Monday, October 15, 2007

Baking and English

Today was my first day of 'baking and English' class. Six ladies came over to make peanut butter chocolate chip muffins and blueberry muffins. We were supposed to speak English, too. I spoke English while talking about making the muffins but otherwise it was pretty much Japanese! Everyone gave a short introduction in English and that was about the extent of their speaking English. One lady can speak quite well I think, but she mostly spoke Japanese, too. Even in Japanese, though, it was a lot of fun! I have a feeling that next time I am going to have to add an afternoon class, too. I think more people than can fit in my kitchen have said they want to come!
I once told a friend here that if I could just bake brownies as my ministry I would be happy. I think I have found a way to make that happen! At least as part of ministry.
Here are a few pictures. When teaching one doesn't have much time for taking pictures!


I learned that Japanese measuring cups are not the same size as American cups. Plus, many people weigh the dry ingredients. So, I had to translate the measurments by measuring in my American cup and dumping into a Japanese cup. For the weight I used a little scale I got at a one hundred yen store. I am not sure how accurate it is, which I made sure to tell everyone! This is what my little table looked like as I was trying to figure out the measurements.


And, here is my little table set with all of the ingredients and tools needed to make muffins. Notice the little Japanese size Skippy on the table and the jumbo American size in the background-purchased at Costco here in Japan.


Putting the batter into the muffin cups. Since there is not a lot of room we passed the bowl around and each person added an ingredients or stirred. They were quite enthralled with the Kitchen Aid mixer-as am I:)


And, finally, enjoying the fruits of our labor. The peanut butter muffins went over incredibly well. They liked the blueberry, too, but the peanut butter was by far the favorite.
I hope they had as much fun as I did!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yum, yum! It looks good both the food and the fun. I hope the ladies had a chance to catch a glimpse of the Ultimate Perfect Baker of our lives through yours. Great idea adding another class in the afternoon. Imagine the smell of those brownies all day. Might as well make some for the neighbors after they smell the delicious smell for so many hours. i ate the poppy seed muffins at JudyC. this am and told you would be making muffins on Monday!

Anonymous said...

someone should make you aprons that say, "Baking with Shan" or something more clever than that. Then all your bakers would match. What a fun thing to do. Do Japanese women not know how to make muffins, or baked goods? Sounds like you have the perfect ministry! Maybe Kitchenaid should give you a discount, or something for advertising!