Little hands will bake big surprises for Orange Beach Garden Club’s Feb. 16 Game Day

February 8, 2022February 9, 2022 Mullet Wrapper 517 Views Feb 9 NEWS

By Julie DeBardelaben
Don’t let their age fool you. Sixteen 10- 11- and 12-year old students – all Expect Excellence culinary bakers – will showcase their baking skills with an assortment of taste-tempting cookies during the Garden Club’s 34th annual Game Day and Salad Luncheon on Feb. 16 from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Orange Beach Event Center at the Wharf. Tickets are $25 and are available at the Emporium in Orange Beach, near Rouses.
The City of Orange Beach’s young bakers in training will complement the event’s endless homemade desserts with their colorful, mouth-watering assortment of crispy, chewy, round, flat, sweet cakes, better known as cookies!
The sweet treats will be equally rivaled by the Garden Club’s homemade salads, 50 in all. Despite the exotic, creative and gourmet ambience of some of the salads, the event’s mainstay remains the same year after year – chicken salad.
The bakers’ culinary arts program is one of 33 after-school City of Orange Beach Expect Excellence programs available free of charge to Orange Beach students. In addition to the performing, culinary and visual arts, students can also participate in academic classes (homework and tutoring), enrichment classes such as French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Robotics, and athletics that includes various sports and speed, strength and agility training. The only prerequisite for all programs, which is perhaps Expect Excellence’s secret to success – is a required course in etiquette.
“Expect Excellence has five core values – integrity, work ethic, respect, discipline and character,” said Jessica Langston, the City’s creative director and Expect Excellence’s arts and enrichment coordinator. “But the program’s ultimate goal is to create caring human beings, people who know how to treat other people.”
The culinary students are definitely learning that lesson. Some of them chimed in with their feelings about baking cookies for the Game Day participants.
“Well, baking for other people is an act of kindness,” student EllaMac Herringtonh explained. “It can be used to congratulate, show appreciation, or just eat. I love making food for other people…though I eat a lot (too). It makes me feel good inside, especially if the person I make it for likes it.”
“It makes me feel great and happy…the feeling that you get when someone other than family or friends makes you light up inside,” fellow student Ella Pearson added. “I love to see the smile on others’ faces when they take a bite. I always have a smile on my face when making food for others.”
Another student said that she understands how it makes her feel when others show they care by cooking for her.
Gabriella Meehan said, “It makes me happy; I love to see the happy faces of people when they eat other people’s food. I always have a smile on my face when my grandma makes me soup or my neighbor makes me noodles.”
“It’s fun to bake and share your creation with other people. It just makes me happy to bake,” said Marlee Hagan.
The class agreed that their favorite cookies are macarons and they hope all the attendees at the Garden Club’s Game Day event will enjoy their cookies, and time fellowshipping together. Come early, come hungry and come to have fun. And don’t forget to bring your sweet tooth!
For Expect Excellence info, visit orangebeachal.gov.

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Can’t wait until Feb. 16? The Expect Excellence Culinary Program offers you a quick cookie fix with the following recipe. Enjoy!
Gingerbread Biscotti Recipe
Prep: 25 mins. Cook: 40 mins. Serving 4 dozen
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
¼ cup molasses or cane syrup
1 tsp vanilla
3 1/4 cup All-Purpose flour
1 TBSP baking powder
1 ½ TBSP ginger
1 TBSP cinnamon
½ tsp cloves
¼ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp black pepper
¼ tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
½ cup chopped crystallized ginger
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a cookie sheet.
In a large bowl, mix oil, sugar, eggs, molasses, and vanilla. In a medium bowl, mix together dry ingredients.
Mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients to form a stiff dough. Stir in crystallized ginger.
Divide dough into 2 equal pieces and shape each dough ball into a log the length of the cookie sheet.
Bake for 25 minutes.
Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes. Then place on a cutting board and slice the log into ½ inch diagonal slices. Place back on cookie sheet and bake on each side for an additional 5-7 minutes.
Royal Icing:
3 ¼ cups confectioner sugar
3 large egg whites
½ tsp cream of tartar
Pinch salt
In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the sugar, egg whites, cream of tartar and salt. Whisk until stiff and glossy.
To tint the frosting, divide into small bowls and add food coloring. Cover the ones you aren’t using with plastic wrap; the frosting dries out very quickly.
Either dip the tips of the biscotti in the icing, or fill piping bags with icing and decorate.