Melting Moments Workflow + Evaluation

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, softened
• 1/4 cup confectioner's sugar
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• Heaping 1/3 cup cornstarch 4 egg whites, at room temperature
• Pinch salt
• 220g (1 cup) caster sugar

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper. Place the butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat together until light and fluffy, then beat in the vanilla extract. Sift over the flour and cornstarch and mix thoroughly.

Spoon the mixture into a pastry sheet filled with a large star tip and pipe 32 cookies onto each baking sheet, spaced well apart.

Bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown. Let cool on the baking sheet.

Food Order
Name: Peter Nguyen and Paul Phu
Production Date: 13/05/2013
Recipe: Cappuccino Cookies
Supermarket pantry ¼ cup Confectioner’s sugar ½ tsp Vanilla extract 2 ¼ cups All-purpose flour 11/3 cup Corn starch 4 eggs 220g ( 1 cup) caster sugar dairy 1 ½ cups unsalted butter	Greengrocer fruit and veg	Butcher/deli –meats
Items not available at other suppliers:
Specialist equipment : electric beater

Workflow

Time	What to do?
Melting Moments
9:47am	Preheat oven to 180 degrees
9:47am – 9:51am	Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper
9:52am – 9:59am	Place the butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat together until light and fluffy, then beat in the vanilla extract. Sift over the flour and cornstarch and mix thoroughly.
10am – 10:09am	Spoon the mixture into a pastry sheet filled with a large star tip and pipe 32 cookies onto each baking sheet, spaced well apart.
10:10am – 10:30am	Bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown. Let cool on the baking sheet.
Meringue
	Preheat oven to 120 degrees
	Separate egg whites into plastic 100ml cup
	Prepare baking tray with non-stick paper
	Place egg whites in large bowl
	Electric beater until soft peaks form
	Add sugar one spoon at a time (meringue is fluffy not smooth)
	Whisk until mixture is thick and glossy
	Run mixture through your mixtures to see if sugar is dissolved
	2 tablespoon measures of meringue onto tray
	Place tray into oven and reduce temp. to 90
	Bake for 90 mins.

Constraints and Considerations

Constraints	Considerations
No nuts	Skill level
Time restrictions	Dietary requirements
Equipment availability	Recipe modification to fit equipment and ingredient availability
Ingredient availability	Presentation

Evaluation Question: Once the biscuit was completed within the time limit, using whatever was available, was the end result satisfying?

Evaluation

After completing the biscuits, it did not look as well done as the ones from the photo from the original recipe. It was obvious the one in the photo was done by a professional with experience and not by first-timers. Aside from missing out on the meringue, the biscuit in the photo was much smaller in dimensions than ours.

As for the success of the biscuits, the final appearance did not hit my expectations. The presentation was horrible because we did not have the time to complete the meringue, which I realised took 90 minutes to create. Because of this massive oversight, a vital part of the complete recipe was left out. The taste of the actual biscuit was decent and had a melt-in-mouth effect like I expected.

The production could’ve been drastically improved if we had planned earlier. The work plan was followed accurately but because of lack of experience with the product, some problems arose. However, the biscuit was completed and it end result was within expectation: amateur, but consumable.

If I could, I would make the biscuit again due to wanting to improve on the production process without the restrictions of time. I would actually scale the ingredient measurements down because of the fact that there were too many in the batch. We didn't have access to plain flour on the day and resorted to using self-raising flour, which resulted in the biscuits expanding. This was something unavoidable. The result would most definitely be better than what was produced with a short time limit, which was made worse by the fact that Peter and I lost a period due to unpreparedness and not realizing the workflow plan had to be done before the day.

In the end, the biscuits were not satisfying. The halved time limit we were faced with meant we spent no time worrying about presentation and so the biscuits looked plain. The taste was fine but overall we could’ve tried harder.