Self Teaching Reflection

For this assignment I decided to hone my cooking skills and learn how to make a new recipe. When I first came out to college, my mom made me a cookbook with some of our family’s favorite recipes. I am always pleasantly surprised when I find a recipe in there that I have never made before, but really enjoy. This was the case with my mom’s banana bread. Banana bread is one of my favorite things to eat, yet I had never ventured into its world enough to actually make it. For that reason, I chose to make banana bread as part of this project.
For the most part, I taught myself how to make banana bread through the use of a recipe. However, as I began making the bread, I did come upon a few problems that my family and roommates were able to teach me how to solve. First, the recipe called for shortening but I had no shortening. After talking with my mom about what I could do about that problem, she taught me that butter can make a great substitute for the shortening. So I was able to solve that problem. Later, I was very impatient for the bread to be done as its aroma drifted around my apartment. When I looked at it 4 minutes before it was supposed to be done, it looked perfect. Although it appeared done to me, I wasn’t completely sure and the recipe didn’t really say how I would know. Thus I turned to my roommate, who teaches Home Economics in Spanish Fork High School. She said it would be done when the inside was no longer doughy and I could check that by sliding a knife into its center. Thus my education on baking banana bread was enhanced with guidance and explanations.
The success of this experience was completely exciting. However the moments where I thought it wasn’t going to work out due to not having shortening was a little upsetting, but it all worked out in the end. Through this experience, I was able to learn more about my preferred style of learning. This experience shows me that I prefer to work independently in a hands-on type of setting. At the same time, I like to have somebody who knows more about it available that I can approach with questions when I am having trouble. Following this experiment, I am excited to find more recipes that I haven’t made before and learn how to make them as well as expand my horizons in other areas as well.