Hello, I’m Amin, and welcome to my fifth in-depth blog post of the year. I have had one meeting since the last post, and we practiced making chocolate chip cookies again. Please press the see original button to see the photos I have added.  

 

Process

My mentor and I decided that since cookies were one of the most basic bakery items to bake, she wanted me to try baking them on my own. She said to only ask questions if needed, and she was going to see how I did through the video call. Before I started, she told me to remember the most important piece of advice for making cookies, which was to “remember to use the sifter when adding the flour, cocoa, and salt, as it will make sure there are no weird chunks in the cookies.”  Sifting is when when you use a Sieve to make sure there are no big chunks in the flour, and to mix the flour, cocoa, and salt evenly. She said that I would have to learn to memorize steps and recipes, but since I was still a beginner, she told me to prepare all the ingredients before hand, but to not use any sort or instruction while baking. I decided that I was going to bake the same cookies I baked last time, as I did have some extra knowledge on making those. (Chocolate chip cookies from Tasty.co)

In the beginning, everything seemed to go well. I did have to ask her “does it matter if you add the eggs before the sugar” (I know now that doesn’t matter), but I did not have to ask too many questions. Everything was going well, until I forgot the one piece of advice she gave me before I started, which was to “remember to use the sifter when adding the flour, cocoa, and salt, as it will make sure there are no weird chunks in the cookies.”  Even when I was baking my brownies, I forgot to sift in the ingredients, but I had made the same mistake again. As she told me in the beginning, she would not say anything even if I make a mistake, unless I ask her a question. Once I finished and took our the cookies from the oven, I realized I did something wrong. The cookies were too flat, and when I took a bit from it, the sugar, flour, and salt were clumped together, resulting in a weird texture and taste. My mentor then told me I had forgotten to sift, and we laughed at my dumb mistake.

 

Below are some photos of the process of making cookies.

 

To have a Beautiful Mind 

In How to Have a Beautiful Mind, this chapter talks about the six hats.They are different ways of thinking of approaching and thinking about a certain situation. Below are the six hats.  

Yellow hat: An approach that follows benefits, values, and how something can be done. 

Green hat: Covers creating time and expectation for creative effort. 

Blue hat: Organizes the ways of thinking. 

White hat: A conversation or approach that covers facts. 

Red hat: A conversation or approach that follows feelings. 

Black hat: An approach that covers critical thinking. 

 

Below are some quotes from the conversation between my mentor and I:

-Mentor: “Today, I want you to try and make a cookie without having instructions, as it will help you think about why some steps come before the other (Green hat). But remember to sift the cocoa, flour, and salt, as I will make sure that the cookie will not become chunky and have a weird texture (Yellow hat).”

-Me: “Thanks. So I need to bake the same cookie I made around month ago, but without the instructions (Blue hat). Just a question, does it matter if I add the eggs before the sugar (White hat)? Also, I feel like I should add more cocoa and less chocolate chips, as late time, the cookie itself did not have any taste, and you only got flavour when you bit the cookie with a chocolate chip (Red hat).”

-Mentor: “It doesn’t matter if you add the eggs before the sugar, and add more cocoa can lead up to the cookie becoming more drier, but if that is what you want to try, feel free to experiment with it”

-Me: “Oh, I was planning to make a soft, gooey cookie, so I don’t think adding more cocoa powder will be what I want for my cookie (Black hat)”

 

Thanks for reading till here. Till next time,

Amin