslaw? How on earth does THAT cause a fire?!

We did eat the cake-scraped off the charred topping & served it with ice cream. Cake is cake, right?
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Oh, yeah, cake is cake! I made one in my new tree bundt pan- had to make my own “filling” because I didn’t have the ingredients for the ones I found on-line. Used a wheat free cake mix and filled it with a meringue type filling. Turned out pretty good too!

You could think of it as “cake flambe” :D.

BTW, did the teacher say anything to your son? I just wonder if she figured out that some recipes need more instructions than others (oh, and 4 minutes far enough away from the broiler unit can work for this type of frosting - but you still need to watch it closely!)

Brenda V.
 
Now don’t y’all feel bad for dogging me for messing up one of Debbie’s saucepans, at least I didn’t almost burn the house down :whistle:
 
BamaRider said:
Now don’t y’all feel bad for dogging me for messing up one of Debbie’s saucepans, at least I didn’t almost burn the house down :whistle:
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But the son wasn’t actually making a cake, not just boiling water:whistle:
 
A cake is a bit more difficult than boiling water, though.AND he didn’t almost burn the house down because he got distracted-he was very focused on the task at hand.
 
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